By Cassandra Pizzey /asdf 30-09-2010

What will happen when we’ve used up all the earth’s resources? Why, simply move to the moon!

When a group of creatives including Remco van de Craats, Lenneke Heeren, Jeroen Braspenning, Wendy Plomp, Jelena Peeters and Leslie Folker from Edhv got together to investigate life on the moon, they thought about something which could represent the visual culture of the first lunar inhabitants. The first and most difficult task was to let go of any pre-conceived ideas of the moon and take a more instinctive approach to the project. As humans are slowly but surely using up the earth's natural resources, a large-scale move to the moon seems inevitable.

"We thought of interesting questions and cases concerning the moon," says owner of Edhv Remco van de Craats, "such as what is its visual identity?" Obviously craters spring to mind, which is exactly what the artists based their designs on. During their research the participants discovered that the components needed to make porcelain and glass – which are dirt and sand - could be found in the moon’s soil and resolved to create a set of tableware.

"We started making moulds based on the randomness and energy of comet impacts," explains Van de Craats. Projectiles were thrown into clay and the resulting crater-like shapes filled with ceramic and fired. To visualize the energy of an impact, other moulds had glass blown into the void, resulting in a visualization of the pressure wave that makes a crater. As the designers had never worked with glass and ceramics they enlisted specialists in the field Marinke van Zandwijk and Emil Kovac from the glass museum in Leerdam and designer Mieke Meijer.

The products certainly bring a new aesthetic to the table. A familiar sense of symmetry has been thrown out of the window and made way for rough edges and bold burst of energy. The porcelain comes in subdued matte black, white and grey, juxtaposed with the spherical forms of the brightly-coloured glass ware. "It’s great to make a product for the moon," Van de Craats sums up. "I just hope it gets there some day."

The pieces will be on show at the Moon Life Concept Store at the Shanghai Biennial in December, 2010.

The Moon Life project is an initiative of Alicia Framis in association with Archis, ArtHubAsia, ESA, NAi and SMART project Space.

Photos courtesy of Edhv

Click on the images to enlarge.

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