February 09, 2021 Andrea Carlson and Amina Harper Meet the artists featured in the exhibition America, I Sing You Back. The Anthropocene is the name of a theoretical geological epoch defined by significant human impact on the Earth. Some scholars want to place the beginning of the Anthropocene on June 16, 1945 when the first nuclear bomb was tested in New Mexico, while others have suggested that the industrial revolution, or the onset of colonization, should be where the epoch begins. No matter where we pinpoint its origin, we know that any beginning implies an end. The Anthropocene is the last epoch that will see humans through to the end of our impactful existence on Earth. But no one knows how humans will meet our collective demise. We make predictions with science and observations, visions and prophecy, and we apply what we learn from histories passed down from time immemorial. We have generated countless speculative endings for humanity that assume the end is yet to come, but for many Indigenous people, our past and continuing genocides are ever-present. We are trying to end ongoing efforts to disappear us, and we’ve been forced to contemplate our annihilation since European arrival. Adjacent to ever-popular speculations of humanity’s end are art movements like Indigenous Futurism and Afro-Futurism, in which more and more artists refer to healing as a motivation for the creation of art. It isn’t coincidental that when the end is so robustly imagined some of us portray our survival in rich, glittery ways. Perhaps we are hoping to undermine or curtail the Anthropocene. Anthropocene Refusal is a short film about healing in Dakota land. Through visual analogies and sympathetic imagery, we are weaving a sigil that celebrates the Earth as our kin. This statement is further developed in the short essay “The Mississippi is the Opposite of the Anthropocene” (2019) by Andrea Carlson. The film was created in conjunction with the project Mississippi. An Anthropocene River. About Andrea Carlson and Amina Harper: Carlson is a visual artist currently living in Chicago, Illinois. Through painting and drawing, Carlson cites entangled cultural narratives and institutional authority relating to objects based on the merit of possession and display. mikinaak.com Harper is an emerging artist born in Minneapolis where she currently works and resides. Her lush, detailed drawings and paintings are narrative-driven and wholly fantastical, romantic, and bizarre. aminaharper.wixsite.com/aminaharper