Reflecting on human time-scales, alongside the deep time of the universe, this project explores possible inclusive futures via world-building and speculative art practices, while consciously avoiding the replication of colonial models. Ultimately, the project questions what kinds of new worlds can be created and what kind of rules these worlds will have to follow.  

Informed by Donna Haraway’s Speculative Fabulations this exhibition looks towards cosmologies and ecosystems for inspirations, answers, and prophecies. Exploring practices that are speculative rather than empirically scientific, it reflects on the limits of human knowledge of our own planet, alongside humankind’s increasing desire to extend itself to neighbouring planets and planetary systems

In very recent years on the human time-scale, we have witnessed multiple moon landings, frequent image flow from Mars and the neo-colonial ambitions of a small number of billionaires. This project shifts the perspective towards non-privileged humans, nonhumans, biomes and Martian life forms in order to reflect on space colonisation and planetary time.

Looking back through millennia, the project imagines the births and deaths of planets, the creation of the cosmos, the universe, and our home the earth. Looking forward, the project speculates on how other worlds are being explored or created, and questions if space really is humankind’s final frontier.

New and existing works – and the interaction between them – seek a deeper understanding of the origins of humankind in cosmological, geological and evolutionary terms that can serve to develop long-term evolutionary perspectives. Is humankind struggling in its capacity to face up to the existential crises it is facing? What can we learn from other life forms that have lived through similar extinction-threatening events? And will future generations be born into a habitable, sustainable world?

This project is supported by Arts Council Malta, the German Embassy Valletta and Pico Interactive, Inc.

Programme of Events:
Curator Chats | Antje Liemann, Margerita Pulè & Letta Shtohryn
The curators will be present for chats around the exhibition, offering you first-hand information and interesting insights into the works being exhibited.

Dates & Times:
Saturday 5 February 2022, 2pm – 5pm
Friday 18 February 2022, 7pm – 9pm
Saturday 19 February 2022, 2pm – 5pm

No registration required.

Demonstration of a Networked VR Artwork
For this exhibition, Letta Shtohryn created a networked VR installation that extends into an immersive experience. During the walkthrough, Letta will show visitors around in the VR world. Bring your own VR set | Experience the artwork yourself by bring your own VR set. The compatible VR sets are standalone VR sets with a refresh rate of over 90 HZ.

Dates & Times:
Saturday 5 February, 2pm – 5pm
Friday 18 February, 7pm – 9pm
Saturday 19 February, 2 – 5pm

No registration required.

Tentacular Dreaming | Performative Session by Maja Renn
Tentacular Dreaming is a workshop focused on dream embodiment and entanglement. In the first (online) session you will learn techniques for more conscious dreaming and dream-writing. During live sessions you will be invited to enter a dream mode through an embodied, performative process, inhabit ever-changing, collective dream landscapes and propose alternative narratives for more response-able futures.

Dates & Times:
Saturday 12th of February (ZOOM) – 19:30 – 21:00
Tuesday 15th February 2022 (Studio A, Spazju Kreattiv) – 13:00 – 16:00
Thursday 17th February 2022 (Studio A, Spazju Kreattiv) – 18:00 – 21:00

MAJA RENN, born in 1990 in Wrocław (PL) and based in Zürich (CH) is a visual and performance artist. Her ephemeral, constantly evolving video and performance works are minimalist, modular compositions intertwining movement, drawing, poetry and abstract objects. Playfully they underline, shift and erase boundaries, switch perspectives and set up new entanglements. In her work she is interested in post-anthropocentric ethics, embodied dreaming, tentacular thinking, interspecies response-ability and symbiotic modes of coexistence. Her work has so far been shown, among others, at the Schauspielhaus in Zürich (CH), Galeria Ul in Gdańsk (PL), Šopa Gallery in Košice (SK), Casa do Povo in São Paulo (BR), Showroom in Arnheim (NL), Villa Arson in Nice (FR) and Center of Contemporary Art in Tbilisi (GE).

Video Screening
The video screening is a satellite event orbiting the exhibition. It will approach the exhibition space to be seen with the naked eye on Friday the 11th.
The screening features a mixture of generative and lens based video works that explore the themes of consciousness, non-human symbiosis, postdigital life forms, cosmological unity and unstable landscapes. It includes works by 5 international media artists Anke Schiemann (DE), Ingrid K. Bjørnaali (NO), Kathrin Hunze (DE), Liudmila Siewerski (DE) and Robert Seidel (DE). Curated by Letta Shtohryn.

Dates:
Friday 11th, Saturday 12th & Sunday 13th February

No registration required.