Lucia Monge: Space Potato Academy

September 2021 - May 2022

On March 2020, Xin Liu and Lucia Monge launched 150 Peruvian potato seeds into space, where they spent one month at the International Space Station. One year later, Lucia and a group of students from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School started training potatoes for a second journey, a speculative trip to the distant planet of Haumea.

Space Potato Academy began in early 2021 inviting 4th grade students to imagine why and how potatoes would travel to space. Each student received a potato and a booklet with drawing prompts. During bi-weekly and virtual meetings over the computer we talked, drew, and exchanged thoughts and information about potatoes and their destination—Haumea, a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt. The students designed ships that considered the type of mission and Haumea's conditions and topography. When designing spacesuits, the students considered the potatoes' entire lifecycle to accommodate the tubers' changing shapes during the long trip to Haumea. They were also inspired by the immense variety of patterns and colors found in potatoes to expand beyond astronauts' typical white suits.

This exhibition showcases some of the questions shared with the students and their beautiful and thoughtful responses. Throughout the term, the exhibition will keep expanding and incorporate more student images and ideas that reimagine space travel.

Lucia Monge is a Peruvian artist whose work focuses on relationships between different species, mainly between people and plants. She thinks of collaboration, sculpture, movement, and teaching as opportunities to learn from—and with—others, including humans, fungi, walking trees, climbing vines, and migratory ducks. Lucia has shown her work internationally, including at the Queens Museum, Whitechapel Gallery, Museum of Contemporary Art in Lima, and the United Nations Climate Change Conference.