FOR-SITE
2 Marina Blvd., Front Entrance Guardhouse, San Francisco, CA 94123
Marina
Friday, January 22 | 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Join FOR-SITE for an artist talk with Muzae Sesay and Alexcia Sundra, whose collaborative exhibition Attentive Earth is currently on view at the Guardhouse at Fort Mason.
The artists will discuss their creative collaboration and the ideas behind Attentive Earth, a speculative installation exploring humanity’s disconnection from the natural world and the commodification of attention. Through short-form video, painting, and archival materials, the exhibition invites viewers to reconsider what we notice, what we overlook, and how renewed attention can foster a deeper sense of connection and belonging.
Hear directly from the artists about their process, inspirations, and the ways their work engages with the history of the Guardhouse and its surrounding environment.
Muzae Sesay and Alexcia Sundra at the Guardhouse | September 17, 2026 - January 24, 2027
In the collaborative exhibition Attentive Earth, artists Muzae Sesay and Alexcia Sundra construct a provocative future where humanity’s connection to the planet has been completely severed, leaving society isolated from nature within a reality of fully commodified public attention. Staged inside the historic former guardhouse at the entrance to Fort Mason, the installation uses short-form video, painting, and archives to bring this speculative world to life. The narrative follows an underground group of scientists who discover Earth's sentient structure and occupy the complex, turning it into a protective fortress. Driven by curiosity for fleeting, unnoticed gestures, these researchers study how to recapture lost attention and preserve what has been fractured by our dissociation from the natural world.
Serving as the field office and archive for an "Attentive Realignment Center," the transformed guardhouse functions as a repository where artifacts and memories are collected and documented. By gathering these fragments of existence, the project reveals what lies beyond perceptual fatigue, forming the foundation of a therapeutic practice designed to rehabilitate human focus. Ultimately, Sesay and Sundra use the center to cultivate a shared, communal awareness, illustrating that rediscovering overlooked moments is essential to the architecture of belonging. By directly engaging with Fort Mason’s history as a coastal defense site, the artists powerfully prompt viewers to question what in our modern world requires fortified protection.
Images:
Image Courtesy of FOR-SITE and Shaun Roberts