Buxton’s exclusive Xenogenesis premiere

Buxton Contemporary will launch the Australian premiere of a new Afrofuturist art exhibition by London-based collective The Otolith Group on March 6.

Inspired by radical ‘80s fiction, Xenogenesis will weave together strands of speculation and imagination, possible pasts and futures, references to science fiction, postcolonial histories, music, philosophy and scientific discovery.

Buxton Contemporary curator Mellissa Keys said the exhibition was a timely piece by compelling artists.

“Xenogenesis critically and seductively explores many of the cultural, environmental and political structures of the status quo,” she said.

“These highly regarded long term collaborators are internationally recognised for their experimental moving imagine essays and installations that seamlessly fuse fictional and documentary modes of filmmaking.”

Kodwo Eshun and Anjalika Sagar of The Otolith Group’s work on the exhibition was inspired by the African American science fiction writer Octavia Butler.

Butler’s fiction transcended the conventions of genre, exploring social issues of empathy, climate catastrophe, hybridity, conservation and tribalism. It inspired a legacy of feminist and Afrofuturist fiction.

It’s through this prism that Xenogenesis can be experienced.

The large-scale exhibition, comprised of five works from 2013 to 2018, pictures a society in which screens have become part of the natural world, communication is global, culture is political, human identity is crucial, but fluid and history has not ended.

Buxton Contemporary secured the exclusive through an international partnership. Annie Fletcher (Van Abbemuseum in Netherlands and the Irish Museum of Modern art) has come on board as curator of the show.

The Otolith Group: Xenogenesis opens on Friday, March 6 2020 until Sunday, June 21 2020 at Buxton Contemporary, the University of Melbourne Cnr Dodds St and Southbank Boulevard. Entry is free.

buxtoncontemporary.com