BLACK EARTH RISING, colonialism and climate change in contemporary art

240pp., b/w & colour illus., hardback, Thames & Hudson, London & New York, 2025

ISBN:9780500028780

Published in conjunction with the exhibition, Baltimore Museum of Art, 2025.

The show takes its title from terra preta, Portuguese for “black earth,” which refers to a type of fertile soil created by Indigenous civilizations in the Amazon basin thousands of years ago. Recently rediscovered by scientists, it remains more fertile than other land.

Features work by over 150 artists of African diasporic, Latin American and Native American identity, including Wangechi Mutu, Otobong Nkanga, Tuli Mekondjo, Zina Saro-Wiwa and Yinka Shonibare.

Contributions include:

"Plantation Returns in Contemporary Art" by Anna Arabindan-Kesson

"The Creative Storm of the Otherwise" by Macarena Gómez-Barris.

"Through the brilliance of its curator, British writer Ekow Eshun, the works are organized to emphasize intertwined concepts such as slavery and the environmental consequences of colonialism. Black Earth Rising takes some of contemporary art’s most interesting and exciting voices and puts them in compelling conversation with each other." BookPage

Writer, curator, journalist and broadcaster Ekow Eshun is Chairman of the Fourth Plinth, and former Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London. His books include The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure; The New African Portraiture, Shariat Collection; In the Black Fantastic; Africa State of Mind: Contemporary photography reimagines a continent and Black Gold of the Sun: Searching for home in England and Africa.