a p o l l o-r a w & u n c u t

Secrets of Apollo 

Apollo Raw and Uncut is a video installation which was created by documentary film maker Christopher Riley to mark the 40th anniversary of the Apollo missions; being celebrated between 2009 and 2012. The installation projects the entire Apollo flight film archive into a gallery space and has been exhibited in London and Montreal.

Between 1966 and 1972 NASA collected around 22 hours of 16mm film footage shot in space and on the surface of the Moon during the Apollo missions. For the last forty years this unique archive collection has been kept in very cold storage at the Johnson Space Centre in Houston. The film rolls have only been thawed out and projected a handful of times to transfer them onto new tape formats, and only brief portions from a few of the most popular clips have ever been used in documentary films.

In a unique collaboration with the online archive film company Footagevault, visitors to the Science Museum in London got a unique opportunity to experience 'apollo raw and uncut' during the installation's premier between July and August 2009. An estimated 3000 visitors passed through the event during its 40 day run in London during this time.

In the autumn of 2009 the installation moved to the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal, where it played for six months as "Secrets of Apollo", as part of their exhibition Intermission: Films From a Heroic Future.

secrets of apollo

 

w w w . c h r i s - r i l e y . c o m