WATER AND HELIUM: On New Space Extractivisms
(Research Project 2024 – ongoing)

After exhausting Earth’s resources, extracted, consumed, and discarded, humanity persists in its search for territories to colonise and riches to exploit. Celestial bodies emerge as potential sources of invaluable materials, igniting a new cosmic gold rush.

Titled after two of the most coveted resources in current space missions, Water and Helium critically examines the commercialisation of outer space, extractivist logics, and the speculative construction of the world. The artist, whose practice is shaped by work with archival materials, speculative aesthetics, and interdisciplinary methodologies, explores collective memory, retrofuturism, ecofeminism, and decolonial narratives through video, analog film, new media, and material experimentation.

As part of an expansive research project, the work reinterprets archival material from Soviet and NASA space programs, transforming it through analog video synthesis and algorithmic processes. This visual inquiry questions New Space—the current wave of commercial space ventures—and proposes rewriting the history of space exploration from a decolonial and ecofeminist perspective.

The piece invites us to imagine space exploration beyond profit and domination, toward a shared cosmic stewardship infused with nostalgia, resistance, and hope. Through the integration of art, craft, and technology, it envisions a future in which space exploration is guided by principles of equity, sustainability, and collective care.