Looking Back at Earth

Space and art may not seem like an obvious pairing at first. Space exploration is a highly scientific activity, requiring carefully planned missions, while art is free and creative, not bound by any rules. But the two actually have a lot in common: both leave known terrain to make sense of humanity within the larger scheme of things.

In fact, space and art have long inspired each other. Astronauts have turned to art to process what they saw and felt in space. Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean, the fourth person to walk on the Moon, left NASA to become a full-time painter. His works capture lunar landscapes and views of Earth from space. Bean even used moon dust and pieces from the Apollo spacecraft as materials. Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, in 2013, covered David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” the famous story of Major Tom, an astronaut who loses contact with Earth and drifts alone in space. The video, recorded aboard the International Space Station, shows Hadfield and a guitar floating through the space ship.

At the same time, artists have always looked to the sky and brought the cosmos into their work: from the Dunhuang Star Map, one of the oldest surviving hand-painted star atlases, to Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night (1889). In 1968, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey redefined the visual depiction of space. The film, in turn, is said to have inspired Bowie to write “Space Oddity.” Space agencies have actively promoted space art, too. NASA, for instance, has run an art program since 1962. One of the best-known works associated with it is Andy Warhol’s silkscreen print series Moonwalk (1987), based on a photograph of astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the Moon.

“My fascination with the cosmos started when I was about ten years old,” says Mexican artist and musician Nahum. “My father bought Carl Sagan’s Cosmos series [a popular 1980 documentary in which the astronomer takes viewers on a journey through the universe] on VHS cassettes. I don’t remember much of the topics he was speaking about. But I remember that the music by Vangelis was beautiful and there was a lot of poetry in Carl Sagan’s words.”

Art was what brought Nahum closer to space. Today, his work bridges the two. In 2011, he founded the KOSMICA Institute, an organization that opens up discourse about the human relationship with the universe, space activities and their impact on Earth. KOSMICA is built on the belief that all of humanity has a shared stake in human activities beyond the planet we live on.

Initially, Nahum had no intention of bringing space into his professional life. Yet years after first watching Sagan’s work, it came back to him: while working at the National Center for the Arts in Mexico, he found the Cosmos DVD series on a colleague’s desk. “I think that’s how it all started again,” the artist, who currently lives in Berlin, Germany, remembers.

Nahum’s own artistic practice, ranging from performance to music to writing and beyond, seeks to challenge the way humans engage with the universe. In his performance art, for instance, he might take the audience on board a rocket on an imaginary space mission. “If there is a constant in the projects that I do, it is that I like to use extreme perspectives to look back at ourselves, to look back at our planetary home, with a fresh view that can help us understand things differently,” Nahum explains. Why? Because this can put humanity’s significance into perspective.

“The size and age of the cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home, the Earth. For the first time, we have the power to decide the fate of our planet and ourselves. This is a time of great danger. But our species is young and curious and brave. It shows much promise,” the optimistic Carl Sagan, radiating positivity, narrates in the first episode of the 1980 Cosmos series.

Nahum during a musical performance. Photo courtesy of the artist.

More than 45 years later, the view back at Earth shows that traces of humanity now extend beyond the planet we inhabit. “Earth’s orbital environment is a finite resource. Some of its orbits are getting crowded and increasingly churning with deadly, fast-moving pieces of defunct satellites and rockets that threaten our future in space,” the European Space Agency warns in its recently published 2026 Space Environment Report. The agency’s “Space Environment Health Index,” a score showing how sustainable our activities in orbit are, worsened roughly tenfold in 2025 alone.

Private company interest in space is larger than ever. In early 2026, Elon Musk’s SpaceX shifted its priority from Mars to building a city on the Moon, while Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, which has paused its space tourism business to focus on lunar missions, is among the companies contracted for NASA’s planned Moon base. As the world's richest men have entered a Moon race, the risk that extractivism and patriarchy will just transcend there is real.

While chairing the Arts and Culture Committee at the International Astronautical Federation in Paris, Nahum brought together artists to question the “copy-pasting” of some of these human practices on Earth to other planets. His efforts, however, were met with reluctance to “politicize” space. “We were talking about creating new worlds. How is that not a political act?” Nahum says. Through KOSMICA, the artist now creates a platform for exactly these discussions, using art to build a relationship with the universe that acts responsibly toward the Earth and human society.

Moonwalk (1987), by Andy Warhol.

Carl Sagan, who made astronomy accessible to a wider audience.

A galaxy spinning out of sync. Image: European Space Agency.

This is what art does: it challenges, informs, inspires. It lets us feel a deep connection, even with things we have not experienced ourselves, for reasons we may never fully understand. Sometimes, that connection is so strong that it affects how we perceive the world around us.

“For me space is not only the Moon or Mars. It’s this planet, too. It’s the sun setting,” Nahum says. “When they ask me, ‘Do you want to go to space?’ I say, ‘I am in space already and I’m in a wonderful place.’ I think space has enhanced my experience of this place that we live in."

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