‘The time: Just before the end of the 20th century, just after the first human feet touched the moon and Mars.
The place: Somewhere in the Southwest Karoo on the highest level of the big empty table land where the world's largest observatory has been standing since the first human generation… This whole complex of highly specialized activities is known as Saakni, the South —African Cosmic Research Institute, a secret, forbidden world, set apart by a twenty-kilometer-wide buffer strip, guards and laser beams.’
Photograph inspired by ‘Swart ster oor die Karoo’ (Black star over the Karoo) by Jan Rabie, 1957. the Saankni institute is underground, and becomes a safe haven for humans after the Earth stops turning and the surface becoms unbearably cold.
