Simon Speiser will present a new installation, Cuerdas del Manglar – Strings from the Mangrove. Drawing on the history of the maroon society of Esmeraldas, Ecuador, Speiser connects speculative physics with histories of colonial re-existence expressed through music and syncretic ritual. Using string theory as a framework, he overlays the idea of black holes onto the shipwrecks that enabled Afro-Ecuadorian communities to form early maroon settlements. Composed of scratch holograms engraved into metal sheets, the installation reflects images from Esmeraldenian cultural memory while also echoing the region’s ancestral gold mining practices.