The Enlightenment, fueled by humanism, encouraged people to celebrate the genius of the individual human, eventually leading to the capitalist, neoliberal framework dominating mainstream culture today. An alternative, burgeoning posthumanist approach can be detected throughout the exhibition “Displacement,” now on view at MassArt Art Museum (MAAM). “Posthuman thinking is a relational activity. … [It] takes the form of cartographic renderings of embedded and embodied relational encounters,” philosopher Rosi Braidotti wrote in her 2019 book, Posthuman Knowledge. These relationships are not just between humans, but with other beings and with the land.
Curated by MAAM artistic and executive director Lisa Tung, “Displacement” brings together nine contemporary artists—Maya Watanabe, Nyugen E. Smith, Ellie Schmidt, Sandra M. Sawatzky, Katie Paterson, LOT-EK, Imani Jacqueline Brown, Akea Brionne, and Justin Brice—on the topic of the relationship between humans and the environment.
I visited “Displacement” first on my own and then once more with my students in the Global BFA in Film Art program at Emerson College. Their thoughtful observations impacted how I saw the work, and I thank them for their insights. The ethos of this exhibition is to consider how we bridge our ways of considering the world with those of others, whether from different generations, income brackets, or global regions.
Sandra Sawatzky’s The Black Gold Tapestry (2008–2017) is a tour de force. It composes more than half of the exhibition space and sets a tone for creatively bearing witness. It is horizontally oriented, so its scenery can be taken in by walking clockwise along the periphery of MAAM’s second-floor gallery. The Black Gold Tapestry tells a long story of how oil has impacted culture and science. It begins with the Jurassic geologic period and chronicles a 5,000-year history of inventions and discoveries related to oil from ancient Mesopotamia to the present day.
At 220 feet long, The Black Gold Tapestry is inspired by and has similar formal qualities as the famed Bayeux Tapestry, a 224 foot-long scroll-like embroidery documenting the Battle of Hastings of 1066. The Black Gold Tapestry is a feat of endurance, made over the course of nearly a decade. The intimate connection of humans with invention and motion surpasses time periods.
Sandra M. Sawatzky, The Black Gold Tapestry (detail), 2008–2017. Silk and wool threads on flax linen cloth. 219.8 feet. Photo by Mel Taing. Courtesy of MassArt Art Museum.
Sawatzky’s stitches are equally vibrant and colorful through all of the eras, cultures, and locations the tapestry depicts. The narrative unfolds from left to right in a linear manner. This method is rooted in the logic of Western teleology, or direct causality of one event to the other, a single perspective that my students commented on. Usually, this critique would discount the message, yet an affirmative sensibility emanates from the work.
The lucid language describes a topic that is often conveyed today in the tone of either shame or defensiveness. For example, “War’s great weapon became the trinity of technology, mass production, and oil” is framed by a colorful mushroom cloud explosion, bookended by dinosaurs gaping at the spectacle and a military tank and two soldiers crouching, weapons at the ready. As I took it all in, I felt that its materiality provides an effective way to narrate a vast amount of information.
Imani Jacqueline Brown, What remains at the ends of the earth?, 2022. Dimensions variable. Photo by Mel Taing. Courtesy of Mass Art Museum.
Continuing the theme of oil production, Imani Jacqueline Brown’s installation What remains at the ends of the earth? (2022) makes an elegant contrast with The Black Gold Tapestry. Specific rather than a survey, it correlates networks of oil and gas facilities and the memorials and plantations of enslaved peoples in Louisiana.
Brown’s work makes research and the awareness of how power and resources correlate beautiful. The kaleidoscopic shifting layers of projected imagery on a circular screen on the floor and two delicate hanging panels are evocative and intricate, but they and the soundscape are not readily legible from the viewer’s vantage point in this gallery. More space and a darker setting might have facilitated more of a synthesis between the imagery and the meaning. The project’s accompanying website bridges the gap between aesthetics and content, clarifying its powerful premise. Brown’s artist-activist research uses maps and up-to-date data to show the precise location of oil wells and pipelines in Louisiana. An aerial view of Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico shares in detail, with satellite technology and analysis of shoreline surveys, how to tell which companies to hold accountable for massive land erosion and other environmental outfalls from oil production.
The varied ways we mine resources from the earth forces the migration of vulnerable populations. Nguyen E. Smith’s artwork considers the Black diaspora with assemblages made of found objects. His sculpture Bundle House FS Mini No. 6 (For the Record) (2021) is made of seventeen materials, including faux fur, wood, and sequins. It looks like the model for a post-apocalyptic pack, with an intriguing niche filled with neat rows of glass vials. The effect combines inventiveness and wonder, whatever the circumstances. I would have liked to see his sculptures, with their riotous color palette and rustic textures, displayed on the second story of the exhibition alongside The Black Gold Tapestry, contrasting with Sawatzky’s steady, even rows of stitches.
Katie Paterson’s poetically titled To Burn, Forest, Fire brings scent to the forefront. A conceptual piece, it is composed of two sticks of incense that represent the scent of the first- and last-ever forests on earth before they inevitably succumb to the effects of climate change. Alongside the incense, which she developed alongside scientists, two infographics convey information about each forest, as articulated by Paterson. The scents mimic the oldest forest in the world, the Cairo Forest in the Hudson Valley, and the projected last forest, the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. We learn which trees are present in each location, that in the Amazon the wood would smell of nutmeg and the wet mud would smell like fresh peanuts. We lean down to catch a whiff, in a sense bowing down to a tiny suggestion imagined by Paterson to further our sensitivity and understanding of climate crises. MAAM hosts biweekly incense burning events, and this injection of ceremony enhances the exhibition by increasing opportunities for community interaction.
Nearby Brown’s installation, Ellie Schmidt’s video Sandcastles (2020) depicts the challenge of coastal erosion on Nantucket. The sweeping shots of golf courses, huge lawns, and homes clad in faded gray shingles recall the B-reels of a murder mystery. Alongside this, more documentary-style imagery, including a wired grid made by dune repair, a “Retreat will not save ‘Sconset” bumper sticker, and patterns of tractor tire tracks in the sand, bear witness to the reality of a rapidly changing ecosystem. Together, Sandcastles conveys the tight thread of psychological tension regarding climate change.
Maya Watanabe, Zhùr, 2023. Single channel video installation. 18 minutes. Photo by Mel Taing. Courtesy of Mass Art Museum.
Finally, Maya Watanabe’s stunning video installation, Zhùr, is a standout for its compelling use of opacity and abstraction. It shares images of a recently found intact wolf pup frozen shortly after its death 57,000 years ago. A visual artist and PhD researcher in the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths in London, Watanabe accessed this pup when it was hosted by the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre in Canada.
In a cave-like setting, the camera moves in close proximity to its body while the audio accentuates the sensation of immersion with deep whooshing sounds. Fur, amber, and crystals dusted with white dirt come into view. For much of the video, what we see is not discernable. A big moment of recognition is a sharp tooth, like that of a saber-toothed tiger. The visuals are mostly in soft focus with shifting cadences, some moments sharpening into focus. Humans tend to categorize, assuming we understand the totality of the things we assess. My students and I appreciated how the hovering, shifting views of Zhùr withhold visual agency to comprehend the entirety of what is being examined. Watanabe’s choice to not offer the totality of the ancient wolf’s body lets it retain its own autonomy; this mystery prevents us from fully consuming it and moving on.
However we recognize ourselves in relation to the natural world, the artwork in “Displacement” stimulates recognition of our inherent interconnectedness. Whether driven by data, assemblage, inventive craft, storytelling, or keen observation, the works engage all of our senses to consider how and why we are collectively experiencing climate catastrophe.
“Displacement” is on view at MAAM through December 8, 2024.
