THE WAXING, ACRYLIC GLASS, 2019

2019 Acrylic glass

The Waxing is a sculpture that revolves around the human ability to abstract knowledge from physical data, resulting in science on the one hand and wisdom on the other.

Since the dawn of mankind humans have looked at the waxing and waning of the moon with some kind of explanation in mind. It took humanity quite some time to distill the sensory data of the minor changes in their environment into the idea of a lunar calendar; the idea that we can measure the passing of time by closely monitoring the changes in what we see.

What this tells about us humans, is that over time we can actively abstract long term knowledge out of an accumulation of sensory data, or in other words, that we posses the ability to acquire wisdom. Observing the celestial body’s is where science had its beginning and where a lot more is yet to be learned. But what if science can not give us a sufficient answer to our questions? In that case we revert to an other form in which we humans condense wisdom; that of the metaphor. This is were art comes in to play. A metaphor shows how human perception of an object can translate to a deeper meaning. Even if our civilization will advance rapidly we will still be creating art, because where other means of gaining knowledge fall short, we still rely on metaphors to transfer meaning.

The Waxing is part of Moon Gallery, an international collaborative artwork and gallery of ideas worth sending to the moon. Moon Gallery intends to launch 100 artifacts to the moon in 2022 within the compact format of a 10 x 10 x 1 cm plate that will be mounted on the exterior paneling of a lunar lander. In this Petri dish-like gallery, we are developing a culture for a future interplanetary society.
Recently Moon Gallery has shown in the Space Expo Museum an at Ventura Future at the Milan Design Week 2019. Among our next destinations are Hoogtij in Den Haag, Igluna in Switserland, Disignblok19 Praag and Mauna Loa Hawaii, where we will demonstrate which ideas we want to bring into the future. A crew of 16 visionaries will show how the challenges along the journey of human space exploration instigate new forms of art, craft and design.