Moon Gallery: final Open Call and roadmap towards implementation of the first art gallery on the Moon
- Paper ID
85806
- DOI
- author
- company
Stichting Moon Gallery Foundation
- country
The Netherlands
- year
2024
- abstract
The Foundation and our mission: The Moon Gallery Foundation is a cultural NGO based in The Netherlands aiming to set up the first permanent museum on the Moon. We foster questions and ideas of a shared culture for a future interplanetary human kind. Through residencies, educational programs, interdisciplinary spaces, and events, the foundation brings together artists, scientists, and industry to exchange knowledge, problem solve and create sustainable cultural practices. While our earth-bound missions focus on technology, artistic practice, and sustainability, our off-planet mission partnered with Nanoracks seeks to establish the first permanent art gallery on the Moon as early as 2025. Moon Gallery Test Flight: On Feb 19, 2022, the Moon Gallery Foundation launched the world’s first off-planet gallery aboard NG-17 rocket with a Northrop Grumman Cygnus resupply mission to the International Space Station. The test mission of 65 artefacts was housed inside a Nanoracks Nanolab, together with a camera aimed at the gallery for targeted material observations in microgravity. After spending 11 months aboard the station, the Gallery returned to Earth on the 11th of January 2023. New Open Call to be launched at IAC 2024: Embarking on its ultimate mission, the Moon Gallery Foundation works hard to place a tiny gallery of contemporary art on the lunar surface. One of the big tasks ahead, approaching us at warp speed, is to make the final selection of pieces that will become a part of the future museum on the Moon. Therefore, the Foundation is launching the final Moon Mission open call for the collection that will find its way to the Moon. The open call is an invitation for artists worldwide to contribute to a profound cultural legacy beyond our terrestrial confines. By embracing the constraints imposed by space travel, we are sowing the seeds of human creativity on extraterrestrial soil, challenging the pioneers of the Moon to nurture and preserve the essence of our artistic practice as they forge a new cultural frontier away from our familiar blue home.