Founded by artists Annette Weisser and Mitchell Cope. The Detroit Tree of Heaven Woodshop reimagines the invasive tree of heaven—once imported from China with migrant workers and botanists—as both material and metaphor for resilience in post-industrial Detroit. Known for thriving in contaminated soil, drought, and abandonment, the tree mirrors the survival and ingenuity of Detroit’s …
Tag: ecology
Scholarship: Mushroom at the End of the World (2015)
Anna Tsing’s The Mushroom at the End of the World foregrounds the theme of entanglement, using the matsutake mushroom to reveal how ecological, economic, and social worlds are knotted together in precarious ways. Emerging from forests disrupted by industrial logging, matsutake becomes a medium through which displaced human communities, nonhuman species, and global markets intersect. …
Scholarship: Dispersal: On Plants, Borders, and Belonging (2024)
Jessica J. Lee’s Dispersals is a meditation on migration, memory, and ecology that foregrounds the entanglement of human and more-than-human forms of dispersal. Moving between her family’s history of displacement across Taiwan, Canada, and the UK, and the drifting pathways of seeds, spores, and plants, Lee weaves together an intimate memoir with natural history to …
Seeds of Change: Botany of Colonization (1999- ongoing)
Site-specific Installations by Maria Thereza Alves Seeds of Change: Marseille 1999-2000 Seeds of Change: Reposaari 2001 Seeds of Change: Liverpool 2004 Seeds of Change: Exeter and Topsham 2004 Seeds of Change: Dunkirk 2005 Seeds of Change: Bristol 2007 Seeds of Change: Antwerp 2009/2019 Seeds of Change: New York City 2017 Maria Thereza Alves is a …
Borderland Ecologies
“A border is a dividing line, a narrow strip along a steep edge. A borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary.” (25) – Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza Echoes from the Borderlands is an exceedingly relevant and poignant exploration of the U.S./Mexico Border that …
Transnational Art, Solidarity, and Justice
Portrait of Catlett with Glasses, ca. 1955-65, Bernice Kolko The Brooklyn Museum, in partnership with the National Gallery of Art, showcased the work and life of artist and activist Elizabeth Catlett in “A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies: Elizabeth Catlett / Una artista negra revolucionaria con todo lo que ello implica: Elizabeth …
The Geographic Imagination
From the Archives . . . Giuliana Bruno, Atlas of Emotion by Sumita S. Chakravarty In her 2002 book, Atlas of Emotion, noted visual and environmental studies scholar Giuliana Bruno uses the metaphor as well as the method of journey and mobility to rethink our relationship to cinema and other media. Advancing a wealth, …
Fiction Film: Sleep Dealer (2008)
Alex Rivera provides a poignant commentary on labor, ecology, racial capitalism, and imperial infrastructure in his futuristic, science fiction film Sleep Dealer. The film is set in a dystopian future of North America where Mexican water rights are in the control of multinational corporations and the border between the United States and Mexico is completely …
Documentary Film: Foragers (2022)
Directed and produced by Jumana Manna, Foragers incorporates documentary, fiction, and archival footage to display the impact of Zionist migration to, and occupation of, Palestine. The film centers around Palestinians who risk heavy fines and imprisonment for violating Israeli foraging restrictions, and connects these stories to broader themes of alienation, community, and political economy. Both …
Black Migration and Climate Displacement in the United States
By Chase Louden “The elusiveness of ‘Home’ has characterized Black existence in the United States” —Jacqueline Patterson, “Displaced on Repeat: Black Americans and Climate Forced Migration,” July 12, 2023 Climate Migration within the United States “That storm took the stairs!” Patrina Myers exclaimed, realizing Hurricane Nicole had swept away the staircase of a beachside pavilion …