clarissa tossin



With 15,000 pounds of trash from robotic exploration littering its surface, Mars is already experiencing humanity’s destructive impact. In #AmazonisPlanitia2, Tossin melts her own recycled plastic waste over photographic prints of the planet’s vividly red, iron-rich surface. 

The artwork's title references Amazonis Planitia, one of Mars’s smoothest and most desolate plains. This name paradoxically recalls the lush abundance of Earth’s Amazon Forest and invites colonial fantasies of terraforming, the hypothetical process of transforming an extraterrestrial environment to sustain human life. 


#AmazonisPlanitia2, 2018

archival inkjet prints on glossy photo paper, recycled plastic from artist’s own waste 20 ¾ x 29 ⅞ in. and 11 ¼ x 19 ⅝ in

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