To make the cyanotypes, I used negatives of pictures taken from plane windows during my work expeditions over the preceding years, partly because they had immediately become an estranged perspective and partly because the spectre of climate change was dominating my thoughts, and much of the media coverage I was seeing. Satellite images released by NASA and the European Space Agency showed a dramatic drop in nitrogen dioxide emissions during lockdown; the skies were clearer, bluer, the earth was breathing again and like many people, I saw this as a sign of hope and of the changes we desperately need to make...In the work that became The Celestials, I found new expression of hope and movement during a time of worldwide fear and stagnation. - Simon Roberts, 2020