In 2014, ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst took along a stone fragment from the buttresses on the south face of Cologne Cathedral on his flight into space and to the International Space Station (ISS). This remnant of Cologne Cathedral’s spent 165 days in space, orbiting the earth 2,566 times and travelling 110 million kilometers before returning to its place of origin. The stone’s unusual journey and its return to Cologne Cathedral was documented for journalistic appeal and received extensive media coverage. Today, it is located in the Dombauarchiv, where, in a showcase in the foyer, it is now only viewable by visitors to the cathedral administration. Adopting archival working methods, Andrés Galeano becomes the cathedral stone’s new biographer. With the assistance of photography as his research medium, he writes a detailed life story of this auratic item, taking an at once serious and amused look at his object of examination.
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