Moon Gallery ISS Test Flight
For this Test Flight in collaboration with Nanoracks, we fly the gallery to the International Space Station aboard the NG-17 rocket within the framework of a Northrop Grumman Cygnus resupply mission in February of 2022. This edition of the gallery grid features 8×8 cells housing 64 physical artefacts and one engraved AR artwork. 65 art projects featured in the gallery will reach the final frontier of human habitat and mark the historical meeting point of the Moon Gallery and the cosmos. Reaching low Earth orbit on our way to the Moon is the first step in extending our cultural dialogue to space.
About SEED project:
Material: unglazed porcelain (Limoges) Size: 1x1x1cm
The International Space Station is humanity’s first step into our exploration of the cosmos. A place that propels us for our trip through our galaxy.
Our voyage does not (must not) serve only a scientific purpose, but also a cultural one. The goal is not only explore, but also establish the foundations of an interplanetary society that will take us to the Moon, Mars and beyond.
The ISS acts like the ports during the 15th century’s golden age of ocean exploration. Back then, sailors aimed to circumnavigate the Earth, now we desire to reach the borders of our Solar System and to wade into the depths of the galaxy. The beginning of a new age of exploration for our species.
Seeds are the symbol of the beginning of nature – its conception, its literal starting point. One cannot but marvel to see how, after one plants a seed in the soil, a small stem starts to grow little by little. Give water and sun to a seed, and it will evolve into a majestic vegetable creature. The power of transformation of a seed reaches mythical proportions.
My seed symbolizes that feeling of anticipation and wonder. Porcelain is a material that comes from soil. A petrified piece of earth fired at over a thousand degrees and transformed into delicate pieces that sustain the passing of time for centuries and even millennia. It has been one of the greatest inventions of mankind since the Stone Age. It is fragile yet permanent. Solid yet delicate.
The porcelain seed has been created based on a real lemon seed. It was important for me not to imitate nature, not to create a sculpture with my own hands, but to make a model of a real seed. An untouched creation of nature. I created a casting mold of the seed in which I later poured the liquid porcelain. Then, the model was fired in a kiln, thus creating a perfect representation of the beginning of all vegetable creatures.
Lemon seeds are also intricately related to human exploration travels. Since the 15th century, during the era of the first round-the-world voyages, sailors faced a horrible illness, the so-called sea scourage – scurvy, that took lives of millions explorers and members of expeditions. The solution was found in citruses as the main source of vitamin C. Lemon juice was such a vital element that saved lives of sailors and gave the chance to continue the explorations around the globe.
Nowadays we look further, beyond the oceans, towards the cosmos, and astronauts, our modern explorers, face new perils, also in terms of nutrition. Therefore I see a lemon seed not only as a connection between two very different eras of exploration, but also as a symbol of miracle and salvation.