No Water in the Moon Seas

2023, documentary poems, audio installation

The Moon, long perceived as a barren celestial body, paradoxically carries the poetic weight of seas — 43 named expanses that evoke emotional and philosophical states: the Sea of Dreams, the Sea of Clarity, the Sea of Crises. These names, first mapped by Italian scientists Giovanni Ciccioli and Francesco Grimaldi in 1652, emerged from a time when the Moon’s surface was imagined as fluid, holding the possibility of actual water. Though science later disproved this notion, the linguistic imprint remained, shaping a mythology of lunar landscapes where absence feels like presence.

In developing this work, we draw on archival materials from lunar expeditions, astronauts’ memoirs, and historical descriptions of the lunar seas — documents that reveal how scientific observation and imaginative projection have always intertwined. Ultimately, the lunar seas, despite their emptiness, embody a collective dream: the persistence of myths, the enduring human tendency to imbue the unknown with meaning.

authors: Yana Osman, Anton Khamchishkin
illustrations: Peco Barbe (Japan)



As part of the project, the album No Water in the Moon Seas was released