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Forest Islands of our ecological diaspora: Imani Jaqueline Brown and Paulo Tavares

Houmas Plantation Cemetery. Photo by Imani Jacqueline Brown.

Presentation of the artistic practice of Imani Jaquelie Brown in conversation with architect, author, and educator Paulo Tavares.

Imani Jacqueline Brown's work maps the scope and ongoing violence of the capitalist and extractivist agents that led to slavery, colonial genocide and ecological saturation.

From the microecologies of black antebellum cemeteries that manifest as groves of trees interrupting a horizon of sugarcane plantations and petrochemical plants, to the gentrification of New Orleans on the back of hurricane Katrina, Imani's practice exposes the layers of violence that underpin settler-colonial society.

Imani Jacqueline Brown is an artist, activist, writer, and architectural researcher raised in New Orleans, based in London. Her work investigates the "continuum of extractivism," which spans from settler-colonial genocide and slavery to fossil fuel production and climate change.  In exposing the layers of violence and resistance that form the foundations of settler-colonial society, she opens space to imagine paths to ecological reparations.

Paulo Tavares is an architect, author, and educator. His practice dwells at the frontiers between architecture, visual cultures and advocacy. Operating through multiple media, Tavares's projects have been featured in various exhibitions and publications worldwide, including Oslo Architecture Triennial, Istanbul Design Biennale, São Paulo Art Biennial, and the Venice Architecture Biennale 2023. He is the author of books questioning the colonial legacies of modernity, including Des-Habitat (2019), Lucio Costa era Racista? (2022), and Derechos No-Humanos (2022) and La Naturaleza Politica de la Selva (2024). The curatorial project Terra, in collaboration with Gabriela de Matos, was awarded the Golden Lion for best national participation at La Biennale di Venecia 2023, and Tavares was selected by ArchDaily as one of the Best New Practices of 2023. He was co-curator of the 2019 Chicago Architecture Biennial and is part of the advisory curatorial board of Sharjah Biennial 2023. Tavares teaches at the University of Brasília and leads the spatial advocacy agency autônoma.