Printed astrological charts on paper, sound recording (20’), card deck, steel symbols, UV lights, saline solution, glass plate, 2025

Multimedia installation part of the group show DESACTA – Counter-spells to unravel 140 years of the Berlin Conference (11/2025 - 01/2026) at Savvy Contemporary (DE)

This installation uses astrological readings to respond to the initial proposition of the project and group show DESACTA, which gathered artists to reflect on, and attempt undoing the effects of the 1885 Berlin Conference. This work is part to my ongoing and collaborative research on reading practices, which uses well-known and newly-designed reading tools – such as the Tarots, Political Therapy and Astrology (amongst others) to image the ethical and political issues of our times. The works takes the astrological chart of the Berlin Conference as a dialectical image, an image “that is read” and thus presents a re/de/composition of the question that is asked. Here the reading of the image allows us to reflect on, and refract, the ongoing extraction that the conference has allowed. 

As a contribution towards undoing the effects of the Berlin Conference, we read three astrological charts, in order to identify its weak spots, as well as points of interventions that may be available to us today. 

You can hear an audio recording of our reading here (see pdf attached), where you can also find a written transcript. It is preferable to listen to the recording with your headphones and to begin in the basement, looking at the printed chart on the floor.

First, there is the Natal chart, which shows the position of the planets in the sky, as seen from Berlin, when the conference first gathered on November 15, 1884. While it displays the infinite possibilities of that moment, it also gives neat indications for the kind of project that the conference inaugurated.

Second, there is the Solar Return chart, which shows the position of the planets on the day of the conference’s “birthday” this year, on Nov 15, 2025. It describes how the project is currently unfolding, and when compared with the Berlin Conference natal chart, it gives clues to how to undermine its project.  

Finally, third, there is the synastry chart, which is a comparison of the Natal Chart and the Solar Return Chart. There we find the project’s current “weak spots” and highlights 3 astrological configurations that serve as points of interventions. For each one, we propose an action or a practice to undo or halt the effects of the Berlin Conference.