Oded Ben-Horin, Kjetil Sømoe, Janne Robberstad
2025, Photopolymer resin

 

The piece is a 3D-printed cube which represents the first Global Educational Opera, written and performed by schools, universities and art institutions in 26 countries in all the inhabited continents. It discusses humanity’s future on the Moon, and explores the importance of human collaboration and creativity in space exploration.

Mary Kuiper
2025, Copper

 

As human exploration brings new life to other planets, so does a nest bring new life to a tree. Each nest tells a story of the bird who made it, and is constructed from found materials. The sculpture aims to remind future generations of the interconnections between all species, and celestial and terrestrial bodies.

Hans Brooymans
2025, A fragment of mortar

 

Ancient Roman mortar that was attributed to build Aqua Tepula in 125 BCE, an aqueduct bringing water from the campagna romana to the city of Rome. The roman aqueduct network is exemplary in showing the importance of infrastructure for human habitation, even in space.

Lakshmi Mohanbabu
2025, Anodized Aluminium

 

A sculpture of five slices – Primary, Secondary, Windmill, Dromenon, and Nautilus – each representing an interaction, a fragment of time preserved. The triangular arrowheads symbolize progress, movement, and time’s relentless forward motion. Their rainbow-like hues symbolize the spectrum of human experience, with each layer etched with a distinct interactions design. The artwork echoes the fluidity of time, humanity’s collective journey of discovery and shared experience of memory.

Jack Madden
2025, Lunar meteorite, photopolymer resin

 

For the first time in history, a small fragment of lunar meteorite will be sent back to the Moon. It is a way of reframing lunar study in the opposite direction and not solely for human benefit — respecting the Moon and unearthly lands, as the steps we take to protect the it will set the tone for how we treat a multitude of worlds going forward.

Richelle Ellis
2025, A mixed media digitized painting encased in a glass sphere

 

The sculpture is composed of digitized mixed media arranged in a Voronoi puzzle, featuring hundreds of aquatic species. It honors Earth’s biosphere, highlighting the fragility of coral reefs and the threat of pollution, and emphasizing the need for environmental protection. By sending this miniature “Blue Marble” into outer space, the work asks us to reconsider our relationship with the only ocean-bearing planet we know, and to protect its wonders before they slip beneath the surface forever.

This work emerges from a long engagement with shifting perspectives: looking upward into space and its unknowns, and downward into the Earth and its mysteries. Both viewpoints prompt questions about who we are, where we belong, and how our understanding of the world is shaped by the positions from which we look.

 

 

The project traces an ongoing dialogue with Sumbandila, a South African Earth observation satellite whose name means “lead the way.” For many years, I worked with images produced by the satellite, exploring perspectives of Earth from above. When a solar flare damaged its onboard computer and communication was lost, my relationship with the satellite changed. No longer able to access its data, I continued to follow its orbit, engaging with it through imagination, speculation, and artistic inquiry. What remained was not the image itself, but the possibility of perspective—the presence of something beyond reach.

 

This dialogue generated a series of works, including a letter in the form of a speculative drawing and a Morse code message sent to the International Space Station as part of the Moon Gallery project, asking Sumbandila to “lead the way again.” Through performances, drawings, sculptures, installations, planetarium shows, and films, the satellite became a catalyst for rethinking orientation, connection, and existence.

 

 

 

Alongside this exploration, I spent time with archaeologists in caves across South Africa. Looking outward through cave openings, I often photographed these portals as if they were windows into space — searching in the opposite direction for the distant perspective once offered by the satellite.

 

 

 

 

The work presented here brings these trajectories together. The underlying printed image is derived from a Sumbandila satellite photograph of the Cradle of Humankind in South Africa, traced, fragmented and reassembled into a disrupted cartography that speaks of inaccessible data, broken systems, and incomplete knowledge. Layered over this digital trace are hand-drawn and painted gestures that evoke the embodied experience of standing inside these caves and looking outward. The traced cave openings become frames, portals, and simultaneous views both upward and downward.

 

Resting on this surface is a small sculptural assemblage made from a ruler used in my studio in the making of this work and a reflective light gobo based on one of the cave opening photographs, and used in projections and installations throughout the past decade. The gobo’s reflective surface mirrors the viewer while simultaneously cutting out the shape of the cave opening. As a device, it reflects us back into the work, placing our own image within this field of searching and speculation. It suggests that the search for perspective—whether through satellites, caves, or imagined worlds—is ultimately also a search for ourselves and for the continual need to reposition, reframe, and update our own perspectives.