Borghildur Indrida, SPACELAB - Into the Unknown, 2021
Artist: Borghildur Indrida
Curators: Gloria Aino Grzywatz and Peggy Schoenegge
Opening: June 4, 2021, 7-10 pm CEST
Artist Talk (InstaLive): June 10, 2021, 7 pm
Finissage: June 12, 2021, 7 pm
June 4 – 12, 2021 at Hošek Contemporary
The exhibition SPACELAB – Into the Unknown represents the starting point of the artistic project Artist on the Moon. Reflecting our role as humans within the solar system, Borghildur Indrida plans to be the first artist to fly to the moon, realizing an artistic performance in space.
The moon has always been an object of international interest. Since the 1950s, various countries have raced to land missiles and crews in order to be the first to gather information about the distant luminary. Major nations such as the United States, the former Soviet Union or China succeeded and explored small areas of the moon. As a symbol of conquest, they raised flags and removed moon rocks, asserting territorial claims.
These claims of power illustrate imperialist structures, which Borghildur Indrida explores and questions. Flying to the moon herself, the artist rejects nationalized interplanetary relations reminiscent of a colonial past. As an act of national disempowerment, she looks for a way of restitution by bringing back the moon stones to where they belong. In this process, patriarchal patterns within space exploration also become visible, which she deconstructs in equal measure. Borghildur Indrida occupies the supposedly male domain as a female artist and reinterprets it as an artistic space, breaking up structures of power.
SPACELAB - Into the Unknown creates a laboratory situation, which allows a comprehensive scientific consideration of Borghildur Indrida’s project. In a site-specific installation at the ship hold of Hošek Contemporary, visitors are immersed into the artistic discourse. The artist confronts us with fundamental questions of systems of power and ownership interests. What claims are being made in relation to unmanned territories? What hierarchies and systems emerge? How can women assert themselves within patriarchal structures? In the artist's peaceful gesture of restitution, the complexity and insanity of nationalized power relations clarify and remind us of our position in the solar system. With the gaze toward and the journey to the moon, the focus of our being is directed to the essential – an equalized, respectful and participatory society without exploitation.
