Muzae Sesay & Alexcia Sundra At The Guardhouse: Attentive Earth

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 Center For Arts & Culture, 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 Center For Arts & Culture's history as a coastal defense site, the artists powerfully prompt viewers to question what in our modern world requires fortified protection.