Futures From Ruins

Understanding that the ground we walk on is in a state of constant transformation is a powerful invitation to remake it, continually, anew.

Tsing encourages us to look beyond those simplistic narratives, and to ask what else ruins might allow to emerge. As portals to past realities, ruins have the capacity to cultivate connection across history, geography, and culture.

The ongoing work of making the spaces in which we live cultivates a kind of alchemy, in which stronger links between people and place can arise.

While there’s a strong individualistic streak in town, there’s also an appreciation for the mutual aid that living in such an intense environment requires. Living in places where life takes extra effort means that going it alone isn’t an option.

Emphasizing the visuals of ruination offers an emotional buffer from the economic, political, and social issues that lead to ruin’s rise.

When ruins become ground for creation rather than objects from devastated pasts, they cultivate belief in what’s possible. It’s a shift that people like Tsing insist is essential to moving beyond extractive cycles of “promise and ruin, promise and ruin.”

Ruins have inspired similar kinds of objectification for millennia. For many, they’re visual objects, things to romanticize, fetishize and look at from afar. It’s a simplified way of seeing that lends itself to extraction more than engagement, a kind “over-aestheticization of past eras." Henri Lefebvre explored the phenomenon in 1968, writing ... See more

Deeper connections between people support more creative imagination of what’s possible.

The creativity people are bringing to their homes is an extension of the care Bombay Beach inspired long before the Biennale began. Many small towns foster solidarity and connection. Harsh landscapes inspire support as well.