The first European Moon Village Center and the second globally — an interdisciplinary hub for space culture, governance and scientific outreach, based in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
Body -- religion -- calendar -- craft -- art -- space. Every phase the Moon has structured in human culture, rendered as one continuous cycle.
Modern chronobiology confirms what millennia of intuition suggested: circalunar rhythms are documented in human sleep, hormonal cycles and reproduction. Tidal cycles shaped the coastal ecosystems early communities depended on. The Moon's hold on the body is not metaphorical — it is physiological.
Every major religious tradition arrived, independently, at the Moon as the arbiter of its most sacred dates — Easter, Passover, Ramadan, Diwali, Vesak — and Bulgarian folk tradition times planting and healing rites by the same lunar phases. Every known ancient calendar, from Babylon to Mesoamerica, is lunar or lunisolar; the Lebombo bone, ~43,000 years old, is read by researchers as a tally of lunar cycles predating agriculture, writing and cities.
"Every rocket follows an impulse that art understood centuries ago."
MVC Bulgaria exists to hold that argument in one continuous programme — and to carry it, deliberately, from Plovdiv back toward the Moon.
Culture asks why we go. Governance asks how we stay. Science asks what we find. The Center holds all three together.
The impulse to return to the Moon is older than any rocket. We position art and public engagement at the centre of the space conversation — not as illustration, but as the medium through which humanity's relationship with the Moon is most fully expressed.
Sustainable presence on the Moon requires governance frameworks that account for culture, heritage and equity — not only engineering and economics. We contribute to that dialogue through research, policy briefs and active participation in international processes.
We connect Bulgaria's research ecosystem with the global lunar agenda, translating scientific work into public knowledge and building regional capacity where access to established space fora has been limited.
The panel advances a central proposition: that the Moon is humanity's primordial temporal regulator, the origin of the calendar, and the organiser of sacred time across civilisations. The drive to return to the Moon is not purely technological — lunar art is the most honest expression of why humanity wants to go back.
View on IMD 2026 ↗Hosted at the Episcopal Basilica of Philippopolis (23 Feb – 15 Mar 2026), MoonBound was curated and designed by Moon Gallery Foundation, featuring the work of 50+ artists from its global network. Our role was local production and execution of the communication plan. Financed by the Ministry of Culture of Bulgaria.
The accompanying publication included contributions from Christopher Cokinos, Chair of MVA's Cultural Considerations Working Group. The programme also featured children's educational workshops, a jazz performance event, a podcast episode and a live broadcast.
| Institution | Role | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Moon Gallery Foundation | Space art exhibitions; 50+ artist network | Confirmed |
| Radix Lucis Studio | Innovation partner; space art & commercial space tech | Confirmed |
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