From February 23rd to March 15th, 2026, Moon Bound was presented in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, inviting visitors to explore the relationships among art, science, and the Moon. The exhibition featured sculptures, art prints, the ISS Gallery Payload, and the Moon Bound Book — showcasing a retrospective of space art, and its role in extraterrestrial exploration.
Presented inside the Bishop’s Basilica of Philippopolis, the exhibition placed contemporary space-focused art within a historic setting. The ancient architecture created a powerful contrast, connecting humanity’s earliest cultural history with modern visions of space exploration and our place in the cosmos.
Curatorial Statement by Luis Bernardo Guzmán:
“Moon Bound Book is a miniature that enacts a dual gesture of exploration: one that reaches outward, toward the vastness of the Moon’s south pole, and another that turns inward, into the boundless terrain of human imagination. Carried aboard Astrolab’s Flip Rover, it will traverse the mute surface of the Moon like the trace of a presence not yet fully revealed—an omen of something quietly unfolding.
As a book, it echoes the ancient function of objects designed to carry and transmit stories. But what story does this one hold?Perhaps it tells the tale of a reader yet to come —one standing before a colorless horizon 384,400 kilometers from the memory of Earth. It is also the story of a group of artists in our own time, reaching beyond the known, seeking to forge a language from the darkness of the void, spoken from the vantage point of outer space. The convergence between the physical exploration of reality and the imaginative act opens a pathway toward the remote, in this encounter we are transformed”.
The exhibition presented:
— The Moon Bound Book by Moon Gallery
— The ISS Payload by Moon Gallery
— FENUA: The Last Fragment by Paulina Almeida
— Time Slices by Lakshmi Mohanbabu
— Alien from the Mechanical Angel by Luis Bernardo Guzmán
— Imprint of Lightness by Jeanne Morel and Paul Marlier
— Inner Telescope by Eduardo Kac
— Un·Earthing (playsuit for Mars) by Ralo Mayer
— Measuring Mistakes by Ulrike Kuchner
— Cosmic Dancer by Arthur Woods
— Flight Candidate #9 and Substruction by Hans Brooymans
— Tantalum Ring, After Schengen series by Kongo Astronauts
— Self Portrait on the Hubble Space Telescope of NASA astronaut John Grunsfeld by Michael Soluri
On February 23rd, the opening evening welcomed a wonderful audience – 180 guests, reaching full capacity of the venue. NOVA TV and Bulgarian National Television were on the ground with live coverage, and Moon Gallery participated in a full 1-hour live show on Plovdiv Societal TV. The opening was accompanied by live music – blending classical and jazz, performed by renowned musicians from the European Capital of Culture 2019: Miroslav Turiyski, Alexander Lekov, Zhelyazka Belchilova.
On March 8th, a workshop for kids took place, inviting over 20 children to participate and make drawings, imagining the Earth from lunar eyes.
The exhibition was curated by Luis Bernardo Guzmán.
Lead funding for the Moon Bound exhibition was provided by the Bulgarian Ministry of Cultural Affairs and the Center for Projects – Plovdiv. This exhibition is supported through Project BG-RRP-11.024-0037 ‘Book for the Moon’; by the European Union – NextGenerationEU, through the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism, administered by the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria.
Photos by Viktor Kadiri, Stanimir Petkov Photosmile.
