Past

Meech Boakye: watering

Untitled (Biomaterial Research), 2020. Courtesy of Meech Boakye.

Watering is a communal hydration ritual, a gathering facilitated by artist Meech Boakye that considers hydration as a medium for collective healing. The gathering centers on a screening of Jumana Manna’s Foragers (2022), a film that explores the restricted practices of foraging wild edible plants in Palestine under Israeli law. To introduce the film, Boakye will draw parallels to American postbellum property laws, discussing how access to wild land was systematically restricted to limit autonomy and erase Indigenous traditions. This program invites participants to question how ecological conservation can be weaponized as a political tool for displacement.

Before the screening, audience members will be invited to engage in a collective libation. Food will be served throughout the event, sourced by wild foraging in Los Angeles and from local Southern California farms. Guests will leave with a small gift grown and foraged in Boakye’s home in Portland.

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About the Artists

Meech Boakye

Meech Boakye (Hon. B.A. in Visual Studies from the University of Toronto) is an artist and writer currently based in Portland, Oregon. Their practice is rooted in relationships with floral, fungal, and microbial kin as armatures for learning how to be in community. Material research functions as a formal conduit...

Jumana Manna

Jumana Manna is a visual artist and filmmaker. Her work explores how power is articulated, focusing on the body, land and materiality in relation to colonial inheritances and histories of place. Through sculpture, filmmaking, and occasional writing, Manna deals with the paradoxes of preservation practices, particularly within the fields of...

About ECOTONES

This event is part of ECOTONES, a collaborative programming series presented on the occasion of the exhibition Life on Earth: Art & Ecofeminism at The Brick. Four public programs will be led by an artist or artist-collective to explore local agriculture, foraging, food and herbalism as ritual, and biodiversity.

Through this collaboration, these two L.A.-based art organizations are modeling an ecofeminist ethos by sharing authorship, and collectively generating materials and resources. Taking place in conjunction with the Getty Foundation’s ambitious initiative PST ART: Art & Science Collide, ECOTONES is part of a region-spanning cultural moment, reaching vast audiences interested in the intersection of art, food, feminism, and sustainability.

Support for this program series is provided by Kim and Keith Allen-Niesen, The Maurice Marciano Family Foundation, and Olivia Marciano.

About The Brick

Founded in 2005 as LAXART, The Brick is a nonprofit visual art space that promotes developments in contemporary culture through exhibitions, publications, and public programs. A platform for emerging and under-recognized talent, its mission encompasses thematic exhibitions that engage with the present moment. We believe that contemporary art is a means of understanding key issues of our time with all their inherent contradictions. Contemporary art assumes many forms. Rather than provide answers, it raises questions. Through a range of offerings, we contextualize contemporary art both socially and art historically. Our programs are free and designed to be accessible to the general public.

Lead support for Life on Earth: Art & Ecofeminism at The Brick is provided by Getty and PST Art: Art & Science Collide, with additional generous support by The Margaret Morgan and Wesley Phoa Fund, The National Endowment for the Arts, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Knox Foundation, Teiger Foundation, and the Wilhelm Family Foundation.

Credits

Active Cultures’ programs this year are made possible through the generous support of its Board of Directors; the Gatherers Annual Fund; the Los Angeles Visual Arts (LAVA) Coalition; the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture as part of Creative Recovery LA, an initiative funded by the American Rescue Plan; the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Department of Arts and Culture; and the California Arts Council.

Event Details

DATE: October 13, 2024

LOCATION: The Brick, 518 N Western Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90004

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Thank you to those who attended!

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