Viewers call artist Luke Jerram’s latest installation magical, out of this world, and breathtaking. Museum of the Moon is an inflatable sphere measuring 23 feet in diameter. The realistic representation is 500,000 times smaller than Earth’s real moon, which measures 2,159 miles in diameter. The sculpture features high-resolution photographs of the moon’s surface taken by a NASA satellite in 2010. Lights within the sphere illuminate the sculpture, emphasizing the craters, valleys, and mountains that appear on the real moon’s surface.
Jerram designed the installation to travel. So far, he’s displayed it at festivals and cultural events around Europe. The United Kingdom-based artist is interested in how audiences in different locations respond to the work. “From the beginning of human history, the moon has acted as a ‘cultural mirror’ to our beliefs, understanding, and ways of seeing,” Jerram explains. “Museum of the Moon allows us to observe and contemplate cultural similarities and differences around the world.”