PhD Candidate, Geography | Queen Mary, University of London, London, UK
MA, Research Architecture, 2019 | Center for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK | Pass with Distinction
BA, Anthropology & Visual Arts, 2010 | Columbia University, New York, NY, US | Dean’s List
Awards, Residencies, Fellowships
Black Women, Green Future Award (2021)
Economic Inequality Fellow, Open Society Foundations, 2019 AFIELD Fellow, Council (for Fossil Free Fest), 2019 New Architecture Writers, The Architectural Foundation, 2019 Goldsmiths International Postgraduate Scholarship, 2018 Grist 50 2018 Artist-in-Residence, Headlands Center for the Arts, Marin County, CA, US, 2018 Artist-in-Residence, The Luminary Arts, St. Louis, MO, US, 2018 Artist-in-Residence, AIR Laboratory, Zamek Ujazdowski Center for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, PL, 2017 Fellow, British Council, Future Leaders Connect, 2017 Fellow, Salzburg Global Seminar, Young Cultural Innovators, 2016
Major Projects
(2019-Present) Unraveling Industry, Creator |
An interactive digital platform that follows the flow of oil from wetland wells to upriver petrochemical plants through a single pipeline. In mapping fossil fuel infrastructure in Louisiana by company for the first time, the platform reveals corporate responsibility for environmental destruction and articulates a demand for corporate accountability and reparations. http://followtheoil.org/
(2018) Fossil Free Fest, Creator and Artistic Director, New Orleans, LA, USA | A biennial gathering around art, music, films, food, and difficult conversations about the ethics and complexities of funding art, education, and science with fossil fuel philanthropy.
(2014-2018) Blights Out, Co-Founder and Artistic Director, New Orleans, LA, USA | a collective of artists, activists, and architects who worked to demystify and democratize development in post-Katrina New Orleans between 2014 and 2018.
(2011-2018) Occupy Museums, Member, New York, NY, USA | An artist-activist collective that organized actions, interventions, and projects to challenge the commodification of art and culture.
(2012-2018) Debtfair, Co-Organizer, various locations | An iteral exhibition and organizing platform by Occupy Museums that exposes the layers of financial extraction within the walls of art institutions within capitalism.
Professional
Forensic Architecture, London, UK. Research Fellow | Consultant on issues of racial and ecological justice and the spatial logics of colonialism. (2022.10 – Present)
Advanced Researcher | Architectural researcher on environmental racism, police brutality, and spatial logics of colonialism in Louisiana, USA, Portland, USA, and Namibia. (2020.10 – 2022.10)
Royal College of Art, London, UK. Associate Lecturer, MA Architecture | Co-leading an Architectural Design Studio (ADS 8) on colonialism and ecological justice. (2022.10-Present)
Visiting Lecturer, MA Environmental Architecture | Studio tutor and lecturer on environmental justice. (2019.10 – 2020.07)
Antenna, New Orleans, LA, US.
Director of Programs | Directed Antenna’s public programming, including Signals quarterly “live arts magazine”; Platforms Fund grantmaking program; Spillways Artist-in-Residence program; Fossil Free Fest; and more. (2016.03 – 2018.08)
Solitary Gardens, New Orleans, LA, US.
Project / Publication Manager | Imagined by artist Jackie sumell, garden beds designed after 6’x9’ solitary cells serve as a physical platform for collaboration, education, and commiseration between persons subjected to indefinite solitary confinement and volunteers on the “outside”. concept, design, publication management of The House That Herman Built, 3rd Ed., Merz & Solitude, Pub. April 2015. (2015.03 – 2016.01)
Prospect New Orleans / U.S. Biennial, Inc., New Orleans, LA, US.
Curatorial Associate and Manager of Publications | Assisted with the conception and implementation of Prospect.3: Notes for Now, the third iteration of the largest international biennial of contemporary art in the United States, featuring 58 artist projects in 18 venues throughout New Orleans. (2014.03 – 2015.01)
Judd Foundation, New York, NY, US.
Executive Assistant, Board Liaison, and Press Assistant | Assisted the Foundation through the historic restoration and public opening of 101 Spring Street, the permanently-installed SoHo home and studio of Donald Judd. (2010.10 – 2013.09)
Healthy Gulf, New Orleans, LA, US.
Oil and Gas Accountability Campaign Manager | Led the organization’s efforts to hold the oil and gas industry accountable for environmental degradation in Louisiana’s wetlands. Founded and led the organization’s street canvass fundraising team. (2009.05 – 2009.08)
Exhibitions, Projects, Interventions, Screenings
(2023.08-2024.01) The holes in the earth mirror the holes in our souls (and from them we can grow trees), in Unsettling Matter, Gaining Ground, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA, USA (group exhibition as individual artist)
(2023) What remains at the ends of the earth?, in Dear Earth: Art and Hope in a Time of Crisis, Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London, UK (group exhibition as individual artist)
(2022) What remains at the ends of the earth? in Still Present! curated by Kader Attia, 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, Berlin, DE (group exhibition as individual artist)
(2021–2022) Cloud Studies, VISUALCarlow, Carlow, IR (solo exhibition with Forensic Architecture)
(2021) If toxic air is a monument to slavery, how do we take it down?, Sensing the Planet / Black Atlantic, Serpentine Gallery, Dartington, UK (film screening)
(2021) Cloud Studies, Whitworth Museum, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK (solo exhibition with Forensic Architecture)
(2020.11-2021.01) Will the River re-member the land we lost? in Imagining De-Gentrified Futures, Apex Art, New York, NY, US (group exhibition as individual artist)
(2019.09-2020.10) The Remote Sensation of Disintegration in Mississippi: An Anthropocene River, Haus der Kulteren der Welt, Mississippi River, US and Berlin, DE (participant)
(2019.05) Whole Life Academy, Haus der Kulturen der Welt and Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Dresden, DE (participant)
(2019.03-2019.09) “Plastcity of the Planet”, Forensic Architecture, Centre for Contemporary Nature, Ujazdowski Center for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, PL (group exhibition with Forensic Architecture)
(2017.10-2018.01) Gotong Royong: Things we do together, Zamek Ujazdowski Center for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, PL (group exhibition as individual artist)
(2017.03-06) “Debtfair” in 2017 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, US (group exhibition with Occupy Museums)
(2016.02-05) “Debtfair” in Making Use: Life in Postartistic Times, Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, PL (group exhibition with Occupy Museums)
(2016.06-08) “Debtfair” in Precarious: Contingency in Artmaking and Academia, Gallery 400, University of Illinois at Chicago (group exhibition with Occupy Museums)
(2016.02-2016.08) Agitprop, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY (group exhibition with Occupy Museums)
(2015.11-2016.01) Debtfair, Art League Houston, Houston, TX, US (group exhibition with Debtfair)
(2014.10-12) Work It Out, Momenta Art, New York, NY, US (group exhibition with Occupy Museums)
(2014.09.09) “Ritual Re-Branding of the David H. Koch Plaza on the Day of its Dedication”, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, US | An Occupy Museums durational ritual cleansing and rebranding of the formerly-public plaza bought by David Koch at the Met Museum. (intervention with Occupy Museums)
(2013.08) “Debtfair”, Abrons Art Center, New York, NY, US (group exhibition with Occupy Museums)
(2013-2014) “Winter Holiday Camp”, Center for Contemporary Art (CCA) Zamek Ujazdowski, Warsaw, PL | The interjection of a tactical pause in CAPITALIST TIME into the cultural institution, giving staff and public breathing room for organizing, dreaming, and healing amidst tension between administration, staff, and Ministry of Culture. Accepted into CCA permanent collection Dec. 2013. (intervention / multiple exhibitions and actions with Occupy Museums and others)
(2012.09-12) 7 Billion Bloombergs, Momenta Art, Bushwick, NY, US | A gallery-turned-commons designed to investigate the limitations of art and culture dependent on private philanthropy, striated by competition, burdened by debt, and flipped as a financial asset class for speculation. (solo exhibition with Occupy Museums)
Selected Presentations
(2023.04) Guest Lecturer, GSAPP, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA (forthcoming)
(2023.04) Guest Lecturer, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA (forthcoming)
(2023.04) Guest Lecturer, “Sensing Cosmologies Beyond Extractivism,” Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, USA (forthcoming)
(2023.02) Guest Lecturer, Future Present Symposium, MS Computational Design, Columbia University Graduate Schol of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP), New York, USA (remote)
(2022.08) Guest Lecturer, “Methodologies for Just Urban Futures: Using Geospatial Tools to Address Police Violence”, USF Seminar Series, Clark University, Worcester, MA, USA (remote)
(2022.06) Panelist, “Imperial Ecologies”, 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, Berlin, DE
(2022.06) Panelist, “Extractive Legacies: Decolonial Perspectives from the Berlin Biennale”, Conversations, Art Basel 2022, Basel, CH
(2022.04) Guest Lecturer, “Speculative Cartographies”, Department of Landscape Architecture, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI, USA (remote)
(2022.01) Panelist, “This is not Anarchy, this is Chaos”, Transmediale 2022, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, DE (remote)
(2021.11) “Mapping Against Extractivism”, The Wrangler, Brown Institute for Media Innovation, Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA (remote)
(2021.10) Ecologies of Repair, MAAT (Museum of Art, Architecture, and Technology), Lisbon, PT
(2021.10) 7 Questions, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
(2021.07) “Black Ecologies”, Keynote, public program, Mohamed Bourouissa, “HARa!!!!!!hAaaRAA-AAA!!!!!hHAaA!!!”, Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art, London, UK
(2021.07) Breathe, Free Thinking, BBC Radio 3, London, UK
(2021.04) “Against the Plantationocene: Black Ecologies and Environmental Justice”, European Media Arts Fesival, Berlin, DE
(2021.02) Featured Expert, Geneva Dialogues on Human Rights and Climate Change, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Geneva, CH
(2020.12) 27th Public Session, Systemic Racism and the Lessons of 2020, United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, Human Rights Council, United Nations, Geneva, CH
(2020.10) The Shape of a Practice, Haus der Kulteren der Welt, Berlin, DE (virtual)
(2020.06) Ecologies of Harm, Royal Anthropological Institute, British Museum, London, UK
(2020.06) Political Ecologies of/at the Edge, POLLEN Annual Conference, Brighton, UK
(2019.11) HUMAN: 3rd PARSE Biennial, University of Gothenberg, Gothenberg, SE
(2019.03) “Seeing in Infrastructure,” Look for Me All Around You, March Meeting, Sharjah Biennial, Sharjah, UAE
(2018.11) Inspiring Dissent to Transform the Museum, UK Museums Association Conference, Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK
(2018.10) Environmental Migration, Festival of Politics, Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
(2018.03) Public Practice Symposium, Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA, US (as Blights Out)
(2018.10) The Elders #WalkTogether with former Algerian Foreign Minister and freedom fighter Lakhdar Brahimi and former President of Finland Matti Ahtisaari, UK Houses of Parliament, London, UK
(2016.10) Gentrification, 2016 Common Field Convening, Miami, FL, US
(2016.10) Kemper Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, US (as Blights Out)
(2014.04) Latin American and European Meeting on Organization Studies (LAEMOS), Winner of Best Paper in Alternative Spaces/ Places of Organizing and nominated for Best in Conference for “Performing Bare Life: Occupying the Liminal Space Between Civilization”, 5th International Colloquium, Havana, CU
(2014.01) global aCtIVISm Symposium, Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM), Karlsruhe, DE
(2012.02) Parsons The New School, Visiting Artist Lecture Series, with Noah Fischer for Occupy Museums, New York, NY, US
All images and texts on this site are the creations of Imani Jacqueline Brown, unless otherwise noted, e.g. photodocumentation of works or collaborative projects.