Sondra Perry
“The backhoe is now removed from use, and so it has time to think about all these ways terraforming has happened on this planet, and how it can happen on others. . . . The piece really came from a type of thinking about shifting geologies in relationship to colonialism, and how the shifting of the earth, the changing of the South, coincided with the changing and shifting of people—how they have been moved and shifted throughout time. . . .”
![Sondra Perry, GIF excerpt, *Eclogue for [in]HABITABILITY*, 2017–20. Backhoe workstation with three-channel HD synced monitor video and projection, sound, running time variable. Overall dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist and Bridget Donahue Gallery, New York.](placeholder.png)
by Roy Rosenzweig and Elizabeth Blackmar. This excerpt tells the story of Seneca Village, a community of free often landowning Black people displaced from the land that would become Central Park. Roy Alan Rosenzweig (1950–2007) was an historian at George Mason University in Virginia. Blackmar is Professor of American History at Columbia University.
by Kathryn Yusoff. This text takes as its basis the proposed geological epoch dating from the start of significant human impacts on Earth’s geology and ecosystems known as the Anthropocene. Connecting Black feminist theory, geography, and the earth sciences, Yusoff argues the very discipline of geology is rooted in the extractive economies of colonialism and slavery. She is Professor of Inhuman Geography at Queen Mary University of London.
Sondra Perry (b. 1986, Perth Amboy, New Jersey) holds an MFA from Columbia University and a BFA from Alfred University. Solo exhibitions include Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, Cleveland, USA; Luma Westbau, Zürich, Switzerland; Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, USA; Disjecta, Portland, USA; Serpentine Sackler Gallery, London, UK; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, USA; Squeaky Wheel, Buffalo, USA; The Kitchen, New York, USA; and Institute for New Connotative Action, Seattle, USA. Perry has participated in residencies at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts (2015–16), RECESS (2015), Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2013), Ox-bow (2012), Vermont Studio Center (2011), and the Experimental Television Center (2011). She currently lives and works in Newark, New Jersey.
Image in menu: Sondra Perry, still from Eclogue for [in]HABITABILITY, 2017–20. Backhoe workstation with three-channel HD synced monitor video and projection, sound, running time variable. Overall dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist and Bridget Donahue Gallery, New York.
Sondra Perry
“The backhoe is now removed from use, and so it has time to think about all these ways terraforming has happened on this planet, and how it can happen on others. . . . The piece really came from a type of thinking about shifting geologies in relationship to colonialism, and how the shifting of the earth, the changing of the South, coincided with the changing and shifting of people—how they have been moved and shifted throughout time. . . .”
by Roy Rosenzweig and Elizabeth Blackmar. This excerpt tells the story of Seneca Village, a community of free often landowning Black people displaced from the land that would become Central Park. Roy Alan Rosenzweig (1950–2007) was an historian at George Mason University in Virginia. Blackmar is Professor of American History at Columbia University.
by Kathryn Yusoff. This text takes as its basis the proposed geological epoch dating from the start of significant human impacts on Earth’s geology and ecosystems known as the Anthropocene. Connecting Black feminist theory, geography, and the earth sciences, Yusoff argues the very discipline of geology is rooted in the extractive economies of colonialism and slavery. She is Professor of Inhuman Geography at Queen Mary University of London.
Sondra Perry (b. 1986, Perth Amboy, New Jersey) holds an MFA from Columbia University and a BFA from Alfred University. Solo exhibitions include Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, Cleveland, USA; Luma Westbau, Zürich, Switzerland; Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, USA; Disjecta, Portland, USA; Serpentine Sackler Gallery, London, UK; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, USA; Squeaky Wheel, Buffalo, USA; The Kitchen, New York, USA; and Institute for New Connotative Action, Seattle, USA. Perry has participated in residencies at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts (2015–16), RECESS (2015), Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2013), Ox-bow (2012), Vermont Studio Center (2011), and the Experimental Television Center (2011). She currently lives and works in Newark, New Jersey.
Image in menu: Sondra Perry, still from Eclogue for [in]HABITABILITY, 2017–20. Backhoe workstation with three-channel HD synced monitor video and projection, sound, running time variable. Overall dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist and Bridget Donahue Gallery, New York.