Imperial Ecologies
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Artist Talk held within the framework of the conference “Imperial Ecologies” as part of the 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art on June 22, 2022 at Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum der Gegenwart – Berlin.
Drawing from their respective geographical origins and professional practices, Imani Jacqueline Brown and Sammy Baloji delve into the material realities of extractive economies and explore possible paths toward decolonization. Over the last years, Baloji has detailed the geopolitics of soil in the Congo Basin, teasing out the roots of historical injustice and the continuities between the extraction of resources such as rubber, copper, uranium, coltan, lithium and the immiseration of the Congolese population. In her Black Ecologies manifesto, Brown proposes to “open a wormhole to other ecologies” and to (re)affirm blackness as a crucial starting point toward the restoration of the earth’s ecology. In their discussion with Malcom Ferdinand, the artists will address the creation of new ecologies and their role in global decolonization.