Paradise In Progress is a group exhibition that engages the utopian project of thinking about what the future will look like. Inherent in each of the artists’ works is the struggle to mine, identify, and recuperate certain remnants of so-called failed historical aspirations and to reassemble new models of a tomorrow. Against the postmodern malaise brought on by the “end of history,” this exhibition proposes both an argument against and counterlogic to the ways in which historicity has been practiced and produced in the first place. Thus, paradise illuminated in this new light is not a infinite-sameness, but an infinite-change. An ongoing project fueled by the Promethean desire of non-centralized human progress, which is not necessarily linear nor easily commensurable to humanity. Several art historical tropes which have assembled the utopian and paradise imaginary, natural flora, working class struggle, emancipatory narratives, etc. are disassembled and reconstituted as new forms and schemas for alternate futures.
