The Lunar Moss Piglets in the Sea of Serenity

YEAR: 2022
MEDIUM: Polystyrene moon sculpture laminated in non-toxic resin and sand, mosses, 180 x 180 x 180cm
FUNDING: KOP Breda, Stedelijk Museum Breda

A sculpture that casts a moment from my short story, In the beginning…, into the material world: the moon becoming blanketed in moss after a spacecraft crash-lands on the moon.

As well as depicting a moment in the narrative, this replica moon covered in patches of moss also offers an alternative lunar home for tardigrades. I made this optimal tardigrade ecosystem on the sculpture’s surface as a reparative gesture, somewhat of an apology, to the tardigrade colony stuck on the moon.

It was initially commissioned as a work for public space in Breda. I installed the moon so that it appeared to have crash-landed to Earth, and particularly chose a site representative of the society that falls apart in In the beginning…: the paved grounds of luxury capitalism, a hotel carpark.

The moon sculpture is a topographical representation, made by tracing NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter maps. With the location of the spacecraft crash documented - the moon’s Sea of Serenity - I was able to gently transplant moss onto the corresponding location on my replica moon.

Credits
Commissioned by: KOP and Stedelijk Museum Breda for ‘Ontdek de Nacht’.
On indefinite loan to: Jan Paagman Observatory.
Fabricated by: Georgie Brinkman & Alex Wight.
Thanks to: Foundation Electron.