Art, postcolonialism, outer space… in my old stomping grounds of Quito! What I would give to be able to go! (The accompanying photo is my own, of the Quito skyline in 1999 when I studied there…)
From the “Art in Orbit” website:
Centro de Arte Contemporaneo de Quito, Ecuador
07.03.15 – 06.06.15
Curators : Pedro Soler, Fabiane Borges
“I’m just a Refugee.. Who tried hard to stand up to become as any human in this world.. is to dream better future.” Aysha J. Sal’ous, Palestinian Space Agency
Since immemorial times outer space has been a place for the production of imaginaries, mythologies, research, observation and social organization. Space has always structured our societies, and now more than ever when the satellites are the infrastructure of a hegemonic capitalism, imposing speed and compression to the planet. Space research is thus a fertile, and necessary, field for artistic and technical intervention.
The exhibition shows artworks of artists and collectives from the peripheries – installations, agencies and artworks – with a clear postcolonial perspective. Quito was already a center of astronomical observation in pre-Hispanic times so the exhibition connects contemporary technologies and imaginations of space to traditional knowledge and techniques.
The reading room features a selection of films that portray our relationship with space since the beginning of the twentieth century and texts that permit us to broaden our understanding. Practical research workshops involve the public.
“The observation of day and night, of the rotation of months and years, of the equinox and solstice, is the origen of the invention of number, and has given us the notion of time and the study of the natural world, from which we have derived all philosophy, so no greater favor has been done or ever will be done than the gift of the sky. ” Plato, Timaeus.
