As climate change brings to bear the lasting effects of global capitalism upon the Earth, space travel has reemerged as a potent horizon of opportunity. At the same time, Mars has become a popular fixation for imagining a transplanted human civilization. Inspired by Octavia E. Butler’s science fiction Xenogenesis trilogy (1987-89), which chronicles the survival of the human race in a post-apocalyptic future through a partnership with an alien species known as the Oankali, who select the Amazon rainforest as the site for a new civilization of alien-human hybrids. The aesthetic and material fusion of the organic, the handcrafted, and the cosmic in Tossin’s woven prints evokes the Oankali ethos, which incorporates living structures and organisms in symbiotic and sustainable spaceships and dwellings. The designation Amazonis Planitia, given to a smooth and desolate Martian plain, amplifies its striking contrast with Earth’s abundant biodiversity while stoking wild dreams of colonization and terraforming. Though humans have not yet set foot on Mars, we are already leaving material waste there. #AmazonisPlanitia3 plays on this irony, smearing satellite images of the idyllically named Martian plain with the artist’s Melted plastic waste.
#AmazonisPlanitia3, 2018
Archival inkjet print on glossy photo paper, 1/16” acrylic face mount, application of melted recycled plastic from artist's own waste over face mount, walnut frame
34.9 x 12.7 in