The Challenge

A quilt and a space program have more in common than they appear to. Both are made of thousands of separate pieces, by many hands, over a long time, toward something none of those hands could produce alone.

Connecting the two was a good idea. But an idea is not a program. It needed an institutional home, a way for people across the country to take part, and a reason for them to bother.

 

What We Did

Hipsetter co-created the Lunar Quilts concept with Dr. Karen Nyberg following work with the National Quilt Museum, then brought the project to the Kennedy Center as part of its Earth to Space: Arts Breaking the Sky festival and secured the institutional partnership.

A prestigious venue does not produce national participation. We helped build the machinery underneath it - the curriculum, the participation model, the judging model - and then went directly to the people who would make the work: quilt guilds and educational communities, state by state.

 

Execution

The call invited students and artists to create quilt blocks inspired by NASA's Artemis campaign and the link between handwork, exploration, and human ingenuity.

Entries arrived from all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The finished quilts were exhibited at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. in 2025.

 

Impact

Full national participation, an exhibition at a flagship cultural institution, and a program documented well enough that another institution could run it.

The Lunar Quilts became the foundation for INTERWOVEN.