In 1974, Linda Goode Bryant founded Just Above Midtown gallery in New York City, creating a vital context for black conceptual artists. In the 1990s, she dedicated herself to documentary filmmaking. She currently runs Project EATS – an urban farming initiative that supports sustainable food production in black and brown neighbourhoods. All along, she has remained connected to what she calls “our innate power to use what we have to create what we need”.
—Thomas Lax
Thomas Lax: Can you describe Still Life?
Linda Goode Bryant: The first component is a farm in the Giardini. The second is film clips of uncultivated plants that cover buildings and other human-made structures in Venice. The third is a looped film in the Arsenale, made from archival material I’ve shot over the last twenty-five years.
TL: What will you grow on the farm?
LGB: Vegetables they already grow in Venice – hearty greens, swiss chard, lettuces, tomatoes. And Koyo’s favourite… okra.
TL: What would you say is at stake in your contribution to the Biennale Arte?
LGB: Making a work that captures Koyo Kouoh’s vision and inspires its visitors to see what we too often look away from; question it, imagine something other than it, and create ways that care for the wellbeing of earth and its many species, including ourselves.
