Francelle Cane and Marija Marić have been selected to curate the Luxembourg Pavilion was unanimously selected by the jury to create at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia with an exhibition project titled "Down to Earth." The project explores the "wild imaginaries of extraction-driven growth," such as the development of human settlements on the Moon or the asteroid mining of rare minerals and metals. As the starting point for the exhibition, the team questions the impact of this new space race that promises endlessly available resources beyond the limits of Earth. The commissioner of the pavilion, the Ministry of Culture Luxembourg, has appointed Kultur|lx—Arts Council Luxembourg to produce the exhibition in cooperation with LUCA—Luxembourg Center for Architecture. The Pavilion will be open from May 20th until November 26th, 2023.
"Down to Earth" aims to unpack the project of space mining through the perspective of resources. Designed as mock-ups of the Moon's landscapes, "lunar laboratories" have emerged in recent years as a tool for institutions and private companies to test different mining technologies. The exhibition will use a lunar laboratory to unpack and analyze the tech industry’s space exploration narratives. The space of the Pavilion turned into such a laboratory will offer another way of seeing the Moon, going beyond the current optics of the Anthropocene.
By turning the space of the Pavilion into a mock-up of the Moon's landscape, the exhibition becomes a stage for the performance of extraction. "Down to Earth" strives to unveil the backstage of space mining, exposing it as one of the hidden yet coveted practices of today's economy. The curatorial project will further explore this theme through film, workshops, and, finally, a book. Created in collaboration with photographer and video artist Armin Linke, the film will feature archival footage and conversations with researchers, lawyers,
and representatives of the space mining industry. The workshop, titled "How to: Mind the Moon," represents a collaboration between the curators and an international group of researchers working on the issues of space mining and/or material histories. The "Staging the Moon" book contains contributions by the curators and a selection of photographs by artists Armin Linke and Ronni Campana.
Both curators are architects and researchers associated with the University of Luxembourg. Francelle Cane has been a curator and scenographer for numerous exhibitions, including the Enter the Modern Landscape exhibition for which she received the International WERNAERS Fund for Research and the Diffusion of Knowledge (FNRS), Brussels (BE) prize. She is currently developing her doctoral study on the subject After the Ruin. On Property and Territorial Negotiation. Marija Marić is working as a postdoctoral research associate in the Master in Architecture Program at the University of Luxembourg. In 2020, she obtained her doctoral degree from the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture, ETH Zurich, with her thesis examining the role of communication strategists in the mediation, design, and globalization of urban space.
From the development of human settlements on the Moon to asteroid mining—the wild imaginaries of extraction-driven growth have, quite literally, transcended the boundaries of Earth. This displacement of mineral exploitation from the exhausted Earth to its 'invisible’ backstage'—celestial bodies, planets, and ultimately, the Moon itself—calls for an urgent debate on the impact this shift will have on our understandings of land, resources, and the commons, both on Earth and beyond it. Described as a ‘rising star in the space industry’ and a ‘pioneer in the exploration and utilization of space resources,’ Luxembourg, whose own economy was built on iron mining and steel production, appears as a key starting point to critically approach space mining—a question that goes beyond the scale of its territory, and rather appears as a shared, planetary concern. —Extract from the "Down to Earth" project by Francelle Cane and Marija Marić.
Other countries have also announced their exhibition projects in response to Lesley Lokko’s overarching theme for this year's edition – The Laboratory of the Future. Many of them are focused on larger issues related to space exploitation and humanity's relationship with its larger context: the Cyprus pavilion set out to explore the sustainability of expanding humanity's reach to Mars by drawing parallels with one of its most inventive cultures in the prehistoric era. On a similar note, the national pavilion of Kosovo explores the role of migration in the country's social development, while the Chilean pavilion addresses the theme of "Moving Ecologies," exploring ecological repair and restoration paralleled with the study of soil recovery and endemic seeds.
