Minia Biabiany’s solo exhibition dlo a rasin explores links between Hopewell, Virginia, known in the 1950s and 1960s as “The Chemical Capital of the South,” and Biabiany’s home island, Guadeloupe, where the toxic chemical chlordecone (also known as kepone) was imported for use as an insecticide on banana plantations. A carcinogen and endocrine disruptor, chlordecone affects all organs, especially nervous and reproductive systems. Today, extensive contamination is found in Guadeloupe’s soil, rivers, tap and ocean water.
A major strike of Guadeloupean banana plantation workers in 1975 largely failed to provide safety protection for workers or end the use of chlordecone (which continued until 1992), and lawsuits over the years have not found accountability. A similar health crisis in Virginia resulted from Allied Chemical’s factory dumping of toxic residue left from the production of chlordecone into unlined pits in the ground. The James River was closed to fishing and the brownfields of Hopewell captured national and international attention. In contrast to the situation in Guadeloupe, workers in Hopewell have found some legal restitution for their illnesses, and activists generated support for a new surge of environmental activism in the late 1970s.
What healing spaces exist when history repeats itself – from the legacies of slavery and plantation systems to environmental racism? Coming from a farmer family, Biabiany tells stories of connection to the land, soil, and water cycles. Using the materials of water, wood, and soil, Biabiany explores one of the most important spaces of resistance against coloniality and French assimilation – jaden kréol – the creole garden.