OAiS Lab 06 · Years 6–7
Biosphere 2
A sealed ark on unceded ground
- Location
- Oracle, Arizona, United States
- Coordinates
- 32.58°, -110.85°
- Field intensive
- Years 6–7
Biosphere 2 was imagined as a technological ark: a closed system that could carry humanity off a planet it had ruined. We resituate it in the Arizona landscape it was built on, and in the settler history that landscape carries.
The ground
What this site holds
- 01
The structure stands on what was the Samaniego CDO Ranch, on the traditional lands of the Akimel O'odham, Tohono O'odham and Apache Nations.
- 02
San Xavier del Bac Mission, founded 1692, is adjacent. Spanish missionaries preceded prospectors and settlers seeking land grants for livestock.
- 03
Kew's former director Ghillean Prance helped design the closed-system greenhouse. The colonial garden and the space ark share an architect.
Research questions
- What notion of sustainability is built into a sealed greenhouse, and how close is it to the logic of the SDGs?
- What does it mean to rehearse survival by leaving?
- What would a decolonial response to climate change look like from this same site?
Planned outputs
- Comparative study of closed-system sustainability and SDG logic
- Collaboration with ASU's BRIDGES Flagship Hub
- Summer Institute and Spec Life Symposium, ASU (Year 6)
Cluster leads
Joni Adamson
Arizona State University
Woods
Affiliation to be confirmed
Elizabeth DeLoughrey
University of California, Los Angeles
Partners on this lab
BRIDGES Flagship Hub
Tempe, Arizona
Arizona State University
Tempe, Arizona