GUAYAQUIL.- The Anthropological and Contemporary Art Museum opened The World Ablaze, a large-scale solo exhibition by Ecuadorian artist Paul Rosero Contreras.

In the speculative world of Paul Rosero Contreras, biology and mythology meet at the precipice of time. His multimedia practice unravels fictional narratives combined with field-recorded data through sculptural and cinematic assemblages, providing us with a hopeful ground for speculating on the future. The title The World Ablaze refers to times of environmental collapse. We are witnessing an ongoing mass extinction along with extreme meteorological phenomena due to the man-made disequilibrium of the planet. A planet with millions of years of dramatic changes — from iceball Earth to fireball Earth — which resulted in chemical and physical conditions that gave rise to our evolution. From the perspective of a biologist or mystic figure who sees the drawn-out process of geological time, it is not the planet as a living being that will end, but rather the survival of human and non-human beings.

The World Ablaze recognizes the climate anxiety experienced by a generation witness to the extreme effects of global warming. In response, Rosero's artistic proposal moves away from the anthropocentric perspective and offers a non-human view that is present on a planetary scale and entangled with our daily lives. The characters in the works include orange corals that inhabit the acidic waters of underwater volcanic shafts and who are currently expanding their territory, and colonies of lactobacteria, humming to the rhythm of the Earth's beating core. These beings transport us to cosmic times and chemical rhythms that transmit pulsating life and define our resilient, fragile and wonderful planet Earth: the location of our symbiotic and irreplaceable origin.

The World Ablaze invites us to reflect on the contemporary environmental crisis and the interconnection between human beings, nature, and cosmic cycles. Rosero Contreras' work addresses the constant adaptation and symbiotic cooperation between species, proposing a hopeful vision amid environmental collapse. Through projects spanning more than two decades of artistic production, the artist takes us to a transdisciplinary space where biology, mythology, and ecology converge.

The exhibition includes a series of multimedia installations that explore themes such as interspecies communication, plant migration, ecosystem resilience, and the

impact of volcanic activity on human and non-human life. Some of the featured works are The Thought of Plants, which reflects on biology and colonial history, and Cosmos: Gray Rain, which establishes a dialogue between active volcanoes in the Andes and Mount Etna, using terrestrial vibrations to explore our planet's subterranean connections.

Paul Rosero Contreras is a celebrated Ecuadorian artist whose work encompasses various disciplines, including sculpture, installation, and experimental film. His art has been showcased in numerous international exhibitions and is distinguished by its exploration of the relationships among humans, nature, and the cycles of the Earth. Over the course of his career, which has spanned more than twenty years, Rosero Contreras has innovated the use of hybrid media to tackle environmental and social issues, merging science, art, and philosophy in a single space.