MoonArk lands at Thrival Festival, Carnegie Museum

The MoonArk, which will debut at this year’s Thrival Festival, aims to break boundaries of Earth, space and time. The artful capsule, part museum and part performing arts center, will reside at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History until Sept. 25, 2018, then be sent to the surface of the moon on an Astrobotic lander in 2019.

The project began at Carnegie Mellon University in 2008 and became a collaboration that eventually involved 18 universities and organizations, 60 team members and 250 contributing artists, designers, educators, scientists, choreographers, poets, writers and musicians.

It contains hundreds of images, poems, music, nano-objects, mechanisms and earthly samples – all packed into four chambers that are 2 inches high and 2 inches in diameter. The entire MoonArk weighs 6 ounces.

The chambers are independently themed as Earth, Metasphere, Moon and Ether, while collectively they reflect multiple dimensions of being human.

Each chamber includes platinum-etched sapphire disks, hyper-colored metal murals, minerals, biological samples, micro payloads such as nano art, and an array of artifacts that provide a contemporary view ofhumanity at the time of the launch.

Described by its creators as “a gift of life and hope to future humans embodied by all the arts,” it could have a life span of billions of years.

A twin MoonArk will remain on Earth and travel. It’s scheduled to be included in a space art exhibition at the Pompidou Center in Paris in 2018.

The MoonArk will be in the Wertz Gallery, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Oakland, through Sept. 25, 2018.

Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday and until 8 p.m. Thursday. Admission is $19.95; seniors $14.95; students and children 3-18, $11.95; members and ages 2 and under, free.

For more information, visit www.moonarts.org or www.twitter.com/ CMU_MoonArk or 412-622-3131.