Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster
Alienarium 5
Serpentine South Gallery
Serpentine Galleries, Kensington Gardens
London W2 3XA
April 14 – September 4, 2022
www.serpentinegalleries.org


What if aliens were in love with us? What would change?

Alienarium 5 is a speculative environment that invites us to imagine possible encounters with extraterrestrials. Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster’s first major institutional solo show in the UK since TH.258 at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall in 2008, the exhibition is a culmination of her decades-long interest in science fiction and continued research into deep space and alien life. Conceived site-specifically for Serpentine, the exhibition will feature almost entirely new work that engages both the gallery’s internal and external space.

For Alienarium 5, Gonzalez-Foerster has collaborated with writer and philosopher Paul B. Preciado, musician Julien Perez and parfumier Barnabé Fillion, among others, to transform Serpentine into a spectacular and otherworldly environment. A new multi-user VR piece produced by VIVE Arts and developed by Lucid Realities contemplates alternative forms of connection through extraterrestrial embodiment, while an immersive 360-degree collage titled Metapanorama uses outer space as a framework to bring humans, non-humans and extraterrestrials together.

Connecting to Serpentine’s historical role as a tea house and a site of rendezvous, Alienarium 5 serves as a meeting point for friends from the past, the present and a time not yet named. Welcoming visitors into a world of expanded possibility the exhibition is, in the artist’s words, “a mutant place contributing to the invention of new technologies of consciousness. It is an anti-War of the Worlds vision”.

Alienarium 5 is a proposal for freedom and interspecies connection. It is an experimental place in which to discover new forms of love and to imagine possible encounters with visitors from outer space.

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