In the end, it just sort of happened, without fanfare or declaration. Last week, in a former industrial warehouse on London’s South Bank, a group of Moon-loving artists filled the vast rooms with photos, videos, installations and drawings inspired by Earth’s only natural satellite, and claimed the entire space as a lunar embassy.

Nobody at the opening party seemed sure about the precise time at which the ground beneath switched from terrestrial to lunar, but even the most bemused had to admit that the curators of the Republic of the Moon exhibition showed impeccable timing in raising the question of who owns Earth’s rocky neighbour.

More than 40 years after man last walked on the Moon – Eugene Cernan scratched his daughter Tracy’s initials into the dusty surface before bidding farewell – there is something of a lunar renaissance. China became the third nation after Russia and the US to touch down when it landed the rover Yutu, meaning “Jade rabbit”, in December. By 2017, the country hopes to be returning lunar samples to Earth. The plan is to have an orbiting Chinese space station staffed by taikonauts by 2020, the same deadline that India has set itself for landing its first astronaut.