Ad Minoliti Biosfera Peluche / Biosphere Plush
Biosfera Peluche / Biosphere Plush is Ad Minoliti’s first solo show in the UK. Minoliti uses feminist and queer theory to generate alternative interpretations of painting, design, architecture, art history and visual language.
Trained as a painter, they draw on the rich legacy of geometric abstraction in Latin America, such as Argentina’s Arte Madí and the Asociación Arte Concreto-Invención, both founded in 1945, which embraced playfulness in painting and painted on irregular shaped canvases, sometimes experimenting with three-dimensional objects.
Biosfera Peluche / Biosphere Plush has been conceived as a critical speculation of Biosphere 2, the world's largest Earth science experiment launched in 1984, in the Arizona desert. Funded by oil tycoon, Ed Bass, Biosphere 2 was created to study whether or not humans could create and sustain life in an artificial environment such as space stations. B2’s team tried – consequently failing – to isolate eight people (all white Americans and one European) for two years. This monumental experiment is a perfect example of the space race being an extractivist colonising endeavour, enhancing the interests of the already powerful – including major economic and military institutions – and exacerbating pre-existing detrimental processes such as wars, economic inequality, and environmental degradation.