Speculative Land
Project description
As a response to the challenge to envisage alternative futures and different social formations in times of climate emergency, growing social crisis and pandemic, this work takes what is available and reorganises and rearticulates pre-existing elements to propose new entangled relations and alternative realities. Through the action of stealing natural resources from different countries’ coats of arms, this work generates a digital visual archive for plants, animals and people available now for the creation of new emblems. The aim is to freely reorganise the different elements to question the supposed different species’ economic, racial, and gender roles and thinking in alternative articulations beyond the perception of the land, water, and people as resources or commodities.
The virtual realm offers space for infinite combinations. This project, however, carried out just a few and turned them into flags. More banner and flags are in their way as this project intends to expand and develop an open-access existence for this project for future collective participation.
Response to the inability to envisage alternative futures or imagining alternative social formations and futures.
– Stealing natural resources from sovereign states’ emblems: water, mountains, plants, animals and people
– Collect and display different elements and species, enabling free reorganization and entangled connections.
– What is the best territory/space/habitat for hosting this new way of organising?
– Creation of new emblems as a result of the previous actions. Design and manufacture of a flag.
– Creating a digital depository/ open-access digital resource for all the elements stolen from the national emblems.
PROCESS
Stolen mountains:
Stolen plants:
Animals:
PEOPLE:
FABRIC TEST
Multispecies Banner
Digital print on fabric.
Animals Flag
Digital print on fabric.
Multispecies Print Test
Prints:
Hand Embroidered flag.