The exhibition contains large-scale murals, intricate diagrams, and a 3D-printed set up exploring the intersections of geology, cosmology, and political histories. The works on show study the situations that organise our social sub-terrain and the constructions that pre-determine the bounds of our political creativeness.
That includes new and present works, the exhibition challenges the colonial conception of a singular, knowable “world”, as an alternative suggesting new fashions for envisioning a Black planet. One mannequin is a brand new iteration of recurse 4 a late planet (2024-ongoing), an unlimited wall mural weaving cosmological, geological, and techno-political information in direction of a social historical past of stones. Nolan’s diagram attracts from an archive of near-Earth asteroids and their cosmic journeys, with specific consideration to the “doubtlessly hazardous objects” that periodically threaten catastrophic harm to our planet. Alongside these celestial perils, Nolan brings collectively a political historical past of stones, tracing their trajectories by way of mythological, religious, and activist accounts of justice and social change. Adorning the floor of the mural will likely be three-dimensional notes together with beads, shells, and archival supplies concerning references to the world-ending and world- mending properties of stones put into movement by way of the void. Aware {that a} stone flying by way of the air traces a path by way of a hierarchy of values, Nolan will for the primary time exhibit throwers – a private archive of photographs of individuals throwing rocks.
These supplies will likely be introduced alongside isivivane (2023-ongoing), an set up that includes a 3D-printing machine reproducing rocks chosen from specimens held in analysis archives in London. Tended often by Gasworks’ employees, the variety of rocks will accumulate all through the length of the exhibition, making a “Black Earth library”. Elsewhere, additional notes 4 a planet (2025), a fragmented wall-based diagram, playfully makes lateral connections between completely different worlds and their speculative modalities. Offered collectively, these works will tie social, political, and ecological time to the precariousness of existence in any given world.
The exhibition will likely be contextualised by a brand new iteration of the Black Earth Examine Membership, an area for transdisciplinary considering the place collective studying, togetherness, and sociality go hand-in-hand. Convened by interdisciplinary author, artist, editor, and curator Imani Mason Jordan, the membership will invite artists, writers, and students to mirror on the matters orbiting Nolan’s observe and presents a relaxed surroundings through which to mirror on the private, philosophical, historic, political, scientific, and technological. Black Earth Examine Membership occasions will happen at Gasworks on the evenings of 15 and 22 Might 2025.
at Gasworks, London
till June 22, 2025
