Image: The Full Moon from the Popular Series, c. 1875–1899. Stereocard. Gift from the estate of Ann Espe Dietz. University of New Mexico Art Museum
The University of New Mexico Art Museum (UNMAM) in Albuquerque has been awarded $55,000 through the National Endowment for the Arts' Grants for Arts Projects programme to support The Double Planet: Reflections on the Moon, an exhibition it will present from 29 January to 17 May 2027.
The exhibition looks at the moon's place in both art and science. It combines historic and contemporary works with scientific objects, drawing on fine art, cartography, anthropology, natural history and science collections, and asks how living beings relate to planetary bodies. The museum has timed the show to coincide with NASA's Artemis III mission, which it describes as the first crewed return to the moon in more than 50 years.
The presentation is organised in three parts. "Instrumentation" considers how artists and scientists produce and picture scientific knowledge. "Lunar Pull" turns to the biological and cultural forces that draw living things towards the moon. "Worlds Beyond Our World" gathers speculative ideas about building worlds, on Earth and elsewhere.
Works highlighted by the museum, all from its own holdings, suggest the range. The Full Moon is a stereocard from the Popular Series, dated to between about 1875 and 1899. Owl, a gelatin silver print of around 1965, is by the American Harold Edgerton (1903–1990). Splash Down, a six-colour lithograph from Robert McCall's 1973 suite The Apollo Story, is part of the Tamarind Archive Collection.
The project is directed by Angel Jiang, UNMAM's Curator of Prints and Drawings, with curatorial assistant Bre Kappel and three University of New Mexico faculty members: Stewart Copeland, assistant professor in experimental art and technology and director of ARTSLab; Welly Fletcher, associate professor of sculpture; and Meggan Gould, professor of photography. Jiang has said the team sought to set a sense of wonder alongside critical thinking, so that visitors encounter artworks and scientific objects in conversation with one another.
UNMAM director Arif Khan said the award acknowledges the inventive part that academic museums can play in campus life and in their wider communities.
