The year 2024 marks the beginning of Octavia E. Butler’s trailblazing 1993 science fiction book Parable of the Sower, from the Earthseed trilogy. In light of this important moment in time, artists Müge Yılmaz and Anna Hoetjes have initiated Taking Root Among the Stars. Emerging and expanding from the legacy of Butler’s work, this exhibition marks a year when the future became the present became the past.
By bringing together the work of artists and writers who use science fiction not only as a theme in their work but also as a speculative worldbuilding tool to critique the society we live in, this exhibition proposes different social realities, alternative futures, and communal relations to nature. Through an interdisciplinary exploration of feminist, trans, queer, decolonial, science fiction literature, the artists in this exhibition write themselves into the future(s) they want to see.
As a platform for exchange at the intersection of art, literature, ecology, science, and activism, Taking Root Among the Stars claims speculation and its feminist possibilities by embracing what Walidah Imarisha calls ‘visionary fiction’. This form of fantastical writing helps us imagine new just worlds and affirms that marginalised groups hold the knowledge that allows them to bring into being more radically imaginative futures. Through works that are platforms of exchange in and of themselves, the exhibition holds space for processes of worldbuilding by initiating dialogue, reflection, and interaction with the audience to help us imagine a radically different future—one we look forward to, one we don’t fear.
Specifically aimed at providing a platform for feminist, queer, Black diasporic, and decolonial practitioners, each work in this exhibition is a universe in itself, holding its own community. But like an interstellar system the orbits meet, they touch, they overlap. Reaching from the depths of the oceans to the edges of space, these environments are often looked at as new territories to mine and extract from, to exploit. But as environments we know very little about, they also open up space to imagine new worlds within. The works in this exhibition move across these territories—from oceanic queerness to Afrofuturistic super beings to a speculative satellite constructed for queer, post-colonial futures. As we make our way through a feminist science fiction library, explore a collective star map, and engage in a rewriting of the protocols of time, we hope to collectively embrace what we can make instead of what we can destroy.
The community program consists of workshops, reading groups, and gatherings that make visible the possibilities of making connections with speculative literature beyond imagination and theory. Through practical workshops on survival, in both our current political climate and in the environments that we inhabit, the public program aims to build, link, and sustain communities. By gathering to read and write together, to learn new skills, to listen and be in community with one another, the public program reinforces that the speculative is grounded in gaining tools for the future.
With works by AiRich, Black Quantum Futurism, Maartje Folkeringa, Anna Hoetjes, Adriana Knouf, Brittany Nelson, Ada M. Patterson, Sondi, Müge Yilmaz and Fei Yining.
The exhibition was preceded by Gathering Earthseed, a full-day gathering about feminist science-fiction and the legacy of Octavia E. Butler on July 20th, with a panel conversation, workshops, a ritual and a collective dinner.
Learn more about the participating artists and exhibition in the handout of Taking Root Among The Stars.
This exhibition is generously supported by Gieskes-Strijbis Fund, Mondriaan Fund, Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, het Cultuurfonds, Fonds 21, The Netherland-America Foundation, Buro Stedelijk and Oedipus Brewing.
Colophon
Initiated by Müge Yılmaz and Anna Hoetjes. At W139, we work collectively and intersectionally on exhibitions—guided and led by the initiating artists that we invite.
This exhibition has been developed by the artistic team, with Margarita Osipian leading the process, together with Tomas Adolfs, André Avelãs, Dana Claasen, Phil Compernolle, Levi van Gelder, Dil Ghale, Arthur Jules, Geer van der Klugt, Izzy Lee, Macarena Magaña, Claudio Ritfeld, Tiago Sá da Costa, and Annette Wolfsberger.
Visual Identity: Sheona Turnbull
This exhibition is generously supported by: Gieskes-Strijbis Fund, Mondriaan Fund, Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, het Cultuurfonds, Fonds21, The Netherland-America Foundation, and Oedipus Brewing. Our partners: Buro Stedelijk, IMC Weekendschool, Kunsthaus Graz, SAWA Foundation and San Serriffe.
A special thank you to: Brigitte van der Sande, Rita Ouédraogo, Hana Nina Hussein, Marly Pierre-Louis, Fiep van Bodegom, and everybody who has been part of building the community and discourses around this exhibition.
