November 9, 2023–March 31, 2024
Power Station of Art / 14th Shanghai Biennale Cosmos Cinema, Shanghai

Exo-Ecologies responds to the likelihood that humans will soon become an interplanetary species. Yet the fact that the first extraterrestrial “colony” will almost certainly be planted by a “pioneering” corporate enterprise, means this endeavor will be a continuation of the worst earth-based imperialist and extractivist histories.

Taking the form of an alternative launch site this monumental installation honors and mourns the many nonhuman life forms who died in space to pave the way for humans, beginning with the fruit flies that were, in 1947, the first earthbound species to leave its atmosphere. They were, amongst others, followed by monkeys, mice, dogs, soil, seeds, worms, tortoises and frogs, before Yuri Gagarin became the first human to enter space in 1961.

Before becoming an interplanetary species, Exo-Ecologies insists that we reappraise humanity’s responsibilities to the ecosystems in which it participates and recognize the contribution of nonhuman workers on, in, and above the earth. Hence the two central slogans of the work: Intra-planetary Solidarity (repair bonds across human and non-humans on earth), and Exo-Ecologies Unite (encounter other extraterrestrial ecosystems on radical egalitarian terms).

Exo-Ecologies is a second chapter to the longterm organizational art project Interplanetary Species Society