Karman Fellow 2021
Nahum Romero
Artist & Founding Director
KOSMICA Institute
Nahum’s oeuvre goes deep into the human experience by challenging our perceptions through unusual perspectives. Navigating between the real and the imaginary, his work produces events that reframe the way we understand the world: “I am interested in that point where reality touches the impossible.“ He often employs outer space technologies, illusionism, hypnosis and music to guide audiences into otherworldly journeys to raise critical dialogues about the politics of existence. Nahum’s multidisciplinary work orchestrates a wide range of media including performance, installation, video, music, drawing and storytelling.
Nahum has worked on various space missions for artistic purposes with the major space agencies including NASA, ESA, Roscosmos and SpaceX. He is the first artist to launch an interactive artwork into outer space in 2018. Nahum has served as the Chair for the Committee for the Cultural Utilisation of Space (ITACCUS), at the International Astronautical Federation (IAF) in Paris. In 2014, he was the first artist to be awarded the title of Young Space Leader for his unique cultural contributions to astronautics and space exploration. He is the Founding Director of KOSMICA, a global institute founded in 2011 with the mission to establish a platform for critical, cultural and poetic discourse on our relationship with outer space, space exploration and the impact of these activities here on Earth. The Institute develops initiatives that bridge art and humanities, the space sector and wider society. Nahum received a B.Sc. in Computer Science from Tec de Monterrey in Mexico City and graduated with a distinction from a Master of Arts at Goldsmiths, University of London in 2008. He coursed the Space Studies Programme at the International Space University in Strasbourg, France and Haifa, Israel in 2016 where he currently lectures to future astronauts and space professionals. “Nahum is the new generation of artists creating new imaginaries that will infect the ideas of tomorrow” - ROGER MALINA “Nahum resists the idea that space is ours to conquer. He argues that artists must be included in the conversation about how we explore space or else humanity” - BBC ”Nahum is a truly visionary artist who is creating new views of how we should get closer to our planet and the universe we inhabit” - VICE “While Nahum’s investigations actively engage with the cosmos, his work also suggests a more down-to-earth and self-conscious undertone to humanity’s quest to conquer the unknown: understanding ourselves and where we come from” - HYPERALLERGIC