Date of Award
2026
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Contemporary Art
Abstract
This dissertation examines how the works of Sammy Baloji, Otobong Nkanga, and Anna Boghiguian—specifically …and to those North Sea waves whispering sunken stories (II) (2021), Solid Maneuvers (2015), and The Salt Traders (2015)— offer critical reconfigurations of the Anthropocene. Bringing together the frameworks of Black Anthropocenes and the visuality of the Anthropocene, the study argues that the environmental crisis cannot be understood as a universal human condition but must be read through the racialised geologies, extractive histories, and visual regimes inherited from colonial modernity. Through strategies of installation, performance, and speculative narration, these artists reveal the uneven material and perceptual structures that shape contemporary planetary imaginaries: from the coerced mobilities of people, minerals, and plants to the colonial visual logics embedded in modern modes of seeing. Their works propose alternative forms of perception that unsettle detached planetary perspectives and open resistant ways of imagining ecological futures.
Recommended Citation
Ko, Jiwon, "Unmaking the Anthropocene: Colonial Violence, Racial Visuality, and Extractive Capitalism" (2026). MA in Contemporary Art Dissertations. 4.
https://digitalcommons.sia.edu/ma_con_art/4