Liz Sanders

Report

BY: NAHUM MANTRA

image0

I cannot stop thinking about space. Ultimately this where I am right now, writing these lines. It’s not about ‘being’ outside, it’s about realizing where we are. I am curious and can’t stop wondering where all this comes from and where will it end. I am fascinated with the feeling of drowning in the immensity of the cosmos and in all these unanswered questions. It’s a love for vertigo.

I like that space is about us, about humans. We go out to have a better picture of who we are and what we are doing. It’s also a big responsibility to have such powers as a species. We haven’t been that long on this planet but that hasn’t been an issue to be confident enough to explore it and to trace the very origins of time.

For the last 6 years I have been involved in space activities in three different angles. The first one is through the work we’ve been doing at the International Astronautical Federation Technical Activities Committee for the Cultural Utilisations of Space (ITACCUS). Here we work on devising ways of opening doors for artists and cultural practitioners to access the space exploration world. The existence of ITACCUS is an acknowledgement of the work of many artists that have explored space in their own very ways. It hasn´t been simple as we are constantly rethinking of ways that we could make better bridges between the space sector with the art and cultural world.

image1

I remember that after working for a couple of years at ITACCUS, I returned back to my day job in London at Shunt where I was programming 70,000 sq feet with 20 different artistic groups each week. I was feeling that the space world moved too slow for me in comparison to my job at Shunt. This is how The Arts Catalyst and me came up with the idea of creating a series of space arts gatherings and see if we could find an interesting format. The intention was to do it in an informal way, accessible to the layman and with lots of wine. The result was the now international KOSMICA series. At first I didn´t know if this was going to be such a long project – we have been running KOSMICAs for almost 4 years in different countries. I realised how much people wanted to know about space from the voice of the artists. Every KOSMICA is a sold out and we get requests of doing gigs in many places. For me, the importance of this project is the nature of the live encounter with people who are thinking about space in alternative ways. Ultimately is about the appropriation of space exploration.

 

 The third angle of my work in space is as an artist. I have been working in installations that explore how we can experience a close encounter with space phenomena. Currently I am working on three large-scale projects with a very interesting group of Mexican artists. One is La Gravedad de los Asuntos which is a zero-gravity campaign. It consists of 9 artists and a network of 15 international organisations involved in the planning and production. This project is an interdisciplinary reflection on the concept of gravity that uses a parabolic flight as a reference to shift our perceptions and assumptions about gravity, ranging from the scientific definitions to the cultural ones.

image3

On the following weeks I will be posting more detailed aspects of my work and interests in space. In the meantime you can follow me here:

Newsletter: http://nahummantra.org/mailing.html
Twitter: https://twitter.com/nahummantra
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nahumartist
contact[@]nahummantra.org

 

Comments

    You need to be logged in to leave a comment

    About Me

    Just a little something something

    Contact

    Location:Florence, AZ
    United States of America (the)