British contemporary artist Sacha Jafri and his new work will be the first-ever official artwork to be placed on the Moon. Jafri used an aerospace-grade aluminium gold plate as his canvas for the artwork, making it fully resilient to lunar conditions and allowing it to last an eternity on the Moon.
Scheduled for lift-off in June 2022, the painting will be placed on the Moon with the help of Selenian, a pioneering UAE company that specialises in the curation of art in space, in collaboration with Spacebit, Astrobotic, and Nasa, through its commercial lunar payload services (CLPS) initiative.
The Artwork entitled: ‘We Rise Together – with the Light of the Moon’, has been created by the artist as a continuation of his Charitable Journey. Jafri’s original work will be placed on the surface of the Moon triggering the release of a five-series NFT Charitable Collection. The original work will rest in the solitude of the Moon, emanating energy back to Earth for all eternity.
“With figures, entwined in love, reaching for a newfound understanding of unity and consequential hope, as they embark on their journey of exploration from our inhabited planet to our uninhabited moon; through space and time, over mountain and star, to unlearn what we thought we knew and relearn everything through the hearts, minds, and souls of our children; the purest essence from which we have drifted so far, aiming to shine a light back on our broken planet, and start to heal its fractured heart. We rise together, with a like-minded goal of creating a new vision for our world, focusing on the five pillars that will allow humanity to thrive once again: universality, consciousness, connection, empathy, and equality,” said Jafri in a statement.
The five NFTs will launch to commemorate each stage of the mission – from the rocket launch entering the stratosphere, the Earth circumnavigation, the Moon sling-shot, the Moon landing and the legacy of the eternal artwork on the Moon. In addition, 88 unique Hearts that fly to the Moon as part of the painting, will be released to the world as the Jafri ‘Moonheart NFTs’. The Artwork will be revealed to the world at a press conference next week.
“Our future is not technology, our future is human; with expression and embrace comes our new world, aided by technology but driven by humanity. The placement of my moon-landed artwork aims to reconnect humanity to ourselves, each other, our creator and ultimately to ‘The Soul of the Earth’,” said Jafri.
Many of Jafri’s previous works have made headlines, with the most recent one being the world’s largest canvas painting, which was created in Dubai and sold for the record-breaking US $62 million. The mission aims to raise as much money as possible to aid concerns with health, education, sustainability and equality.
In a statement, NASA CLPS said, “On the 50th anniversary of our last landing on the moon, we are excited to announce this pioneering mission, collecting new data from our scientific payloads now heading to the moon, with exciting prospects of new findings, as technology and scientific research has developed immeasurably. But this mission is particularly exciting to us, as with the unique additional add-on of partnering with the private sector including Spacebit, Selenian, Astrobotic, and one of the world’s most celebrated Artist/Humanitarians Sacha Jafri, we will be placing the first official artwork on the surface of the moon, funds from which will serve to aid humanity back on Earth. An unprecedented moment in history, and a mission like no other, that we are proud to be a part of.”
