Cosmic Beings features international and Australian artists who offer contemporary perspectives on our place within the cosmos. Across video, sculpture, animation and photography, the artists draw on ancient wisdoms and new enlightenments that look beyond the Earth to expand the scope and scale of human consciousness.

The exhibition responds to the proposition that the only thing that could unify the human race would be an alien invasion. The threat and need to act would force humans to rise above their differences and join forces to fight a common enemy.

At the outset of COVID-19, it was speculated this might prove true – the aggressive non-human virus offering a stand-in for extraterrestrials. In the West, rhetoric on terrorism and the invasion of ‘illegal aliens’ temporarily subsided and in its place talk of global collaborations toward medical innovations and vaccine-sharing came to the fore. However, as the reality of the impacts of COVID19 took hold, the virus instead highlighted already entrenched divides along socioeconomic, geopolitical and racial lines and created new personal ones between those vaxxed and unvaxxed.

Against this calamitous backdrop, space tourism took off for the ultra-wealthy, NASA acknowledged the existence of Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UFOs), and the James Webb Space Telescope launched, after many delays, promising to help us see further into space and back in time than ever before. Ironically, it appears that while life on Earth remains evermore incomprehensible we’re on the cusp of profound new levels of understanding and connection – both with the universe and, potentially, alien lifeforms.

Contextualised by these recent global events, this exhibition reimagines the proposition that aliens are aggressors and the only hope for humans is planetary invasion. Instead, it asks if we might envision possibilities for unity, empathy and equity on Earth by contemplating ourselves as cosmic beings.