Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster: Picnic on Paradise by Joanna Russ

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster Picnic on Paradise by Joanna Russ - 367 x 600mm Dye sub print to poly-opaque fabric with foam padding Print double sided and edges of cushion with zip fastening Edition of 20 £250 (incl. VAT) per cushion. Picnic on Paradise (1979) was Joanna Russ's debut novel, depicting a middle aged female protagonist in a utopian world, struggling with the nuances of her post. Joanna Russ a female writer in a genre filled with predominantly male voices “helped deliver science fiction into the hands of the most alien creatures the genre had yet seen—women . . . [and] helped inaugurate the now flourishing tradition of feminist science fiction” (The New York Times). Alienarium 5 was a speculative environment that invited visitors to imagine possible encounters with extraterrestrials. The exhibition was Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster’s first major institutional solo show in the UK since TH.2058 at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall in 2008, and was 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 featured almost entirely new work that engaged both the gallery’s internal and external space. For Alienarium 5, Gonzalez-Foerster 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. This welcomed visitors into a world of expanded possibility and was, 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”. Inhabiting the experimental ideas at the core of Alienarium 5, the choice of book covers illustrates Gonzalez-Foerster’s long interest in sci-fi, the spiritual and magical, as well as the existence of the artists within this digital age. © Photo: readsreads.info