INHABITATION: The title refers to a concept that theorist Malcolm Ferdinand writes about in his book Decolonial Ecology, and describes how the participants of this exhibit are attempting to move away from colonial inhabitation wherein land and people are seen as disposable resources. The exhibit showcases a caring engagement with the material byproducts of extraction— such as archival film, chemical pigments, plastic, and expanded polystyrene foam—and invites passerbys to relate and re-imagine our relationships to the built environment, and in turn, one another. Throughout the eight week residency, the exhibit will shift as pieces are worked on, and additional artists contribute.
About the Artists
Kira Akerman is an educator and documentary filmmaker, and her forthcoming film, Hollow Tree, is about three young women coming of age in the climate crisis. Her installation derives from the film and alludes to 18th and 19th century colonial projects that resulted in manipulation of Louisiana's landscape. Throughout the course of her residency at the Small Center, other participants featured in Hollow Tree will contribute to the exhibition and workshops. Dr. Robin McDowell is a featured expert in the film and will exhibit her mixed media artworks that envision Black history as a chemical and geological churning. It is a resistant reading of the reports and travelogs of white scientists and a subversion of historically rooted horrors of numeracy. Using soil, clay, silt, rock salt, and carbon byproducts from sites in south Louisiana, these artworks reclaim stories trapped within extracted minerals themselves. Annabelle Pavvy, one of the protagonists in the film, will exhibit woodcuts of an extracted cypress tree.
Flora Cabili is an educator and interdisciplinary artist who explores storytelling through themes of origin, assembly, and dislocation. In DEPARTURE, Flora’s solo show last April, she showcased work with found materials. Notably, found styrofoam, or more accurately, Extracted Polystyrene foam. Her work to understand these materials and how to shape them in order to reconsider their nature, is Flora’s entry point in conceptualizing the impact of oil extraction in Louisiana. These materials are toxic and disposable. The sheer act of manipulating them can cause toxic fumes we have to protect ourselves from. This immersive installation will showcase recycled materials and mixed media works that allow us to examine the materiality of our relationship with petroleum byproducts. By adapting, and manipulating these materials without transforming them how can we reconsider their nature and the manipulation of nature? During the course of the DEPART-MENT Fall residency, she along with fellow community members will hold workshops to engage folks across generations in collective learning and artmaking.