Visual artists Trin Alt and Zuza Golińska create site-specific environments which often refer to post-apocalyptic fantasies and aesthetics, while reflecting on the possible destinies of our planet in the light of accelerating capitalism, climate change, and its rapid consequences to our environment. In the exhibition Scorching they relate to different visions of the future, such as contaminated landscapes with totems sprouting from the toxic soil or the formation of a new outlaw motorcycle club, determined to create alternative identity.

The title of Zuza Golińska’s sculptural series Red Giants is connected to the term used to describe the expansion and lighting up of dying stars in the final stages of their stellar evolution. The totems created from waste produce, gathered by the artist in the Gdańsk Shipyard connect to the solarpunk movement in which people no longer produce, but recycle and reuse what is left after an apocalypse, caused by the Sun slowly dying. The raw forms of the sculptures bring to mind prehistoric totems representing solar deities and are reminiscent of times when nature and humans were more intertwined.

Post-apocalyptic narratives often feature biker communities portrayed as groups of outcasts surviving and living dangerously on the edge of society. By combining charcoal drawings  with a series of hand-painted pink helmets, Trin Alt’s works create a representation of a new, less binary oriented community, in which vulnerability replaces the stereotypical macho aesthetic and ideology of the motorcycle gangs. The adaptation to the new living conditions is symbolized by the reappearing motif of a spider, one of the most resilient animals to survive in harsh environments.

In the exhibition both artists connect different visions of the future reminiscent of scenes present in sci-fi and post-apocalyptic fiction, computer games or movies which until recently seemed impossible, but have now become an inescapable part of our reality. By combining glimpses of possible outcomes both artists highlight unpredictability, the fear of the unknown and the potential for a future where resources are scarce. The artists are not offering an answer to the question What will the future on our planet look like?, but leave the viewer with a possibility of different scenarios – an awakening of a new community living in ecological utopia where nature and technology grow in harmony, a dystopian nightmare full of violent counterculture movements or the Earth transforming into an uninhabitable contaminated wasteland.