Out of the ordinary | 4 June 2011

From high in the sky over Cappadocia Susan Moore looks down at part of the largest contemporary land art project in the world

There are few artists whose work is best seen by hot-air balloon. There are even fewer whose works can only be photographed in their entirety by satellite. To describe the Australian Andrew Rogers as a land artist on an epic scale seems something of an understatement. Over the past 13 years he has masterminded the construction of 47 monumental structures in 13 countries spanning seven continents and involving some 6,700 people.

The more remote a site, the better it suits his purpose. Rogers has a penchant for wilderness, desert and plateau, favouring culturally resonant sites that are often barely accessible, and not flinching from challenging extremes of climate. His first structure negotiated the 40-degree temperatures of the Arava Desert in Israel, 400m below sea level; his fourth, the oxygen-thin altitudes of a Bolivian plain at a height of 4,500m.