Art for Artemis – Maria

The next human spacecraft set for the Moon is NASA’s Orion spacecraft powered by ESA’s European Service Module. The Artemis programme is taking humankind to the Moon for sustainable exploration and Europe is going too. To celebrate the first mission this year and highlight how the Moon is important in human history ESA has teamed up with art and digital design schools to showcase new artists and their vision of lunar exploration.

As the only place that humans have seen with their own eyes throughout history, our Moon features heavily in world cultures. The Artemis programme, itself named after the ancient Greek goddess of the Moon, will take humans back to our natural satellite and, in doing so, will become memorialised in popular culture.

ESA has teamed up with eight art schools around Europe and challenged their students to produce art inspired by Artemis, lunar exploration and the European Service Module that will provide the power, propulsion, water and air for the astronauts on board.

Students made 22 artworks that we will showcase on the Orion blog over the coming months. Using a variety of techniques and from many different cultural backgrounds, the artists have thought about what human spaceflight to the Moon and beyond signifies.