Imagining Space Otherwise is an international working group focused on the arts' role in shaping outer space's ethics, politics, and cultural imaginaries. Our goal is to produce an arts-centred and science-informed space humanities scholarship that directly contributes to the formation of extraterrestrial epistemologies—modes of knowing that confront the planetary and interplanetary consequences of space exploration. Through public programming, artistic partnerships, and cross-disciplinary scholarship, this work benefits global audiences, especially those currently marginalized in space discourse, by advancing inclusive, critical, and culturally grounded approaches to shaping our planetary and interplanetary futures.

The working group comprises scholars with extensive experience in performance studies, anthropology, media theory, and critical science and technology studies. Led by UCLA-based Principal Investigator Felipe Cervera (Theatre and the Centre for Performance Studies), the group includes: Maaike Bleeker (Professor of Performance, Science & Technology, Utrecht University, The Netherlands), Marie-Pier Boucher (Assistant Professor at the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology, University of Toronto, Canada), David (Jeeva) Jeevendrampillai (Lecturer in Social Anthropology, The University of Manchester, United Kingdom), Anne Johnson (Professor of Social Anthropology, Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico), Evan Moritz (PhD Candidate, Centre for Drama, Theatre & Performance Studies, University of Toronto, Canada), and Juan Francisco Salazar (Director of the Institute for Culture and Society, and Professor of Media Studies at the School of Humanities and Communication Arts, Western Sydney University, Australia).

This project is funded by the UCLA Global Advisors Council, UCLA Centre for Performance Studies, and by the Department of Social Anthropology, Universidad Iberoamericana.

Centering on the “otherwise” as a conceptual pivot, the speakers in the sessions will offer various perspectives on how the arts constitute methods and objects for knowledge generation in space-related debates. We will have one monthly session until March 2026 (more details about the next ones coming soon) and are also working on putting together a book. Please let me know if you are interested in getting involved.

Session 1: Cosmographies - featuring Juan Francisco Salazar Sutil and Victoria Hunt

Juan and Victoria discuss their film Cosmographies, laying out the deep connections between social justice and space exploration that they explore through their artistic practice. You can find more information about the film here and watch it here. 

Session 2: Institutions - featuring Venzha Christ, Aoife van Linden Tol, Nahum, and Miha Turšič

What are the institutions the artists imagine in the context of space capitalism? Beyond infiltration, how can we imagine our role in space institutions otherwise? 

Session 3: Autonomous Intergalactic Space Program featuring Rigo 23 and his collaborators

The artists discuss the process of creating an "Autonomous Intergalactic Space Program" inspired by the Zapatista concept of "Another World, Another Path."

Session 5: Title: Dis-Orienting Bodies - Performing Space

Kira O’Reilly + Marie-Pier Boucher

Abstract: A performance reading of two voices exploring performance as a mode of planetary attachment and as a method of bodily and spatial dis-orientations. Offering a series of propositions informed by their correspondences across time and space, their dialogue explores a poetics of physicality, mutability, and alterity.

Thursday, February 26, 5 pm UTC.

Registration here. All welcome.