El Niño & La Niña (Drawings), 2023 [Link]
Archival colored ink, archival paper.
59(w) cm x 84 (h) cm (each).
El Niño & La Niña is a series of drawings that combine manual hand drawing techniques with using a pen plotter to create a speculative narrative. Inspired by classical epics like “Journey to the West”, the project follows a brother and sister duo of androids personifying the weather patterns El Niño and La Niña, which are known for causing extreme weather phenomena such as floods, droughts, and storms. These characters embark on a quest to destroy the ‘Weather Artefacts’—symbolic relics of humanity’s failed geoengineering attempts—to restore climate balance.
The narrative unfolds within a richly detailed world populated by bioengineered creatures and microorganisms, each playing a role in the collective effort to restore environmental equilibrium. As El Niño and La Niña navigate this landscape, they encounter diverse entities, from humans to nonhuman actors, each with unique histories and connections to the remnants of geoengineering projects.
Through extensive research into geoengineering history, speculative climate fiction, and posthumanist thought, El Niño & La Niña reflects on human impact while imagining new possibilities for collaboration and restoration in a world beyond human dominance. The project challenges the notion of humans as the sole agents of change and opens a dialogue about how nonhuman entities can play a significant role in reshaping the future.
This speculative approach emphasizes the fluid boundaries between human, non-human, and artificial entities, encouraging audiences to reflect on the socio-political dimensions of our relationship with the environment and technology.
