HUNDREDS of carbon footprints made by visitors to the Dorset Moon event will combine to create two large scale artworks with an environmental message.

Dorset Moon, is a county-wide celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first lunar landing. The arts spectacle starring Luke Jerram’s monumental Museum of the Moon installation, is being staged at Bournemouth, Sherborne and Weymouth. There will be a supporting programme of cultural experiences at each site including a collective drawing project called Pledge by local artist Carrie Mason at Bournemouth and Weymouth.

Inspired by astronaut Neil Armstrong’s famous words, she is inviting audiences to take ‘one small step’ and pledge to do something that will reduce their carbon footprint, then make a giant leap and leave their carbon footprints on the canvas before placing their pledges in a basket.

“Luke Jerram’s moon is made up of incredible NASA imagery of the moon’s surface,” says Carrie. “It’s literally out of this world, but NASA imagery of Earth is also being used to show us what we are doing to our own planet – we can see the effects of the melting ice caps and deforestation. I wanted to turn Neil Armstrong’s words on their head and make them about Planet Earth.”

Pledge will begin at 4.17pm, the time that Apollo 11’s lunar module landed on the moon on Sunday, June 30 at Dorset Moon in Bournemouth Gardens and at the same time at Nothe Forte near Weymouth on July 14. In each location a 3m x 10m canvas will be spread out beneath the moon. Each performance will last 117 minutes, the length of time man walked on the moon. See dorsetmoon.com for full details.