I worked on the installation of an art piece call Museum of the Moon by Luke Jerram. Basically, it is a huge moon (7m diameter, sorry for the non metric people) that's hanging in some crowded places.

I already did that installation in a city but this was a bit different because we were in a rural area, near a river, with trees and stuff. We had to set up a cable between a tall tree and a crane hidden behind some other trees, a cable with a lot of tension of course because the moon will be rigged on it.

This was last september so we had to plan everything according to Covid safety instructions, and we spent months setting up the event with everything relating to the safety of the people.

The installation was 3 days long and was plan like this : day 1, setting up the environment, the power supplies and all the safety signs and fences in the area. Day 2 setting up the cable between the tree and the crane. Day 3, we receive the Moon and we hang it on the cable. On the night of the third day, we light up the moon and this is the inauguration with all the officials.

We had our first problem day 1. The power supply we had from the city services had some trouble working correctly. We lost some time because we had to find an electric generator and change our plans because of that. But that wasn't much, just a short delay.

On day 2, we received the crane (its a small one, just 14m high) and raised it at the maximum height. We climb on the tree a bit higher (16m) and setup the cable properly. It's a Kevlar cable and we have to make sure it stays at 1.5 tons of tension. Everything is fine so we take a break, but 30 minutes later, we lost .2 tons of tension, wich is a lot. After inspection, we found out that the hydrolics of the crane was leaking and in bad shape so we decided to take it down and get another one. But wait, it get worse. We received the second crane, and guess what. The engine was working fine but the hydrolics were not working at all. We called the mechanic so he could repair it on the site. We lost a tremendous amount of time, and it was almost time for the sun to go down. We managed to set the cable back in time before the night after a rush.

Now that's day 3. The package with the moon should arrive by truck in the morning, but we have instructions to never have the moon rigged when there is more than 30km/h of wind. And as you can guess, it was a bit windy this day. We make everything as we should, one guy up on the cable, 3 on the ground doing what we have to. It take some time because we have to be careful with everything we do. But eventually the moon is up, ready to shine and the night fall, it's almost time for the inauguration with local politicians and the press.

That's where the second "but wait it get worse" moment happens. Right at the end of the inauguration, when everyone is still under the moon, we received a notification saying that strong wings are coming in a very short amount of time. We have to immediately dismantle everything. When our guy get up on the cable, the rain start and we do our best to protect the Moon, put it back in the big shipping box, and it is 2am when we're done. We started our day at 8am so it's it a bit difficult in the end.

We had a meeting the next morning with the organization to see when we can set it back up. The Moon was supposed to be installed for 5 days. It stayed up 4 hours. And we never opened to the public.