Imani Jacqueline Brown
What remains at the ends of the earth? (2022)
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, the artwork aims to bring visibility to the ways fossil fuel production inherits the racist spatial, economic, and environmental logic 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.
Imani Jacqueline Brown (1988, USA) is an artist, activist and architectural researcher. She uses her works to investigate the ‘continuum of extractivism’, a period of time that spans from settler-colonial genocide and slavery up to the current issues of fossil fuel production, gentrification, police and corporate impunity. With her work, she exposes layers of violence that lay within the foundation of US society. Brown uses mediums such as video, installations and public actions to reach and engage with a wide audience; she also delivers testimony to the United Nations, occupies billboards and performs lectures. Her work has been present internationally in the US, UK, Poland, Germany, UEA, and most recently in Berlin.
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.
Imani Jacqueline Brown (1988, USA) is an artist, activist and architectural researcher. She uses her works to investigate the ‘continuum of extractivism’, a period of time that spans from settler-colonial genocide and slavery up to the current issues of fossil fuel production, gentrification, police and corporate impunity. With her work, she exposes layers of violence that lay within the foundation of US society. Brown uses mediums such as video, installations and public actions to reach and engage with a wide audience; she also delivers testimony to the United Nations, occupies billboards and performs lectures. Her work has been present internationally in the US, UK, Poland, Germany, UEA, and most recently in Berlin.