The Armpit of a Giant or the Juice of a Beetle

Anna Hoetjes received a grant to develop new work. Through a floating sculpture, a video and a huge star map, The Armpit of a Giant or the Juice of a Beetle explores a future where radiation from the exploding star Betelgeuze has radically altered Earth's technological infrastructure. Satellites have been destroyed and power grids no longer work, leaving nights dark and using stars for navigation. Science and technology have taken a new shape, with craft and storytelling essential for knowledge transfer. Female astronomers, historians and writers embroider together with the audience on a constantly growing star map and collectively speculate about an alternative technological future.

Anna is a visual artist from Amsterdam. She works with video, installation and collective performances, often transforming scientific datasets into tangible and sensory experiences. With her projects, she aims to expose the cultural basis on which contemporary Western science is built and how, in the process, valuable knowledge systems have been jettisoned. By replacing dominant scientific narratives with speculative alternatives, with a special focus on space science and science fiction, she imagines a history/present/future in which women, non-colonial and non-human perspectives are equally fundamental in our understanding of law