Plan Delta

In her project DELTA Plan, Daniela Ponomarevová constructs and subsequently deconstructs a post-apocalyptic story responding to the current state of civilization. At the heart of this dystopian narrative is the presumed demise of Earth, which has become nothing more than a testing ground, a temporary refuge for humanity, which is inevitably awaiting destruction by a giant asteroid. The author opens up this fictional future scenario through a series of objects installed in the immersive environment of a supposed laboratory and a text-and-image document.

In the "research station" environment, which forms the central structure of the installation, there are remnants of a module that broke away from the DELTA space colonization ship as a result of an explosion. In contrast to the accumulation of these debris—degraded but still functioning in their own kind of "biotope"—stands a solitary component containing an imaginary, albeit subjective, explanation of the event. The ubiquitous motif of catastrophe presents not only a genre cliché or pop-cultural convention, but also the paradox of human fascination with images of their own demise, which is both narcissistic and phobic: it expresses both triumph over the humiliation of nature and fear of forces that transcend man. To achieve her goals, the author does not choose aggression or revolt, but rather takes a gentle approach, mixing sci-fi references with poetics.