For the multimedia installation Moon Bricks, artist Ian Purnell transforms the surface of the ring furnace of Zeche Nachtigall into an immersive lunar landscape. Using cinematic means, he takes up the current research of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Cologne to produce bricks via 3D printing on the moon. Moon Bricks bridges the gap between the former colliery and brickyard and visions of the future and high-tech research into resource scarcity and the limits of growth.

Interest in developing the Moon as a habitat is growing steadily. Be it as a base on the way to Mars or as a place for the extraction of raw materials through so-called moon mining. On the journey to the Moon as an economic sphere, not only technical and logistical questions arise, but also questions about how we want to deal with our living space Earth in the future. The brick in Ian Purnell’s work becomes emblematic of both the constant expansion of human habitat and the struggle to find solutions to the effects of human-induced encroachment on the earth.