SJMA
DOCENT
COUNCIL
IF TOXIC AIR IS A MONUMENT TO SLAVERY, HOW DO WE TAKE IT DOWN?
January 18, 2024
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April 21,2024
Research agency Forensic Architecture (FA) uses cutting-edge technologies, including digital reconstruction, animation, remote sensing, and fluid dynamics simulation, to investigate human rights violations from Bogotá to the West Bank. Working on behalf of communities affected by police brutality, border regimes, and environmental violence, FA develops evidentiary materials that can be deployed in courtrooms and political processes, as well as in galleries, cultural institutions, and through media, in pursuit of accountability for violence committed by states and their agents.
At SJMA, FA will present their research on “Death Alley,” Louisiana, a heavily industrialized petrochemical corridor that runs along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, and overlays what was formerly known as ‘Plantation Country.’ Through architectural and environmental analysis, they examine environmental degradation and cancer risk as manifestations of colonialism and slavery, offering tools to help combat a 300-year continuum of environmental racism.
If toxic air is a monument to slavery, how do we take it down? is a multi-sited exhibition, taking place at UC Santa Cruz’s Institute of the Arts and Sciences (IAS) and SJMA, and co-organized by UCSC Professor Gina Dent, SJMA chief curator Lauren Schell Dickens, and Dr. Rachel Nelson, director of IAS. It is part of Visualizing Abolition, an ongoing initiative exploring art, prisons, and justice, with exhibitions collaboratively organized by the Institute of the Arts and Sciences at University of California, Santa Cruz and San José Museum of Art.
The show is very information rich, and it would be helpful if everyone could spend some time exploring the affiliated website here: https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/environmental-racism-in-death-alley-louisiana
Please take the time to watch the 35 minute video at the bottom of the home page. https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/environmental-racism-in-death-alley-louisiana
Our exhibit playlist will give you access to the video that is part of the exhibit.
IF TOXIC AIR IS A MONUMENT TO SLAVERY, HOW DO WE TAKE IT DOWN?
The exhibit playlist includes a collection of videos related to the exhibit and the artists.
Brown Bag video not available
Brown Bag Video URL
Additional Information
From FA Website
What is ‘forensic architecture’?
‘Forensic architecture’ is the name of an emergent academic field we have developed at Goldsmiths. It refers to the production and presentation of architectural evidence—relating to buildings, urban environments—within legal and political processes.
What do we do?
We investigate state and corporate violence, human rights violations and environmental destruction all over the world. Our work often involves open-source investigation, the construction of digital and physical models, 3D animations, virtual reality environments and cartographic platforms.
Within these environments we locate and analyse photographs, videos, audio files and testimonies to reconstruct and analyse violent events.
We also use our digital models as tools for interviewing survivors of violence, finding new ways to access and explore memories of trauma.
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