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Artwork by Jacob Schaub
Everything Must Go
Digital Collage, 2018
Artist statement

Everything Must Go

Jacob Schaub's work capitalizes on the tension between the present and the present's collective expectations of the future. In Everything Must Go, Jacob addresses the contemporary visions of a human existence on Mars. The notion is that this existence is an escape from the threat of death and extinction posed by our history and misuse of the planet: nuclear warfare, climate change, societal collapse.

Everything Must Go delves into human nature, pointing out that even if humanity were to escape to Mars for preservation, what is being preserved? Whether on Earth or Mars, humanity's habit of self-destruction is tied into our history, culture, ideologies, and economic practices. Some of these are elements of ourselves that we might consider leaving behind to die on Earth. Only by identifying and addressing these elements can we truly gain the proverbial, "new beginning."

Although this work is a critique of this futurist dream, Everything Must Go is also a good-faith effort to catalog and adapt cultural elements found on Earth to the challenges of traveling through space and living on Mars. It envisions a human habitation on Mars unlike the uniform and spartan CGI cities proposed by scientists. Instead, it favors a more diverse and maximalist human community.

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