Let's continue the space thread that started last week by looking at some art installations about this theme currently on display at the 58th International Art Exhibition in Venice.
In the Central Pavilion at the Giardini you will be able to see Halil Altındere's "Space Refugee". The Turkish artist has often focused in his work on social themes such as the global refugee crisis.
In "Space Refugee" he explores the life of Muhammed Ahmed Faris, Syria's first and only cosmonaut. Faris travelled to the Mir space station with a Soviet team in 1987 and was considered as a national hero. Yet, when Faris became a supporter of the opposition movement against Assad, he was forced to leave the country and now lives as a refugee in Istanbul.
The installation looks like a traditional educational display from a science museum, with a bust of Faris and other assorted informative visuals, but technology and science clash in this corner of the Central Pavilion as the display also features a video in which Faris recounts his journey out of Syria and speaks with other refugees about the possibilities of returning to their home country. With this installation Altındere launches a provocation, suggesting to resettle refugees from Syria on Mars. The installation is accompanied by a video about life on Mars for the space refugees, while another video features interviews with a lawyer, an architect and scientists from NASA about the possibility of starting a refugee colony in space.
Turn a corner and walk along a short dark corridor from Altındere's installation and you will find yourself on Mars, or rather in front of a diorama of the red planet. This is a representation of a space landscape by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster in collaboration with artist Joi Bittle.
Gonzalez-Foerster often takes inspiration from speculative fiction for her works. In the past she moved from Adolfo Bioy Casares' "A Plan for Escape" novel to create an imaginary landscape of palm trees, rose bushes and lava rock, but for this Venice installation the artist looked at the global climate crisis and at life on Earth, and combined this inspiration with Leigh Brackett's sci-fi novels and Ray Bradbury's "The Martian Chronicles" (1950). The result was "Cosmorama" (2018), a painted background with sculpted elements, rocks and sand. Visitors can look at this landscape and wonder what it would be like living on Mars or they could maybe stop and ponder a bit about the future of planet Earth, as this scary, disquieting and inhospitable burnt landscape locked behind glass could become our future if we don't take drastic action now.
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