Duke Hall Gallery of Fine Art, Harrisonburg, VA September 17 — October 18, 2024
Minia Biabiany’s solo exhibition explores links between Virginia, where a toxic chemical chlordecone (also known as kepone) was produced in the 1960s and places where it was exported for use as an insecticide- including Biabiany’s home island, Guadeloupe. Chlordecone is both carcinogenic as well as an endocrine disruptor and its pervasive contamination of soil and water has resulted in Guadeloupean population developing a predominance of nervous and reproductive system diseases, including the highest rate of prostate cancer in the world.
Working with collaborators in Hopewell, Virginia, a small town to the east of Richmond known as “The Chemical Capital of the South,” Biabiany questions this town’s relation to Guadeloupe, engaging those harmed by this toxicity, community and environmental activists, and those impacted by continuing legacies of slavery, colonial exploitation, and environmental racism.