It is on the occasion of the Artjog contemporary art fair in Yogyakarta that I meet Natasha Tontey. Her latest work, Pest to Power, refers to the manifesto of xenofeminism, to a less capitalist, synthetic and standardized vision of the world. It also evokes the historic meeting of the Bandoung conference in Indonesia, which in 1955, in the middle of the Cold War, brought together all the "non-aligned" countries.

Read my interview (in french) on Usbek & Rica

"The future will be cockroach! »

Pest to power takes the form of a video installation, mixing 3D animation and performance to end up with the conception of a world speculating a non-binary, inter-species future, of which the cockroach would be the symbol. Why the cockroach? Because for Natasha Tontey, they are "living fossils": "The future is not only for humans and their descendants, but also for other organisms," explains the artist. Therefore, when we think about the future, we have to think about sustainability. And sustainability can only be achieved if life is not only centred on humans. As the manifesto of xenofeminism says: the future is not only about children, it is also a landscape for non-humans. When we begin to think less anthropocentric, we think more ecological. In other words, the future will be cockroach! »

Ruin, Queer Archives, Seoul

AGWT PodcastsBy isabelle arversJun 15, 2020