Opening Night: Terraforming

Join us for the opening night of Terraforming – on at TSV until August 25. Originating in science fiction, terraforming is a term that refers to the alteration of foreign environments in outer space in order to make them suitable to support human life. The term represents an outward horizon for colonialist projects of expansion and hegemony. In addition to political and social encroachment, terraforming can also be seen as a way to describe human encroachment onto the natural world. This exhibition directs attention to the process of terraforming found not only in the physical manipulation of environments, but also in the systems of thought shaped by language and culture that give order to society. These works re-position subjectivities to highlight their entanglement within their environments, and to critique current capitalist and machine-based systems that governs humans’ relationship with the land.

Featuring artists Melissa General, Kristina Guison, Trudy Erin Elmore, Anna Eyler, and Safiya Randera, this exhibition encounters Nature as a medium for creating options in relation to the established socio-economic order. From the physical movement of bodies from one place to another, through the regenerative qualities of fire and water; to expanded virtual landscapes and digital subjects; these artists engage with the elements of nature to alter, transfer, move, and reorganize established social systems or prescribed modes of thinking and acting. In resisting the naturalization of socio-political hegemonies, these works find in the earth the tools to rethink our histories and futures.