Connecting to the cosmos

What links the Mayan calendar, Akashic records and the new NASA missions? We asked Geraluz and Werc, authors of the new mural on Hudson Street, Manhattan, the first inspired by the generation that will see the first woman go to the Moon by 2026 and then to Mars in the 2030s

Hudson Street is a long street in the island of Manhattan, the heart of New York. It takes its name from the Hudson River, which runs parallel to it to the west. It runs from Tribeca, the exclusive residential neighbourhood among Soho, the World Trade Center area and Canal Street, to Greenwich Village, home of the beat counterculture and still filled with off-Broadway theatres. From 23 September 2024, halfway down this street, at number 350, stands the first work of the new NASA Art Program, which has been funding artistic works inspired by its missions since 1962. The focus of the call for New York artists, launched last June in collaboration with The Hudson Square Business Improvement District, is the Artemis Generation: that is, the generation that will see the first woman and the next men land first on the Moon by 2026 and then, in the 2030s, on Mars. After the first short, unmanned mission, Artemis I, completed between November and December 2022, the next one, carrying four people, is scheduled for September 2025. Until that date, the two-part Hudson Street mural will be joined by additional public artworks, first in Washington DC and then, in 2025, in other areas of the US. But “To the Moon, and Back” is the first, created by artists Geraluz and Werc: she was born in the Amazon jungle of Peru and raised in the urban jungle of Newark, New Jersey; he was born in Mexico and raised in El Paso, Texas; they both live in Brooklyn. We met them.

How did you meet? And when did you decide to make art together?

Werc: We met in 2008 in Mexico City: then I had a project in San Diego, California, and I invited Gera to come on board on it. It was a big collaborative project, with murals and workshops and many other facets. I would say right away.

Geraluz: So, in 2008, when we met at the International Art Festival in Mexico City, I went as a video artist and Werc work as a muralist. I made a video of his work in the time lapse painting. The first mural we painted together was the Copia Frutas, around 2010.

And how did you find out about the NASA call? What motivated you to participate?

W: It was an open call. I didn’t know about the NASA program personally, but I’ve always been to outer space and like the planets and astronomy and astrology. Also, we have a child together, and he has early aspirations of being an astronaut and outer space. And he kind of gravitates towards matters of science. So, it kind of all really for us in that way, for this particular project.

G: I would say that we have shared a love for science fiction and all things cosmic since we met. We have always been passionate about these subjects, we used to watch science fiction programmes together. We have always been Sci-Fi geeks. But as artists: I don’t know anything about, like, quantum physics equations! I get it on an intellectual level. So that’s been really cool to have a child now that has come on board to our love for all things cosmic, because he really gets it from another perspective. We love the aesthetics and the mythology, I think he loves the matter of it, the elements, the minerals, on another level. It was a really nice connection to bring him in as our muse. It was all like part of our love for space, I think.

Can you describe your mural?

W: Both parts of the mural are a composition of a circle in the middle, which kind of has both as something that an eye but also the planets. And so, we started with this composition of the circle in the middle, and we wanted to put the moon and other things inside the circle and, we had also had a vision of our son inside. So, we decided to do a photoshoot with him as if he was contemplating some of the rockets and things that were part of the Artemis project for NASA and so we placed the child in the center with the moon and the geometric patterns in the back, thatallude to a graphical representation of space. But also, we envisioned taking this project to another level and gliding it in the evening and night with RGB lights. So, these red, green and blue lights are going to hit the mural. We’re still working on that. Parts of the pattern are going to be activated as soon as the different colors hit on the artwork. So, it’s going to be like moving mural.

What material is it made of?

W: It’s base water-based paint. It’s acrylic, latex and spray paint.

Is it your first mural about space?

W: I painted with that many times in Morocco. I did a ten-story mural, and there’s a like a human and a rabbit, called “Follow the white rabbit”. And behind it there’s a huge moon.

What does space mean to you? the first three words that comes to your mind.

G: Stars.

W: Connection.

G: Akashic Records¹

W: Memory.

G: Akashic Records is like memories.

What did you learn from this experience?

G: Well, I think what I learned is how it takes so many people to come together, sometimes to make something happen. And it’s beyond me, it is universal energy of everything moving, coming to this perfect place at the perfect time with the perfect intention. You know what? What our child is wearing. We had bought that thing three years before. And when I saw the call, my mind went straight to him wearing it. He had never worn it because he was too big for him. So, he ended up just playing with the helmet as a baby, you know? But when I saw it, we brought it up to him: “what do you think about dressing up? Helping us with this vision that we have for this mural?” And he was so supportive and all about it and then work going this. But working to design for an RGB mural was a whole new way of working. So, I learned a lot for me, for sure.

I think more than anything it is about concentric circles and serendipity and that kind of universal message. Of the just things are where they need to be, like at the right place, at the right time.

W: Yeah, I agree with that. And then also we conceptually were working through a different color theory. Because we needed the colors to be activated by the lights, so you know there was a little bit of a learning curve to work through that.

In that one on the left, we can see the Earth and a red planet. Is there Mars? Is there a link to the next missions to the NASA?

W: Exactly. Got it. So first they’re going to go to the Moon, and then that’s going to be a steppingstone to Mars.

And, in the center, there is a sort of star, maybe the sun or maybe not.

G: It’s just a star. Like any kind of star that comes to your head.

In the one on the right, why didn’t you include a little girl?

W: You know, most people, who don’t know that the image is inspired by our child, can’t tell what he is. It’s both a boy and a girl. We don’t correct anyone.

G: We want it to represent all children.

The mural was communicated few days ago. What were the first impressions of people?

W: People are amazed. Are really intrigued and amazed. I think the neighborhood as a whole is really happy and thrilled to have a new public artwork there, I had all experiences painting out there and all people like from all spectrums, from locals to workers to pedestrians to just people getting off their cars. I remember a woman that got off her car just to let us know how grateful she was for this mural, people going out of their ways, waiting for us to be done and like to tell us that they love it. So, for sure, I had a lot of positive experiences painting it.

What about technology? Did you use some technological stuff to design and then realize this mural?

W: So, we use the computer, we use a digital camera, we didn’t plan to do any AR or VR as part of it. The RGB is something that’s very physical. It brings you present to space. For this particular project, we didn’t want to explore which we have in the past.

Gera, you said on your website that you are an agent of Mother Nature: how isthis conception linked to the space?

G: Well, I do believe that we’re a reflection of each other, so, we are a reflection of the stars and stars are a reflection of us. I do believe in Egyptian mythology where the goddess Nuit is arched over the Earth.

So, to me, it’s all connected, interlinked. So, I don’t disconnect myself from space per se, because I’m an agent of Mother Earth. If anything, I feel like it. What I make is always with the intention of it.

And I think that’s why it was so important for us to have the lights and this movement and the colors that come from the Earth and at the same time from space. We have so many things that come from space that we use today in here on Earth. So, I don’t disconnect myself. I do see myself as part of this universe and the earth being like a beloved part of the universe.

Werc, do you agree with this conception? Or are you focused on something different?

W: I agree with her. That’s something that we see eye to eye. We follow the Mayan calendar², which is another way of kind of time and space. It takes us outside the colonized mindset and lets us open up into a deeper connection, with space and time with stars.

G: I thank you so much for bringing that up. I think that’s such a core of our way of life, where we were.

Mayan cosmology involves you, the Earth and also the universe.  Because it’s time and space. It’s all connected.

Yes. And so, in the Mayan calendar, it’s first moving throughout time and space and the glyphs are things like the earth and the jaguar and the eagle and the monkey and all these archetypes that we have but yet looking at it through a cosmic vision. So, thank you so much, because we’ve taught our son the Mayan calendar. And for me, that’s more important than the Gregorian calendar. I get that’s how we exist as a people. But my spirit exists with this cosmic cosmology and this cosmic vision of the universe and Earth.

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1. The akashic registers, or akashic memory, take their name from the term ‘akasha’, which in Sanskrit means ‘ether’ but is translated as ‘astral light’ in esoteric circles. In particular, for New Age doctrines, the akashic records are the space in which the world’s memories are inscribed, which can only be accessed by initiated people. ↩︎
2. The Mayan calendar, developed by ancient Central American civilisations, is based on three different cycles of different lengths: the Tzolkin cycle of 260 days, the Haab cycle of 360 days plus five, the Long Count from the beginning of the Mayan era. ↩︎