The 2027 Lunar Arts Award exhibition features artworks by UNM students that celebrate the moon’s enduring influence on artistic expression. Guided by a simple question —What will the moon inspire you to make? —the exhibition brings together works by artists of diverse cultural backgrounds and disciplines that span mediums ranging from printmaking to animation.
Five selected projects will each receive a $900 artist stipend and will be exhibited at the UNM Art Museum in April 2027.
This year’s projects are intimate in scale and experience, reverent in tone, and deeply engaged in process and materiality. Ranging from textiles to ceramics to paper lanterns, they grapple with the moon’s ineffable nature as a subject—one that feels deeply familiar yet remains impossible to fully represent. Others commemorate its place in cherished cultural practices and traditions, including those that have started to wane. Made in honor of the moon, they demonstrate its enduring ability to inspire.
The five student artists were selected from nearly 40 applications by a panel of UNM faculty, staff, and students representing a range of disciplines. Submissions were evaluated on artistic merit, originality of concept, feasibility, potential to spark audience discourse about the moon, and ability to bridge art and science.
We are pleased to announce the five recipients of the 2027 Lunar Arts Award and their selected projects:
Aniol Barris Cornet
La lluna en un cove (something impossible)
Lana Nguyen
Moon Knows Best
Gulsoom Ismail
A Piece of the Moon
Lydia Hamilton
Apollo Through the Looking Glass
Sofia Leyba
River glass
The 2027 Lunar Arts Award is sponsored by the Center for Advanced Sample Analysis of Astromaterials from the Moon and Beyond (CASA Moon), UNM Art Museum, and ARTSLab.
