Ivy Wahome is set to embark on a space simulation in Biosphere 2 for the Imagination 1 all-artist crew, March 10-15. The mission simulates being on the moon.
Wahome, an MFA candidate in costume design at the School of Theatre, Film & Television, has worked on creating the pressure suits for the mission and designing the patch that is presented on the final product.
She will be able to experience sewing in an outer-space atmosphere.
Fashion
“I started working in fashion after high school, I went to a tailoring school in Kenya and then I moved here. I went to Pima (Community College) for fashion and then moved to the U of A for costume design. This project has opened my eyes to how versatile sewing is. This experience with creating a pressure suit, which is a project I have never done before, has led to a completely different direction than what I thought my sewing career was going to be.”
“Working in a different field is fun. This project is different in the sense that you’re working with different materials, but the sewing techniques are the same. I’m excited to do it. I am working with people that are working for the mission. Nobody is teaching me, there is not a class, we are going off of what we know and improving on that.”
The Mission
“During the mission, we don’t come out for a whole week except for when we are all doing an EVA mission when we pretend to walk on the surface of the moon. There will be artists from dance, and two writers; a poet and a novelist. Most of the food is dehydrated, you have to make everything from scratch. We can’t have anything go bad because it can mess up the pressure in the habitat with the rotting. They gave us recipes to follow. We’ll cook everything in a pressure cooker or an air fryer because we can’t have fire.
“We can only communicate with people through email for the week. We are not allowed to have cell phones. There will be no WiFi so you can’t be on social media, which might be good. I don’t have any distractions; I have to be present in the moment.”