01 Mar 2017
Out of this world proposal as creatives push for art museum on the Moon
BY Tom Anstey
Those eagerly anticipating the colonisation of the Moon will be delighted to know they’ll be able to get a dose of culture 384,400km away from Earth’s atmosphere, after artists Julio Orto and Joey Cannizzaro proposed The Museum of Contemporary Art on the Moon, or MoCAM as it would be known.
Offering fantastic views of Earth, the duo have already purchased a 20 acre plot of land on the Moon, located in Area D 6 Quadrant Charlie – the extreme northwest corner of the recognised Lunar Chart.
MoCAM’s architectural style has been conceived by Mexican architect Mauricio Mastropiero, whose design has been “conceived as an extension of human life and pays homage to our natural instinct for exploration”.
The experience would be divided into three main spaces, starting with an outer building that is partially underground inside an artificial mountain, an open flexible space that changes according to the museum’s needs and a core that hosts the principal exhibition. There would also be a farming greenhouse, restaurant, gift shop, storage areas and resting areas.
Working in conjunction with the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art (IMOCA), MoCAM has begun a process “dedicated to displaying the most interesting, cutting edge, relevant art from the world, Moon habitants, or in the case of future encounters, any other form of intelligent life we may meet.”
MoCAM offers an inaugural Earth-based show, Mystic Hyperstitians in the Heart of Empire, as an online venture, with the works also part of IMOCA’s The Museum of Real and Odd, which opened in February.
The MoCAM plan is a response to “the inevitable creation of human communities on the Moon in the near future,” according to Orta, which while sounding rather unlikely, could become a reality with a number of major players including Elon Musk and Sir Richard Branson working to develop real space tourism in the coming decades, both planning to charter commercial space flights in the next few years.
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