The ecological devastation caused by mining in the Venezuelan Amazon has an impact that exceeds its own geography and reaches an existential planetary dimension. We are satellites aims to question different ways of approaching a critical and distant territory through technological, scientific, artistic and speculative resources. New borders are being created for mining concession blocks in the region, and these borders overlap with older ones that protect vast areas of extraordinary ecological and scientific value. It seems that the Amazon is still viewed as a resource-rich region to be exploited or a pristine environment to be protected, a Garden of Eden to be kept under glass. But the Amazon is not a vacant land, nor an uninhabited one. It is a territory shaped by cities, towns and villages, by diverse peoples with their own cultures and economies. Therefore, each border that is created and imposed upon them has an impact on their lives.

How to decode and rethink the effects of a predatory logic, which is becoming evident in the violation of human rights, the destruction of indigenous peoples and cultures, the loss of biodiversity and ecosystems in protected areas. In this context, to imagine and debate alternative futures becomes an important task, because when particular worldviews are deeply rooted in a society they can become borders themselves, from which it can be difficult to get out of.

Ana Alenso (Berlin) builds an allegorical cosmos showcasing the economic, social and ecological risks and the imbalance implicit in extractive practices of our natural resources. Her work departs from the assumption that within the fragile state of geopolitics and the vulnerabilities of our societies and natural reserves, artistic practices become modulators of a widespread sense of uncertainty. Instead of rejecting this uncertainty, she identifies with it and embraces it as a vehicle for prototyping and experimentation.

Ricardo Avella has dedicated the last few years to understanding the role of urbanism in remote and peripheral areas of the Venezuelan Amazon, specifically exploring spatial strategies that can facilitate the growth of local initiatives in a systemic manner to overcome the region's dependence on the extraction of non-renewable natural resources. Through a selection of maps, diagrams and texts, Ricardo Avella shows his research and provides a strategic and essential vision to understand the context of the Venezuelan Amazon. An architect and urban planner, he has been collaborating with ORG Permanent Modernity since the beginning of 2020. At the same time, he maintains his practice as an independent professional with ATA, a project and research office that he founded in 2015, after having worked with several firms in Turin and Caracas. He obtained a double degree in architecture from the Universidad Central de Venezuela and the Politecnico di Torino. He studied the European Post-Master in Urbanism at TU Delft, where he graduated cum laude. He has been a professor at the School of Architecture of the Universidad Central de Venezuela and coordinator of an advanced master's degree in urbanism at the Università IUAV di Venezia.