We Are All Made of Stardust

Stone and iron meteorites were finely crushed into dusts. From stone meteorites, achondrites and chondrites, an ocher brownish dust was crushed, whereas from iron meteorites, pallasites and mesosiderites, a dark gray dust was crushed. With the meteorite dusts the artist painted various animal, plant, and human figures from 17th-century star atlas illustrations of constellations on glass.

Almost all of the elements of living organisms are known to have originated from ancient, dead stars. According to the best scientific estimate, our atoms will also, in the distant future, return to space and possibly form new stars.

Thanks:
Technical support / meteorite dusts: Mirko Graul, preparator, dealer and collector of meteorites, IMCA (International Meteorite Collector Association), Berlin
Thematic consultancy / astronomy: Esko Valtaoja, emeritus professor of space astronomy, Helsinki
Exhibition views: Ama Gallery, Helsinki, 2017
Original images / star atlases: Johan Bayer: Uranometria (1603), John Flamsteed: Atlas Coelestis (1729), Johannes Hevelius: Uranographia (1690)

Both the Sun and the planets are recycled material. Only hydrogen and helium were born in the Big Bang, everything else (for example, the carbon of living beings) originated from the innermost bodies of dead stars where it was born from hydrogen and helium by fusing. According to the best estimate, in around 5-6 billion years, the swollen outer edge of the Sun brushes the Earth, which surface is melting and vaporising. Much of this gas will eventually evaporate from the Sun out into space. So you can say that at least our atoms return to the stars - and perhaps in due course they will condense into new stars and planets.
 Esko Valtaoja, emeritus professor of space astronomy, in an e-mail conversation about the themes of the works, 2014