Lunar Longings: The Moon in Art, Science and Culture

Humans have been fascinated with our nearest heavenly body, the Earth’s Moon, since prehistoric times. It has now been more than 50 years since we set foot on the Moon during the Apollo space missions. In this lecture astronomer Dr Robert Massey (Royal Astronomical Society) and art historian and curator Dr Alexandra Loske (Royal Pavilion, Brighton) and will show how our obsession with the Moon has manifested itself in the visual arts, from earliest ritualistic drawings to scientific observation, Romantic symbolism, silent movies, and space race propaganda.

In 2019 Alexandra and Robert co-authored a book on the subject: Moon – Art, Science, Culture, which has been translated into Spanish and Chinese. In 2019 Alexandra edited an anthology on recent creative writing on the Moon: Pale Fire - New Writing on the Moon. Most recently, she contributed to chapters to a major new book on the Moon: Lunar: A History of the Moon in Myths, Maps + Matter (Thames & Hudson and University of Chicago Press). Robert is the deputy director of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Arrive from 7pm for a 7:30pm start.

For this meeting we will be at Wagner Hall on Regency Road, Brighton. Attendance is free, but we would be grateful if those of you who are able to could donate a few pounds to help cover the cost of hiring this event space. We will have a card reader and a money box you can drop your donations in on the night. We also have a bank account you can donate to electronically.

Brighton Astro is inclusive and welcomes everybody.

Please note that the venue has a bar that sells alcohol.