Moss Piglets

Founded by Esther Lu in 2021, Moss Piglets is a non-profit curatorial and research entity dedicated to contemporary art practices that focus on alternative art education and production. This organization cultivates collective processes and interdependent production to encourage people to form new relations and alignments with their surroundings, using art as a common connector. Moss Piglets is concerned with how – in an age where Artificial Intelligence, or hyperintelligence, is fast becoming a major evolutionary force and the ecological crisis is tangible – future body politics, ecology, and culture are inevitably declining.

Act Tiny Move Big is the working principle that informs and develops Moss Piglets’ practice and methodology to generate different forms of care for life and nature. For Moss Piglets, the phrase, Act Tiny Move Big, refers to an eco-sensitive awareness, to remind us to work with restraint while aiming to maximize social impact. With art as the medium for holistic education, Moss Piglets embraces the act of learning through doing, to keep transforming our bodies, minds and awareness.    

The name Moss Piglets gestures to the resilience and adaptability of tardigrades (1), also known as water bears or moss piglets, which are a phylum of micro animals that can survive in harsh conditions, even in outer space. By adopting this name, our organization proposes a symbiotic future in microscopic perspectives and active practices, reflecting our ways of being present amidst the urgencies of our time. Moss Piglets facilitates cross-cultural dialogues and multidisciplinary collaborations to generate the creative flow of art research, production, and education.       

1) Tardigrades … are a phylum of eight-legged segmented micro-animals … They have been found in diverse regions of Earth's biosphere – mountaintops, the deep sea, tropical rainforests, and the Antarctic. Tardigrades are among the most resilient animals known, with individual species able to survive extreme conditions – such as exposure to extreme temperatures, extreme pressures (both high and low), air deprivation, radiation, dehydration, and starvation – that would quickly kill most other known forms of life. Tardigrades have survived exposure to outer space. (Wikipedia)

理念

處在全球氣候危機日益加劇，人工超智能時代臨到之際，人類首度處在對二、三十年後的未來社會幾乎難以掌握的窘境——我們不知將需要遷往何方，歷經幾波大規模的技術革命、失業潮及社會重組，如何與 AI 機器人展開社交關係與生活。在大數據掌握各種選項和議程的同時，我們和地球上的物種都將在新一番的生存遊戲中，開展各種新技能的學習。關於地球的下一步進化生存史，這些學校從來沒有教、也無法料想到的事，緩步動物將邀請未來的人類一起用月球視角來預演。

我們將透過集體智慧擘劃藍圖，也將通過研究和各項實驗性的計畫來展開思辨，更關鍵的是，我們相信在這一波進化歷程裡，藝術將是我們還能持存人性與創造力的方法及路徑。為此，我們連同各地的藝術家，展開了各種學習課程的開發。全人教育的實踐在於日常點滴的打開與練習。我們將一起練身體，重新聆聽、領受、探索我們內外粒子的潛質，並學習建構各種關於共生的世界觀與智慧。

Mission

The global climate crisis and the coming age of hyperintelligence forecast a future society that is almost impossible for us to predict or prepare for. We do not know where we will need to relocate to, or what kind of large scale technological revolutions we will experience. Consequently, we are unsure what kind of social reforms and experiences of unemployment we will encounter, or even, how to create and live a social life alongside Artificial Intelligence. As big data further controls agendas and options, all living forms of life on Earth will need to evolve new skills to survive in society. Moss Piglets invites future-forward humans to rehearse our next evolution from the Moon's perspective.  

We imagine and illustrate the future with our collective wisdom, and begin our speculations via all sorts of research and experimental projects. We believe art is the most critical methodology and can serve as a passageway for us to usher in the next wave of evolution. 

我們的微動作

為了開發出各種可持續成長與革新的系統性課程內容計畫以及各種獨立主題計畫，我們將投注心力來開發不同的教育方法學和學習內容。這些透過與多樣領域背景的藝術家所共同發展的課程內容將效法緩步動物（水熊蟲）具有高度可適性來與不同環境脈絡交會出沈浸式的教學可能，不論是在大自然中、美術館的特定展覽裡、螢幕上的遠距互動、或其他特定場域等，課程計畫將開展出相應的活動生態，趨近棲地自由、無疆界的可能操作，且在跨文化條件下穿越移動。

Our Tiny Act

To develop refreshing and sustainable learning programs and all sorts of independent research projects, Moss Piglets creates alternative curriculum and pedagogy in collaboration with artists and other professionals. Our contextualized learning modules take place in diverse environments,and  reflect their situated ecologies accordingly, whether in nature, a specific site or a museum exhibition. Often, in addition to the physical interactions are remote online interactions, which encourage immersive and adaptable dialogues. Such an approach would support cross-cultural mobility, with an emphasis on original habitats and border-free operations.    

屬於未來的大行動

多維思考的課程內容作為發動性的原點，在我們越漸僵硬而狹義的同溫舒適圈裡頭打破一道道數據之牆，創造運算不出的連結與斜線。從身體政治出發的各種議題展開，我們最終關心的是跨性別、物種、文化、領地的共存方案生產，讓敘事的創造力與想像力得以奔馳，一直貫穿到現實的創造。我們所累積的各種工作坊、課程活動等，將積累轉化成為實際的文化行動，也以各色展演方案邀請更多朋友共創一個友善生態、尊重生命的未來社會。

Your Big Move

Moss Piglets is inspired by a diverse array of curriculum and research. Drawing upon expansive knowledge allows Moss Piglets to embrace unexpected connections and alignments, which can be wielded as weapons to break our online comfort zones. Centered around body politics, our productions are concerned with co-living proposals to promote cross-gender, cross-species, and cultural interactions, interweaving new forms of communication and understanding to construct symbiotic futures. More than creative narrations, our workshops and learning programs are incubators for collective events and cultural action, to invent an eco-friendly and life-honoring future society.