In South Africa, approximately 500,000 rapes, murders and beatings are committed against women every year.1 Many of these are carried out against black lesbian women, including hate crimes and practices of ‘corrective rape’.2 Zanele Muholi is a South African visual activist and creator of Inkanyiso, an activist platform that exposes the realities of black LGBTI individuals in South Africa. This month, she’s in New York as part of Brooklyn Museum’s Isibonelo/Evidence show, travelling with three… [read more »]
Preparing to Welcome the Chthulucene | Agustina Zegers
Preparing to Welcome the Chthulucene is a text made up of living exercises to accompany Haraway’s theorization of the Chthulucene and her upcoming book Staying With the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Haraway posits that not only should we name the Anthropocene carefully (including the terms Capitalocene and Plantationocene within its narrative) but that we should also be using this crucial ecological timeframe to move towards a dynamically multi-species, “sym-chtonic“, sym-poietic future: the Chthulucene. For this, she suggests embracing the transience of “human” influence and focusing instead on the importance of other terrans and their earthly survival.
The text is part of Agustina Zegers’ ongoing project of designing chthulu-friendly narratives, lifestyles and futures. You can suscribe to upcoming developments and chthulu-guidelines by e-mailing [email protected].
Preparing to Welcome the Chthulucene will be released under Chilean artist press Ediciones Popolet as an edition of 5 copies printed on acrylic. The publication will be available during September’s New York Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1. In the meantime, the text is available as a pdf.
⁂ vacation at your nearest microbial mat and/or landfill. if possible, commit to visiting your ancestors at Laguna Figueroa and your cousins at the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
⁂ satisfy your need for companionship by attracting external bacteria to your body and allowing it to gain control of your body.
⁂ invite fungi to your body by keeping your feet, socks, and shoes moist at all times.
⁂ be mindful of guiding your waste through its journey: rejoice in the fact that a microplastic from your Clean & Clear facial scrub might become a boat home for a bacteria in the ocean; respect the plastic bag that might travel through the ocean and into a whale’s stomach.
