Artist Statement
In the near past, a global phenomenon occurred which has since been erased from our memories. Due to the arrival of a strange vessel from the future, a Spiritual Machine from outer space, each human being on the planet had one prayer answered every 24 hours. The Vessel was a spiritually conscious spaceship, energy station and a prayer gateway. Its divine algorithms and foresight technology determined the selection of prayers it chose to answer.
The vessel appeared in countless forms. We later learned that the vessel uniquely manifested itself depending on the personal biases of the individual witnessing it. In the phenomena’s early days, the vessel, to some Islamophobic journalists, resembled a Mosque-like shape. So the media dubbed it SpaceMosque. The moniker stuck through the course of the phenomenon.
During its time here, the vessel answered billions of prayers. Our global reality was changed overnight. The impact of this arrival led to both great miracles and great tragedies. Greed and morality were at constant war, and prayer eventually became the de facto universal currency.
As abruptly as it appeared, The vessel vanished. Along with any memory of its existence, save for a few remnants of glitched stories and artifacts spread around the globe. We do not know the reason for The Vessel’s arrival or its departure, but our findings reveal that global riots due to the commoditization of prayers may have led to it. A popular theory among researchers of the phenomenon is that enough people on the planet prayed for it to leave and all to be forgotten. Or perhaps it was just a divine experiment.
This is the first time that some of these artifacts and discoveries are being shared with the world. Most of the findings in this exhibit have been retrieved from sources in Pakistan and Egypt. More data from Europe and the Americas is emerging every day. You are invited to decipher this forgotten era with us.
Artist Bio
Born 1975, Peshawar, Pakistan. Based in New York City.
Saks Afridi’s work exists in a genre he terms as ‘Sci-Fi Sufism’, which is about discovering galaxies and worlds within yourself. He tries to visualize this search by fusing mysticism and storytelling. He makes art objects in multiple mediums and draws inspiration from Sufi poetry, Afrofuturism, South Asian folklore, Islamic mythology, Science Fiction, Architecture and Calligraphy.
His practice also investigates the predicaments and perplexities of the life of an ‘Insider Outsider’. He defines this as the practice of achieving a sense of belonging while being out of place, finding happiness in a state of temporary permanence, and re-contextualizing existing historical and cultural narratives with the contemporary. His work has been featured in Artforum, The New York Times, BBC, Al Jazeera, CNN, and Stephen Colbert.