Imani Jacqueline Brown: What remains at the ends of the earth?
12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, Akademie der Künste Hanseatenweg
June 11, 2022 – September 18, 2022
2022 Production | Exhibition Grant
What remains at the ends of the earth? is a multimedia installation by Imani Jacqueline Brown that investigates the intersecting histories of land inhabited by Black Louisianans, and the vast network of fossil fuel infrastructure that overlays these sites today. Comprised of a circular video projection on the floor and two custom curved prints, What remains at the ends of the earth? aims to bring visibility to the ways fossil fuel production inherits the racist spatial, economic, and environmental logics imposed by slavery.
The video animation pictures animated GIS lines and points representing pipelines, canals, and wells, as well as environmentally threatened coastal marshes with sacred groves of trees planted by enslaved people to memorialize their dead. In the face of ecological devastation, these trees are now a bulwark against soil erosion caused by the activities of petrochemical companies in this fragile ecosystem. The prints chart oil and gas pipelines. Rendered by Brown, these networks come to resemble twinkling stars in a night sky—a reminder of the constellation of extractive values that guide modern consumption. By mapping these intertwining legacies, What remains at the ends of the earth? suggests a way forward through landscape reintegration and economic reparations.
The Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art was founded in 1996 as an independent and experimental format for international contemporary art and cultural production. Since then, the Berlin Biennale has established itself as one of the most important biennials worldwide with a global purview and international visitorship. Each edition is based on a curatorial concept, which explores urgent cultural discourses from the perspective of current arts production. For the 12th edition of the Berlin Biennale, curator Kader Attia explores the concept of “repair” in a decolonial context in four thematic strands presented in venues across Berlin: Decolonization of the Arts and the Colonial Legacy; Colonialism, Fascism, and the Field of Emotions; Decolonial Feminism; and Decolonial Ecology.
Imani Jacqueline Brown, installation view, 12th Berlin Biennale, Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg, 11.6.–18.9.2022
Photo: dotgain.info
Imani Jacqueline Brown, What remains at the ends of the earth?, 2022
Video installation, print
