In this version of Laboratory for other worlds, Loper is collaborating with Andrew Kemp and Erin Genia to connect climate science and social justice through speculative world building practices. The project askes what if salt marshes, the site of Kemp’s research on paleolithic sea level rise, were considered sacred? These vulnerable marshes, often located adjacent to urban areas, are valuable archives of Earth history for climate scientists, home to vital ecosystems, and provide protection to coastal communities (human and nonhuman) against storms and flooding. Climate research often focuses on analyzing ancient microscopic biomes found in marshes, and imagining the subjective life of these biomes provides inspiration for the project. We intentionally muddle boundaries between the sacredness and the scientific use-value of the saltmarsh in order to extrapolate pluriversal contact zones, (Def). Our desire is to use this speculation to highlight accountability, to help us consider what is owed locally and globally, by institutions that rest in and profit from lands that were once interconnected ecosystems stewarded by tribal peoples.

I Hold Your Death in My Body for a Thousand Years, detail
2025
Oil and graphite on canvas
36" x 72"
Laboratory for Other Worlds, studio view
2025
Mixed Media
I Hold Your Death in My Body for a Thousand Years
2025
Oil and graphite on canvas
36" x 72"
Hold Your Death in My Body for a Thousand Years, detail
Biodiversity Reliquaries
2024-2025
I Eat Your Body From the Inside and Live in Your Skin
2025
Oil and graphite on canvas
36
I Eat Your Body From the Inside and Live in Your Skin, detail
I Eat Your Body From the Inside and Live in Your Skin and Hold Your Death in My Body for a Thousand Years, studio view