Decolonized Skies

Since the invention of aerial photography during the last decades of the 19th century, the sky above our heads has become a territory subjected to militarized conflicts over mastery and command. Following this evolution, the view from above has become associated with state control and corporate power. This reality is even more apparent in recent years with the excessive worldwide use of drones and other Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) for purposes of surveillance and destruction. Parallel to this disturbing rising trend and, in many respects as a response to it, an increasing number of artists, activists, scientists, and designers from different regions seek ways to use today’s technology to re-appropriate the sky and reclaim the view from above.

With this exhibition, we call for an understanding of the view from above as a site where ethics, politics, and aesthetics intertwine. Whether through advanced technologies or DIY methods, this yet-to-be-free territory is where proximity and citizenship, abstraction and responsibility are juxtaposed, opening up possibilities for new visual strategies—strategies that can expand our political imagination and allow us, finally, to decolonize the sky.