Veranstaltungen

Moon Museum: Curating Outer Space

International Conference
May 28–29, 2026
TU Wien

Downloads: Full Program , Conference Poster , Keynote Poster

Free registration: thomas.moser@tuwien.ac.at

As omnipresent as the universe is in the public imaginary, it constitutes a representational paradox: distorted space, warped time, twisted logic. Time and again, scientists, exhibition makers, and artists have grappled with the challenge of mediating the alterity of the cosmos our planet is embedded in. From space art to science fiction cinema, from documentaries to pulp fiction, from planetarium displays to museum dioramas, outer space—its landscapes, denizens, and infrastructures—has been invented and re-invented in myriad ways. This conference turns to the medium of display and considers outer space as a curatorial problem: we approach this field of inquiry from two angles, examining both how outer space was historically exhibited on earth, and how outer space itself has been conceived of as a site of exhibition.
Exhibits of outer space raise questions about how the cosmos was staged at various moments in time, how it mobilized colonial and imperial attitudes, how it served as a geopolitical arena, and how it projected different futures. Conversely, exhibitions in outer space compel us to rethink fundamental curatorial assumptions and categories: what is the meaning of ‘art’ in an extraterrestrial environment? What is a museum, an exhibit, a display without an audience? What might it mean to curate for a non-human or extraterrestrial audience? In bringing these two perspectives together, we seek to offer opportunities for critical reflection and speculative re-imagination of inquiries at the intersections of the cultural history of outer space and curatorial and museum studies.

Concept & Organization
Magdalena Grüner (USC Los Angeles)
Thomas Moser (TU Wien/NDU St. Pölten)

Public Keynote
May 28
6 pm, Festsaal, first floor, Karlsplatz 13
Barbara Imhof (University of Innsbruck/LIQUIFER)
Staging Space Futures: Architecture, Agency, and the Planetary Imaginary

Thomas Moser, Sabine Plakolm-Forsthuber, Harald R. Stühlinger (Hrsg.)

Dieser Sammelband gibt Architektinnen eine Stimme, die „OFF Stage“ arbeiten – jene, die im Schatten des Kanons oder an dessen Rändern tätig sind. Durch 27 kurze Biografien und eine Reihe wissenschaftlicher Essays präsentiert der Band globale, intersektionale und queerfeministische Perspektiven auf Architektur und Raum. Durch das Zusammenführen von Autor_innen aus verschiedenen Regionen und Karrierestufen entsteht eine kritische feministische Historiografie, die auf Vielfalt, Auseinandersetzung und die fortlaufende Neukonfiguration architekturhistorischer Narrative ausgerichtet ist.

This edited volume gives voice to women architects from the “OFF-Stage”, those working in the shadows of the canon or at its margins. Through 27 short biographies and a series of scholarly essays, it presents global, intersectional, and queer-feminist perspectives on architecture and space. Bringing together authors from a range of regions and career stages, the volume advances a critical feminist historiography attuned to multiplicity, contestation, and the ongoing reconfiguration of architectural history.