Toxicity figures in a range of contemporary political, economic, social, and environmental discourses, from the toxic waste of the gulf catastrophe or Fukushima and the toxic assets of financial institutions, to concerns over toxic lifestyles and the biomonitoring of toxic bodies. In Around Crab Orchard Sarah Kanouse investigates the deep flows of toxicity in the natural environment and how these shape their materiality and the politics of their existence.

Crab Orchard calls itself a unique place to experience nature. As the only wildlife refuge in the United States whose mission includes industry and agriculture alongside conservation and recreation, Crab Orchard claims a harmonious balance between past and present, nature and culture. Assembled from documents, found footage, and conversations with activists, writers, and local residents, Around Crab Orchard questions the ideal of natural harmony while meditating on the persistence of history, the creation of knowledge, the limits of representation, and the commonplace of environmental hazard. Around Crab Orchard ultimately argues for forms of storytelling, image-making, and action that respond to the full complexity of the social and ecological landscape.

Screening followed by discussion with Elizabeth A. Povinelli and filmmaker Sarah Kanouse.

Sponsored by the Center for Place, Culture, and Politics at The Graduate Center, CUNY

Curated by Denisse Andrade

Sarah Kanouse is an interdisciplinary artist and writer examining the politics of landscape and public space. Her research-based projects trace the production of landscape through ecological, historical, military, and legal forces. Her work has appeared at Documenta 13, Cooper Union, The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, The Smart Museum, The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, among others. Kanouse has written extensively about performative and site-based contemporary art practices in Art Journal, Acme, Leonardo, Parallax and in the forthcoming volume Critical Landscapes. She is Associate Professor of Intermedia at the University of Iowa.

Elizabeth A. Povinelli is Franz Boas Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University where she also teaches in the Institute for Research on Women, Gender and Sexuality. She is the author of four books and numerous essays exploring the sources and trajectories of the otherwise in late liberalism. She is also a founding member of the Karrabing Film Collection whose films have shown in venues including the Berlinale, dOCUMENTA-13, the Wexner Center, and e-flux gallery. She is currently finishing Geontologies: A Requiem to Late Liberalism.

Denisse Andrade is an activist and independent curator currently pursuing a PhD in Geography at the Graduate Center, City University of New York.