In the speculative world of Paul Rosero Contreras, biology and mythology meet at the precipice of time. His multimedia practice unravels fictional narratives combined with field-recorded data through sculptural and cinematic assemblages that provide us with a hopeful ground for speculating on the future. The title The World Ablaze refers to times of environmental collapse. We are witnessing an ongoing mass-extinction along with extreme meteorological phenomena due to the man-made disequilibrium of the planet. A planet with millions of years of dramatic changes —from iceball earth to fireball earth— which resulted in chemical and physical conditions that gave rise to our evolution. From the perspective of a biologist or mystic figure who sees the drawn-out process of geological time, it is not the planet as a living being that will end, but rather the survival of human and non-human beings.
The World Ablaze recognizes the climate anxiety experienced by a generation witness to the extreme effects of global warming. In response, Rosero’s artistic proposal moves away from the anthropocentric perspective and offers a non-human view that is present on a planetary scale and entangled with our daily lives. The characters in the works include orange corals that inhabit the acidic waters of underwater volcanic shafts and who are currently expanding their territory, and colonies of lactobacteria, humming to the rhythm of the Earth’s beating core. These beings transport us to cosmic times and chemical rhythms that transmit pulsating life and define our resilient, fragile and wonderful planet Earth: the location of our symbiotic and irreplaceable origin.