Editor’s note: I met the Valentines a few years back and fell in love with their passion. Two beautiful humans allowing us to see through their eyes.
The Valentines screen Axis Mundi, Volume 1: The Order of the Cosmos — Thursday, July 9, 2026— at Clark Planetarium in Salt Lake City. Admission is free with advance registration. Full details at the end of this story.
Official Trailer: https://vimeo.com/1078768006
Long before clocks marked our hours and calendars divided our weeks, humanity measured time differently.
The rising sun. The changing shadows. The first light of summer. The longest night of winter.
Across continents and cultures, civilizations built monuments, villages, temples, and sacred spaces that acknowledged the sky above them. Architecture was never simply shelter — it was a conversation between earth and heaven.
For researchers David and Chloe Valentine, that conversation has become a life’s work.
Now relocating to the Capitol Reef Field Station in the heart of Utah’s red rock country, the couple is beginning a new chapter dedicated to environmental education, sustainability, and documenting one of humanity’s oldest relationships: our connection to the movements of the sun and moon.
The off-grid field station, operated through a university partnership, serves as a living classroom where students of geology, biology, photography, writing, and environmental science experience the landscape not simply as observers, but as participants. Solar power, well water, and sustainable living are woven into daily life, reflecting the same natural rhythms that have guided civilizations for thousands of years.
It Began with a Sculpture
Their own journey began with a work of art. At the Edge of the Cedars Museum in Blanding, Utah, artist Joe Pachak created SunMarker — a monumental work designed to interact with sunlight throughout the year. During the solstices and equinoxes, light passes through the sculpture in remarkably precise ways, transforming it into both artwork and astronomical instrument.
What began as a photography project soon became something much larger.
The Valentines returned again and again, documenting the changing light through every season. From there, their work expanded to Hovenweep, Chaco Canyon, and eventually to ancient ceremonial landscapes around the world.
Each journey reinforced the same remarkable truth.
For thousands of years, people carefully observed the heavens. They aligned buildings, plazas, stone circles, and sacred spaces with sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and the turning points of the seasons — not for novelty, but because these celestial events shaped agriculture, ceremony, navigation, and daily life.
“We’re interested in how people have related to the sky and the earth across time,” Chloe explains. “And how we might begin creating those relationships again.”
An Invitation for Our Time
Perhaps nowhere is that invitation more timely than today.
Modern life has largely disconnected us from the cycles that quietly continue overhead. Our calendars tell us when meetings begin, but rarely acknowledge the summer solstice, the autumn equinox, or the longest night of the year.
Yet the Earth continues its ancient dance.
The sun still rises along a different point on the horizon every day. The moon still follows its own graceful rhythm. The seasons continue to turn exactly as they always have.
Recognizing this disconnect inspired one of the couple’s most practical creations: a Luna-Solar Calendar.
Unlike traditional calendars that place months and weekdays at the forefront, their calendar is organized around the phases of the moon while still incorporating the familiar Gregorian schedule. Solstices and equinoxes receive equal prominence, gently reminding us that these celestial milestones remain as meaningful today as they were to those who first watched the skies.
The calendar itself is also a work of art, featuring breathtaking landscape and astronomical photography captured by David during years of field research.
From the Great Basin to the Isle of Lewis
Their exploration reaches far beyond Utah.
One recent expedition took them to the Callanish Stones on Scotland’s Isle of Lewis, one of Europe’s most significant prehistoric stone circles. Like Utah’s ancient sites, the massive standing stones were carefully positioned to acknowledge celestial events, connecting communities across oceans through a shared understanding of the sky. The couple’s travels have also carried them to ancient observatories in Uzbekistan, China, and India — different continents, different millennia, the same human impulse.
Closer to home, they continue documenting Nancy Holt’s iconic Sun Tunnels in Utah’s Great Basin Desert — four enormous concrete cylinders precisely aligned with the summer and winter solstice sunrise and sunset. Created in the 1970s, the installation reminds visitors that even contemporary artists continue humanity’s enduring dialogue with light.
Experiencing these places requires patience.
The Valentines often spend several days waiting for a single sunrise or sunset. Sometimes clouds obscure the event entirely, requiring another journey months later. Winter nights can bring bitter cold, while remote desert locations demand endurance and careful planning.
But for them, that waiting is part of the experience.
“The power isn’t necessarily mystical,” Chloe reflects. “It’s about tuning into how the world naturally works.”
The Ethics of the Frame
That philosophy also guides their documentary series, Axis Mundi, produced through Retrograde Motion Pictures — an ongoing exploration of archaeoastronomy and cultural astronomy. The films examine how ancient architecture embodies sophisticated astronomical knowledge while emphasizing responsible stewardship of these remarkable places.
Recognizing that increased exposure can unintentionally threaten fragile archaeological sites, the Valentines have intentionally limited the public release of certain films, choosing curated screenings over unrestricted online distribution whenever necessary.
Protecting the places they love has become just as important as documenting them.
In an age of instant streaming, it is a quietly radical stance: some films are worth waiting for, and some places are worth protecting more than promoting. Volume by volume, season by season, Axis Mundi is proving that slow cinema — made at the speed of sunrise — still has the power to move us.
The work of David and Chloe Valentine reminds us that the geometry of light is not merely something to observe.
It is something we are invited to live within.
Screening — Salt Lake City
Axis Mundi, Volume 1: The Order of the Cosmos
Join filmmakers and researchers David and Chloe Valentine for a special screening of the first film in the series, part of Clark Planetarium’s Science Utah lecture series. The screening will be followed by a live Q&A with the director.
Thursday, July 9 · 7:00–8:00 p.m.
Clark Planetarium, 110 South 400 West, Salt Lake City, Utah
Admission is free, but seating is limited and advance registration is required. (Paid parking at the venue.)
Reserve your seat: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/science-utah-axis-mundi-volume-1-order-of-the-cosmos-tickets-1987083697831
Watch the official trailer: https://vimeo.com/1078768006
