An Assembly for the Cosmos

Curator: Antoine Bertron

Artists: Marcela Armas & Gilberto Esparza, Tabita Rezaire, Skawennati, Suzanne Treister & Patricia Domínguez, Jesse Tungilik

With the powerful influence of the private sector and the resurgence of grand national ambitions, the prospect of space colonization—as described in the rhetoric of industry magnates—seems increasingly prominent and inevitable. It is therefore imperative to understand the origins of these formative imaginaries and to grasp the vast array of alternative relationships with the cosmos that they obscure. Thus, the enrichment of worldviews and the amplification of anti-colonial and non-extractivist perspectives, for the building of shared, sensitive, and plural futures, are becoming increasingly urgent. An Assembly for the Cosmos seeks to raise the following questions: How can we bring forward imaginaries, sociocultural singularities, and ancestral, Indigenous, communal, and non-human knowledge in our relationships with the cosmos? By re-centering these ontologies and planetary sensibilities through contemporary art, is it possible to establish an assembly for the cosmos grounded in intra- and interplanetary solidarities?