ACSE was conducted as part of the Department of Planetary Futures. Constructed and operated in The Urban Arts Space, an art gallery in Columbus, Ohio, to enable experiments for new planet development through onion propagation, by analogizing biological and astronomical processes such as mitosis and the nebular hypothesis. “ACSE” incorporated durational performance, bio-art, installation, and social engagement. Methods and procedures using live onions were performed over the course of four weeks including the continual propagation of 125 Bulb allium cepa and 200 pearl allium cepa through 4 growth chambers, heat activated prints from sectioned and stamped onions, data collection, and public tours of the laboratory and growth chamber III.

“ACSE” pondered the possibility of nurturing onions into a planet for human colonization as a predictive reality to generate dialogue about the collective social and environmental experience of the now. “ACSE” utilized labor as both a performance and a process for understanding and creation. Through the enactment of care and tenderness in a hybrid laboratory/art gallery setting, a productive interspecies collaboration was yielded. The durational performances of experiments conflated common perceptions of laboratory, kitchen, and art studio. Thus, the methods employed and blurred lines between cooking, dissection, and object making, not to challenge the value or efficacy of science, art, or domesticity, only to broaden their perceived possibilities. “ACSE” demonstrated how speculative fiction in real time and space works to engage audiences in difficult political realities.