Histories of Ecology

In the year that the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) is being held in the city of Belém, Pará, MASP presents the exhibition Histories of Ecology. This book accompanies the homonymous international group show, which brings together more than two hundred works of artists, activists, and social movements that examine, from different perspectives, the concept of “ecology” as a system of interrelationships, exploring the connections between human and more-than-human beings—including here animals, plants, rivers, forests, mountains, and fungi. Richly illustrated, this catalog features reproductions of works and curatorial essays on each of the five sections of the exhibition—“Web of Life,” “Geographies of Time,” “On Becoming,” “Territories, Migrations, and Borders,” and “Inhabiting the Climate.” The paintings, sculptures, weavings, maps, and videos of the 116 artists presented on the show, with a majority of them coming from the so-called Global South, not only shed light on the effects of colonialism, environmental racism, and global capitalism on bodies, territories, and ecosystems, but also the historical and structural roots of this mode of living, as well as different ways of seeing, inhabiting, and transforming the planet.