The Vagrant is an animated work, styled in the manner of 1980s children’s television programs. Much like a child’s cartoon, a journey ensues, and we observe the fantastical near and distant futures of planet Earth. The story of these futures is told via the political and public debates around the role of art in space.

Issues of identity politics, representative democracy, globalization, political governance and morality are central to the narrative; placing artists and the role of art in society are put under scrutiny. In the future, as is true now, we see art itself as a nexus around which these issues orbit. Maintaining some privileged distance from such serious matters and yet perfectly equipped to address and highlight the attendant problems in society, we see art and artists go to work in space. Through the ages, through the successes and the calamities, we see how citizens respond to forms of governance and how artists respond with their galactic, representational gestures. It is in this multi-temporal, spatial spectacle that we see all the social, political, economic and environmental problems of our current moment play out. By turning space and the universe into the stage for this discourse, as opposed to a singular museum or gallery, Bader universalizes our contemporary plight in both humorous and poignant ways.