Latinx Project’s “Building Radical Soil” Explores Sustainability in Collective Art – COOL HUNTING®

At NYU’s Latinx Project, Building Radical Soil is a group exhibition (on view now until 5 May) by nine artists who meditate on conservation methods throughout the Latin, African and Asian diaspora. Whether focusing on traditional or contemporary approaches to sustainability, the artists highlight how collective art-making acts as resistance against colonialism-induced climate change. Lina Puerta’s “Broccoli Crop Workers” is a tapestry that depicts figures representing America’s unrecognized agricultural labor and a quote from an NPR article that reads, “Improper exposure to pesticides harms 10 to 20 thousand agricultural workers every year. The people who harvest America’s food.” Another piece, Glendalys Medina’s print “Bank Statement (Levels),” recalls colonial trauma through a fictitious map that notes the permeable boundaries between Trinidad and Zambia. As a whole, the show “posits that resistance begins at the ground level, and that truly progressive traditions will outlast the neoliberal era,” writes Hyperallergic, where you can read more.

Image of Lina Puerta’s “Broccoli Crop Workers” (2017) by Tere Garcia, courtesy of Latinx Project