IASPIS 30: common acts for grounded futures

Graphic design: Jonas Williamsson

IASPIS 30: common acts for grounded futures

Within IASPIS 30: common acts for grounded futures, we invite Cosmin Costinaș and Inti Guerrero to present their curatorial work engaging with oceanic questions—mapping trajectories that connect Hong Kong, Sydney, and Yokohama—and to share the methodologies they have developed for thinking through shifting ecologies, infrastructures, and conditions of circulation.

At the core of the upcoming 9th Yokohama Triennale are two figures: the oarfish and the whale fall. The oarfish, a deep-sea creature that rarely reaches the surface, has long been seen as an omen of catastrophe. The whale fall moves in the opposite direction: when a whale dies, its body sinks and becomes the origin of an entire ecosystem, sustaining life for decades, even centuries.

Between these figures unfolds a different way of thinking about the present. Rather than narratives of progress or collapse, the triennial proposes a horizontal orientation—one that turns toward the ocean’s depths, where endings become conditions for other forms of life, and where transformation emerges through accumulation, decay, and interdependence.

In this conversation at IASPIS, Costinaș and Guerrero will reflect on infrastructures of communication, circulation, and knowledge—from early global trade routes and telegraph systems to contemporary digital networks and AI. These layered histories reveal how oceans have long functioned as sites where information, power, and ecology intersect.

They will be joined by Every Ocean Hughes, whose transdisciplinary practice engages language, embodiment, and systems of care, extending the discussion toward questions of voice, transmission, and the politics of presence.

The event forms part of IASPIS 30: common acts for grounded futures, a programme initiated by IASPIS Guest Curator Corina Oprea as IASPIS marks its 30th anniversary. Bringing together artistic and curatorial practices attentive to the conditions shaping art today—embodied histories, shifting ecologies, and infrastructures of care and control – the series asks how exchange might be rooted in solidarity, reciprocity, and decolonial attention, opening space for new institutional imaginaries.

Biographies

Cosmin Costinaș is a curator and writer based in Hong Kong. He is Co-Artistic Director of the 9th Yokohama Triennial and was Senior Curator of Exhibition Practices at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), Berlin (2022–2025). He was previously Director of Para Site, Hong Kong (2011–2022), Artistic Director of Kathmandu Triennale 2077 (2022), and Co-Artistic Director of the 24th Biennale of Sydney (2024), among many other international curatorial projects. His work spans major biennials, exhibitions, and research platforms across Asia, Europe, and beyond.

Inti Guerrero is a Hong Kong-based curator and educator, Co-Artistic Director of the 9th Yokohama Triennial, and Adjunct Professor at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. He was Co-Artistic Director of the 24th Biennale of Sydney (2024), Adjunct Curator of Latin American Art at Tate, London (2016–2020), and Artistic Director of TEOR/éTica, San José (2011–2014). Guerrero has curated widely across Asia, Europe, and Latin America and contributed extensively to curatorial education and discourse.

Cosmin & Inti

Every Ocean Hughes is a transdisciplinary artist and writer. Her solo exhibitions include MIT List Visual Arts Center (2025), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2023), Studio Voltaire, London (2022), Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2022), Secession, Vienna (2015), and PARTICIPANT INC., New York (2015). She has received commissions from Tate Modern, Stedelijk Museum, and The Kitchen, among others, and has participated in major group exhibitions including the Whitney Biennial and MoMA. Hughes’ work engages performance, writing, and systems of care and relation.

Photo: Joseph Frantz.

Every Ocean Hughes