MISSION TARONI
Exploring the ties between human creation
and the natural world
From the first silk threads spun by human hands to the fabric that now meets space light, Mission TARONI traces the evolution of our relationship with matter, a story of dependence, respect, and reinvention. Through a stratospheric ascent, silk becomes a sensor of light, gravity, and time, transforming a symbol of luxury into a metaphor of responsibility.
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Between art and science, heritage and innovation, Mission TARONI invites us to rethink our relationship to creation, and to ask how, in shaping matter, we also shape our way of seeing life and our planet.
Artistic Legacy
Like Christo and Jeanne-Claude, who wrapped monuments, bridges, and public buildings to suspend their everyday function and transform them into ephemeral sculptures, we wrap the human silhouette here to symbolize humanity as a whole. Like them, the gesture does not seek to hide but to reveal in a different way : Christo wanted to unveil the hidden beauty of the real world by veiling it temporarily, to show that by masking a place, it becomes visible in a new light. Audiences then rediscovered the presence of forms, as if the act of concealing finally allowed us to see.
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In the same spirit, by draping the body in silk, we take up this idea of revealing through the veil : questioning perception and collective memory, and, for the duration of an ascent, transforming the human body into a shared poetic experience.
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By superimposing this ghostly silhouette onto the planet, our only habitat, and the infinite blackness of space, we create an image that transcends aesthetics and invites reflection on our place in the universe. This dizzying contrast between the ephemeral nature of the body and the Earth, the result of 3.5 billion years of evolution, reminds us of our cosmic insignificance as well as our collective responsibility toward living beings.
Art and Science
During the Renaissance, art and science were intrinsically linked : bodies were dissected to paint flesh more truthfully; machines were drawn to understand movement. Think of Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), who was a painter, engineer, anatomist, or Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), the father of modern physics, who was also a remarkable draftsman and watercolorist.
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From the 17th century onward, the scientific revolution gradually formalized knowledge into distinct disciplines. Over the following centuries, specialization accelerated progress but also fractured the dialogue between art and science. Yet these two worlds have never ceased to reflect one another. Mission TARONI embraces a return to their common origin, bringing art and science, poetry and protocol back together to tell the story of the world differently.
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The Dorothy Project seeks to renew this lost dialogue : to use the instruments of science to produce images that move us, and to draw on the sensitivity of art to reveal the beauty of reality.
Tradition & Technology
Inspired by the work of Neri Oxman and Iris van Herpen, questioning how new technologies transform our relationship to matter, how they redefine what a material can be, produce, or even feel.
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Both designers share a common intuition : the future of design may lie in a dialogue with the living, a form of material ecology where nature and technology merge.
Where van Herpen explores the fusion of couture, science, and digital architecture to sculpt the body’s movement, Neri Oxman imagines living, evolving, programmable materials : 3D-printed skins that breathe, structures inspired by coral, fibers that self-assemble like those in nature. Their approach raises a fundamental question: what if the boundary between the manufactured and the living disappeared ?
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In a world where the textile industry remains one of the most polluting, this vision opens a new path : producing like nature, generating materials that are no longer extracted or imposed, but cultivated. Here, technology is no longer opposed to nature, it becomes its extension, a common language between biology and engineering.​
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Through this experiment, the aim is to show that it is possible to innovate without breaking with heritage, to move forward without erasing the memory of craftsmanship.
How can we use a traditional textile such as silk, the fruit of a thousand years of expertise, to speak about the future by confronting it with light, gravity, and time ?
An Eco-Responsible Collaboration
What convinced us to work with TARONI was his commitment to eliminating hazardous chemicals from his production chain. First with Greenpeace’s Detox Commitment (2016), then through the 4Sustainability protocol. The company also holds GOTS, GRS for recycled content, and FSC for traceability.
This constellation of labels, rare in the luxury silk industry, transforms heritage into a structure of ecological compliance and aligns perfectly with the values of The Dorothy Project.
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Dorothy’s flights are also conducted with minimal environmental impact.
Dorothy version 7, our module, is already on its third stratospheric flight; equipped with GPS, all equipment is recovered and reused.
The natural latex balloon is largely retrieved, and the fragments that separate after the burst fall back to Earth and are 100% biodegradable.
To inflate our balloons, we use hydrogen, an abundant gas with almost no carbon footprint, a sustainable alternative to helium, which is rare on Earth and whose natural reserves are dwindling.
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