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La Preponderancia de lo Pequeño

Taller Treinta

If all of humanity were to disappear, the world would regenerate to the rich equilibrium state that existed ten thousand years ago. If the insects were to disappear, the environment would collapse into chaos.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Edward O. Wilson

Not so much is said about them, about the loss of insect communities and how devastating this is for the vitality of ecosystems and their food chains. We are ignorant witnesses of the mass extinction of a variety of species as a consequence of human practices focused on economic growth, toxic industrial agriculture, habitat destruction based on progress.


Today we will look at the problem through the systemic and empathic lens proposed by T30, where, making use of technological and poetic resources, we call on you to reflect on the human-insect interspecies relationship through the analysis of some specific cases.


The pieces arise from a collaborative work process, the result of the desire to not only witness but accompany the problems that arise. With specific questions based on observations and empirical processes, we explore possibilities through artifacts, imagination and fiction.


Ours is a sympoietic work process that allows exchanges from different ways, languages and perspectives, achieving as a result a group of pieces that interconnect, diverge and elaborate from a shared initial point.


Through the change of scales our perception is sharpened, we are invited to pause and look at what we do not see, we are allowed to listen to the tiny voices that would normally go unnoticed, to witness the conversation between two insects, one appreciated by humanity and one repudiated by her, to finally understand that in both cases human attention has a devastating effect on the species.


Speculative fiction is an important resource in this exhibition, which imagines solutions to real tragedies, such as the construction of a bridge made of mycelium to reconnect the interrupted path of all the small species after the construction of a massive road distributor that did not consider them in her project. The proposal is a first step towards healing what is a huge wound in the mountain and in the life cycles and migration of the fauna that inhabits it.


Another possibility is to create an immersive experience through a listening space that gives way to contemplation, with the purpose of nourishing the imagination from the voice of an arthropod.


Finally, a response to the potential disappearance of a species. Fireflies practically extinct in our environment. The piece proposes a simulation of these beings in captivity, which results in an evocation as nostalgic as it is sinister.


We want this process to lead us to conversations about how to live in a more respectful way, valuing all other species as much as humans.


Meanwhile, life asks with patient urgency to be taken care of.

1-sympoiesisis a term coined by Donna Haraway to define the action of "doing with others", doing in accompaniment.

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