Installation & participatory performance, ClASH NOORDERZON, MEDIA ART FESTIVAL Leeuwarden (NL)
The Non-Human Institute for Humanity is an immersive installation and performance project exploring expanded identities, posthuman belonging, and the fluid boundary between human and non-human selves. Visitors enter a triangular capsule—part spaceship, part shelter—to experience states of unfamiliarity and homecoming. Surrounding the structure is a photographic constellation of people embodying tarot archetypes, each recreated through collaborative costuming and personal objects brought by participants.
The performance component invites audiences into short, intimate encounters: selecting an artifact, engaging in sensory exercises, posing questions about their future, and receiving an oracle-response. Through these fast, charged exchanges, the work creates temporary safe spaces where participants can experiment with identity, alienness, and multiplicity.
Rooted in migration histories and posthumanist thought, the project challenges institutional hierarchies and proposes an inclusive, fluid “institute” where every mode of being human, non-human, alien, hybrid, is welcomed.
The Non-Human Institute for Humanity is the artistic framework and speculative platform founded by Samantha Pellarini as a foundation for her artistic research and practice. It operates as a fictional institute dedicated to exploring non-human perspectives through performance, installation, film, and participatory experiences.
image courtesy Noorderzon K.Nelis.
Rooted in speculative fiction and ecological inquiry, The Non-Human Institute for Humanity challenges human-centered narratives by reimagining relationships between species, environments, and technologies. Through immersive storytelling and artistic interventions, it fosters dialogue on identity, transformation, and survival in an era of planetary change.
At the heart of the institute is a spaceship-like landing capsule, a sculptural centerpiece (Mis.Unipie-4) that serves as both a physical and conceptual portal into speculative futures. The capsule functions as a liminal space and an invitation to step beyond anthropocentric thinking and experience alternative modes of existence, adaptation, and belonging.
This work was made as her graduation piece from Minerva Art Academy, Groningen, Netherlands 2020. Image courtesy of MetropolisM.
