Aerospace engineer-artist shares experience of sending some art to space via Moon Project
Aerospace engineer-artist shares experience of sending some art to space via Moon Project
A question that is often asked to Priyanka Das Rajkati is how does she step into the world of art and science. “People ask this question because we have been taught to think in one direction. We believe that we can only be this or that. I would not be happy like this,” says Priyanka, speaking to Saath Hindu Alliance Franchise in Hyderabad.
Although an aerospace engineer (Ph.D.) has studied several rocket launches, he never felt as ’emotionally invested’ as the Cygnus spacecraft launched on the NG Antares rocket (the NG-17 NASA Commercial Resupply Mission). The spacecraft took a little art in space. In February this year.
Organized by the Moon Gallery Foundation (curator Anna Sitnikova Elizaveta Glukhova), the Moon Gallery project is a prototype test payload with 65 small artworks (10x10x1 cm) by artists from around the world that went into space in February this year. The project will take place on the International Space Station for the next 10 months and is a precursor to sending a similar gallery to the Moon in a few years.
“The main point of the project is to send a small gallery to the Moon to remind people not to forget the cultural aspects of their existence; it was a technical challenge for the artists to fit their work into a small size such as a 1-centimeter cube.” to be able to,” she says. Her artwork ‘Bhedadipika – A Depiction of Duality’ consists of two objects: a strip of paper coated with phosphorescent ink with the hand-drawn phases of the moon, written in Indian and European languages. Gone with the word ‘moon’ (which are important to preserve) and a 4Gb nanochip containing artistic simulations coded using software.
Priyanka Das Rajkakati | photo credit: special arrangement
‘Bhedadeepika’ depicts duality and is inspired by the ‘struggle’ of the desire to pursue both art and science since childhood. In school, she excelled in science and math and was this ‘weird girl’ to win competitions in the arts. Growing up in Delhi, Priyanka, a French national with roots in Assam, credits her parents Manoj Kumar Das and Dr. Ajanta Barua Das for instilling in her a love of learning.
Artistic expression also helped when she would rebel against being called names because of her race or when her protective but otherwise generous parents would not allow her to go out on nights with friends.
She joined the National Institute of Design in 2010, but left midway to pursue her graduation in physics from St. Stephen’s in Delhi. She then moved to France to study Artificial Intelligence and Aerospace Engineering at the cole Polytechnique. “There I made friends and got a lot of opportunities to explore my interest in space and slowly go from ‘Oh, I’m like those kids who dream of being astronauts’ to ‘Oh, I really want to be one. I can.”
Life took a different turn when she experienced death at the age of 25. With parents and friends instrumental in her recovery, she started her Ph.D. She remembers, “I started to appreciate my parents and friends more and also grew as a person. I started living for the day.” This was also the phase where she was ‘less devoted to pure science only’ and more inclined towards the arts. Three years ago, she met a group of artists working on sending artifacts into space for the Moon project, and their idea was chosen. “As an artist, it is our duty to ask people to move away from the technical and financial aspects and to think of the global subject of humanity as a cultural creature. One cannot imagine that astronauts can experiment in space. Plus, if you’re just doing mechanical work in that tight space you go crazy. They’re human; They’re going to miss their family in space; They need entertainment and music too This artistic expression is very important to us as human beings.”
The Moon Gallery is also an opportunity to study scientifically what happens to material sent into space and how radiation, zero gravity, excess velocity and acceleration affect artifacts. “It was like a research project for artists to see how artwork reacts in space and something some of us might have to redesign based on the research.”
Her next step as an artist is to collaborate more with people in the arts for ‘a holistic space exploratory path’. “The younger generation is also falling under the pressure of going in only one direction. The interdisciplinary way of science is the way forward. Otherwise, we won’t have sustainable projects.”