The lab with students at the Rome Liceo Virgilio is based on “Red Hope,” a work by artist Leonardo Petrucci, who weaves handmade carpets that reproduce the Martian surface as photographed by the NASA Curiosity Rover.

“The common educational objective,” explains the artist, “is to raise questions on a possible future colonisation of Mars and examine our existential responsibility with respect to Planet Earth.”

Students will use Epson Moverio glasses to visualise an augmented projection of Mars and develop the final work. Sheets will be folded according to the Origami tradition to create a complex geometrical solid, the rhombic dodecahedron, that will substitute Mars’ spherical shape, but respect its photographed surface. Each page corresponds to one of the shape’s twelve faces and will be attached to the others without using scotch or glue.