Mission Control

A hub for all the information the public needed to get the most out of MoonFest — from schedules of what was happening each day to timelines charting the key events of the Apollo 11 mission. Also featuring an exhibition of images from NASA’s archive, capturing iconic moments from the Apollo era.

Image:
NASA’s Mission Control in Houston, Texas, during the Apollo 11 mission. Credit: NASA

Flights Of The Imagination

An exhibition of new work, produced in collaboration with the BA Illustration course and the School of Visual Communication at Birmingham City University.

The exhibition featured experimental artworks that reflected the broader cultural and political implications of the Apollo missions to the Moon. The works were all developed through a range of practical research exploring diverse source material such as the Apollo 11 transcripts, astrology, Greek mythology, 1970s horror movies and the portrayal of women in the field of space exploration and within the wider NASA community.

Image Credit: Samantha Johnson

The Dish

Those indelible images of Man’s first steps on the Moon? They would never have been seen by anybody without the efforts of a bunch of eccentric scientists based at a remote sheep farm in Australia. Such is the unlikely true story set-up for this charming Aussie comedy.

Sam Neill’s pipe-smoking scientist leads a very unconventional team through a series of mishaps to ensure that the world can see Neil Armstrong’s giant leap for mankind when their status as back-up receiver for the epoch-defining TV transmission is upgraded due to a change in Apollo 11’s schedule. 

Warm, witty and full of hugely enjoyable performances, The Dish is also a welcome reminder that some of humanity’s greatest achievements would never happen without the little people behind the scenes.

12A | 101 mins | 2000
Director: Rob Sitch
Cast: Sam Neill, Billy Mitchell

Moon Memories

A social history project for Lunar Lovers and Lunar Loathers! We invited members of the public to share their recollections of the historic Moon landing, if they were old enough to remember it first-hand — or their opinions about it, 
if they weren’t quite old enough to have been there at the time!

As well as looking back, we also encouraged people to look forward, sharing thoughts on our relationship with space and the future possibilities for returning to the Moon or travelling to distant stars and planets.

Birmingham-based writer and theatre maker Rochi Rampal gathered these precious contributions and transformed them into an interactive and immersive installation inspired by 1960s living rooms.

Image Credit: NASA

Apollo 11

NASA’s vaults open for the first time to spill this never-before-seen collection of audio and 70mm film footage of the Apollo 11 mission. The meandering cameras in Cape Canaveral captured a dreamy-eyed portrait of America as it stepped into the future, and from inside the Apollo 11 spacecraft, the amazingly jocular conversation of the astronauts punctuates each stage of the mission with lightness and charm.

Director Todd Miller takes you straight to the heart of this intense scientific and human endeavour, sharing the atmosphere and action around the final moments of the preparation, liftoff, landing and return of the famed mission. The footage is so clean and vibrant, it’s as if you are standing at the base of the rocket. 

Exquisitely crafted and realised, this truly immersive experience offers a new look into one of history’s defining moments, leaving us to marvel at human ingenuity and the impulse that led us to space.

U | 93 mins | 2019
Director: Todd Miller

Image Credit: NASA

Famalam: Zoom-In Cinema

A marvellous MoonFest edition of Famalam’s popular DIY Drive-In Cinema.

Little Astronauts between the ages of 3 – 8 had the opportunity to build their very own space vehicle using scrap and craft from Birmingham Scrapstore (ably supported by their accompanying adults and our magnificent MoonFest mechanics!) before taking off for a short inter-galactic parade and finally landing in MAC’s cinema to watch animated feature Capture The Flag.

A plucky twelve-year-old flies into space to stop an eccentric Texan billionaire from destroying the flag planted by the Apollo 11 crew in order to claim that he was the first person on the Moon.

U | 94 mins | 2015
Director: Enrique Gato
Cast: Amy González, Phillippa Alexander, Michelle Jenner, Marty Farr, Rasmus Hartiger

Word Lounge Theatre Company: Blast Off!

Working in collaboration with MAC and Little Earthquake, Word Lounge Theatre Company presented a newly devised performance piece inspired by the Moon landings.

Led by Women & Theatre in partnership with key theatre venues in Birmingham, Word Lounge Theatre Company provides exciting youth theatre opportunities for looked after young people, young carers and young people with additional needs, aged between 12 and 18.

Image Credit: Women & Theatre / Word Lounge

Supersonic: Kids’ Gig MoonFest Edition

Supersonic Kids’ Gigs are big sounds for little people, and aim to introduce children to experimental music. This special MoonFest edition took place as part of the 15th Supersonic Festival.

Led by extra-terrestrial Paddy Steer, this Kids’ Gig was a wild and adventurous voyage into the unknown realms of music and art, erring on the frontiers of chaotic expression and blunder. From behind an array of stacked musical instruments Paddy gargled through a vocoder with his xylophone, all a-clatter under disco lights and doilies. Space exploration fancy dress was strongly recommended!

To Infinity And Beyond…

Dressed in fabulous 1960s fashions and armed with vintage equipment (temperamental typewriters and giant notepads), a team of writers were installed at MAC for a live literary experiment — but they couldn’t do it without the public’s help!

Over the course of two days, they were ready and waiting to hear ideas about what the world might be like in the near or distant future, and the way the public thought we’d be living, decades, centuries or thousands of years from now. 

From fears about climate change and civilisations in collapse, through to dreams of domestic robots and new nations among the stars, the writers had just one rotation of the Moon (namely, one day!) to come up with brand new sci-fi short stories inspired by the public’s visions for the shape of things to come.

Image:
Inventor Allyn Hazard tests a prototype space suit in the Mojave Desert, California, sometime in the early 1960s. The suit was made by the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation (later known as Grumman Aerospace Corporation, and then as Northrup Grumman), and was intended for use in NASA’s Apollo Moon landing program. Credit: NASA

The Right Stuff

Before Philip Kaufman brought Tom Wolfe’s book The Right Stuff to cinemas in 1983, onscreen astronauts were little more than asteroid bait. In Kaufman’s hands, however, spaceflight became a far more human pursuit — a story of resolve and dedication to an inspirational cause.

Telling the story of test pilots like Chuck Yeager (Sam Shepard) and Gordon Cooper (Dennis Quaid) as they break the sound barrier and launch toward the exosphere, The Right Stuff is effectively a prequel to the Apollo 11 mission and an origin story for NASA, showing how a group of men risked their lives to be the highest above the Earth anybody had ever been, and laying the groundwork for Neil Armstrong and company to set foot on the Moon.

It’s both an exceptional piece of cinema and a rousing tribute to what humanity can achieve through shared intelligence and courage.

15 | 185 mins | 1983
Director: Philip Kaufman
Cast: Ed Harris, Scott Glenn, Dennis Quaid

Exit Productions Ltd: The Mission — Occupy Mars

Human beings wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in the event of success.

You answered in your thousands. Perhaps it was testament to how bad things had gotten on Earth. Perhaps you have always been like this. Drawn to the horizon.

Time for one more giant leap. You are colonising Mars and this is your chance to shape it in your image. A new world should have the chance for a new order. Or are the old ways set in stone no matter how far you go? Can you, the unwashed masses, run a world better than the 1%?

The Mission: Occupy Mars was a live game played between 50 people. Participants had to work together to survive on the hostile landscape they now called home, while Earth tore itself apart.

With the world’s space agencies now turning their attention to the Red Planet, this was a perfect way to bring MoonFest to a future-facing close.

Image Credit: Exit Productions Ltd

Space Camp: Out Of This World

In this 4-day space camp with artist Claire Leggett, participants made a whole universe, complete with planets, space stations, rocket ships and alien worlds.

Participants explored visual art, design and craft making skills in a range of 2D and 3D techniques inspired by science and space, working collaboratively to create an immersive exhibition of their work.

Splashdown

At 12.50pm Eastern Standard Time on 24th July 1969, a metal cone drifted down on its candy-striped parachutes to make one small splash in the remote Pacific Ocean — and to send one giant ripple around a world which would never be the same again. 

At 4.50pm Co-ordinated Universal Time on 24th July 2019 — exactly half a century after Apollo 11’s legendary liquid landing — MoonFest came to a close with a specially commissioned film which took audiences on a whistle-stop tour of the events, activities and people that came together to make the last nine days such a unique and unforgettable experience.

Image: The Apollo 16 Command Module approaching splashdown in the central Pacific Ocean to conclude its mission. Onboard are John W. Young (Commander), Thomas K. Mattingly II (Command Module Pilot), and Charles M. Duke Jr. (Lunar Module Pilot). Credit: NASA

Launch Intervention

At 9.32am Eastern Standard Time on 16th July 1969, Apollo 11 blasted off on the beginnings of its fantastic voyage — with close to a million people gathered around Kennedy Space Centre to witness the liftoff for themselves. At 1.32pm Coordinated Universal Time on 16th July 2019 — exactly 50 years later to the very minute — MoonFest officially launched with a specially commissioned film which welcomed the public to the festival and looked at what lay ahead over the next nine days.

Image:
On 16 July 1969, the 363-feet tall Saturn V rocket launches on the Apollo 11 mission from Pad A, Launch Complex 39, Kennedy Space Center, at 9:32 a.m. EDT. Onboard the Apollo 11 spacecraft are astronauts Neil A. Armstrong (Commander), Michael Collins (Command Module Pilot) and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. (Lunar Module Pilot). Credit: NASA

Tiny Light Theatre: The Paper Moon

A gentle first adventure into theatre for babies, very young children and their grown-ups. Welcome to the small town of Blank Page — come and meet its two inhabitants! As they explore their paper-y world, they take the audience along with them on a scrinchy scrunchy crinkly journey to the Moon and back.

Image Credit: Tiny Light Theatre

Noctium: Hymns For Robots

In a small house’s loft, packed in hundreds of cereal boxes, lies the life’s work of Delia Derbyshire — the unsung genius behind the Doctor Who theme tune and trailblazer of electronic music. A unique tale about the mother of modern music using strange sounds and weird wobbulations, Hymns For Robots is a sonic experience your ears won’t believe.

Image Credit: Noctium

Moon Museum

Get six famous artists to make six new works of art. Shrink them together onto a tile the size of a micro SIM card. Sneak it onto a rocket. Land it on the Moon. And leave it there.

That’s exactly what happened in 1969, or so the story goes. This tiny Moon Museum was the world’s first piece of Space Art. And it was time for history to repeat itself.

Community groups across the city collaborated with visual artist Deniz Sözen to create six brand new pieces of art inspired by the Moon landing — and we brought them together to create our very own Moon Museum for 2019.

The public could view this teeny tiny treasure through our special Moon Magnifier, and also discover the story behind each of the six mini-masterpieces.

Image:
A copy of the Moon Museum which was smuggled to the Moon onboard Apollo 12.
 Clockwise from upper left, the artworks are by Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, David Novros, John Chamberlain, Claes Oldenburg and Forrest Myers.
 Credit: Tampa Museum of Art

Moonstone Jewellery

Participants created textured silver moon pendants embellished with moonstones, guided by jewellery designer and maker Vanessa Miller.

As part of the workshop, participants learned a variety of traditional jewellery making skills and techniques including how to develop a design from paper to practice, along with piercing, filing, soldering, stone-setting and texturing.

Image Credit: Vanessa Miller

Clayground Collective: Crater Formations

Clayground Collective invited members of the public to roll up their sleeves, feel the soft squish of raw clay and use the limitless power of their imagination to sculpt an epic lunar landscape! 

Over the course of the festival, two tonnes of clay were transformed into a collective ever-evolving sculpture: a massive moonscape filled with planets and asteroids, spaceships and astronauts.

Image Credit: Clayground Collective

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

NASA and Star Trek have been connected, both directly and indirectly, since Star Trek: The Original Series premiered in September 1966, and numerous astronauts have said that Star Trek inspired them to want to go into space. So it seems entirely appropriate for the USS Enterprise’s very first big screen adventure to screen during MoonFest, a wondrous journey through the cosmos that culminates with a final storyline twist linked to NASA’s own space programme.

When an unidentified alien destroys three powerful Klingon cruisers, Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) returns to the newly transformed USS Enterprise to take command. Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley and the cast from the acclaimed original Star Trek television series mobilise at warp speed to stop the alien intruder from its relentless flight towards Earth.

U | 132 mins | 1979
Director: Robert Wise
Cast: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy

Girls Can Be Astronauts Too!

An interactive performance workshop with theatre-maker Hannah Graham, exploring Moon-tastic movement, magical play and out-of-this-world music against the backdrop of Lapworth Museum of Geology’s collection of stones from space.

Image Credit: Hannah Graham

Craft Workshop: Space Junk Jet Pack

Little Astronauts aged 3 – 10 were invited to create their very own jet pack made out of space junk, before shooting off for an intergalactic adventure around Cannon Hill Park, guided by their very own trusty inventor, visual artist Claire Leggett.

From The NASA Archive

With 91% of the UK population owning a TV set by 1969, more people than ever before were able to keep up with the progress of Apollo 11’s epic mission from the comfort of their very own homes. Television cameras were on hand to capture some stellar moments in the Space Race story — but there’s also a very special behind-the-scenes angle that these big-scale broadcasts often missed. 

We set ourselves the pleasurable task of sifting through more than six decades of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s unparalleled online archive. From this great galaxy of material, we assembled a rolling programme of footage and images which offered some fascinating, rarely seen and little known perspectives on the Moon landings and the people who made them happen. 

Alongside these hidden treasures, we also shared some of the most iconic and celebrated views of the Apollo 11 mission and the public responses to this landmark moment in human history.

Image:
Suit Technician Joe Schmitt helps Apollo 11’s Command Module Pilot Michael Collins into his suit prior to launch. Credit: NASA

LYNNEBEC and Lapworth Museum of Geology: It Came From Outer Space!

As a special treat for MoonFest, we were granted exclusive permission to boldly go where (almost) nobody had gone before — behind the scenes at the Lapworth Museum of Geology. 

A theatrical guided tour, led by Birmingham-based company LYNNEBEC, which lifted the lid on some of Lapworth’s most prized specimens. Audiences were invited to step through to a rarely glimpsed space, lined with magical moving shelves, all packed with marvels from deep underground and some stunning extra-terrestrial treasures.

Image:
A sample of olivine basalt collected from the surface of the Moon by the crew of Apollo 15. Sample not on display at Lapworth. Credit: NASA

Workshop: Moonstruck

A workshop led by visual artist Benny Semp. Young Explorers aged 6 – 11 began by learning how previous artists have been inspired by the Moon and the different ways in which the Moon has been depicted in art. They then created their very own Moon masterpieces, including painting, prints and sculptures.

Image Credit: Midlands Arts Centre

Workshop: Lunarama

A drama camp with theatre maker Jane English. Participants explored how to create Moon-inspired theatre and discovered inventive ways to use light and shadow within a performance.

Image Credit: Midlands Arts Centre

Workshop: Make A Space Communicator

Beam me up Scotty! Young inventors were invited to design and make a space ‘widdlywhip’ communicator complete with sound recording technology and 3D printed alien in this two-day course with designer James Hannam.

This course introduced young learners to invention, design, coding and 3D printing within a creative and playful environment.