Jamilah Sabur
b. 1987, St. Andres Parish, Jamaica
Lives in Miami
venues
UNO Gallery
2429 St Claude Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70117
Monday–Tuesday, closed
Wednesday–Sunday, 11 AM–4 PM
New Orleans Lakefront Airport
6001 Stars and Stripes Boulevard, Suite 204, New Orleans, LA 70126
Daily, 7:30 AM–5:30 PM
neighborhood
Eighth Ward/St Roch/Faubourg/Marigny
New Orleans East
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Bulk Pangaea, 2021
Two- and five-channel color videos, with sound, varying times dependent on location
Courtesy the artist and Nina Johnson, Miami
For Prospect.5, Jamilah Sabur choreographed disparate pieces of visual information that investigate the social, economic, and environmental consequences of technological progress and space exploration. Sabur traced the movement of Bauxite—a raw material sourced from tropical and subtropical regions that is used to make aluminum—from a mine in Port Rhoades, Discovery Bay, Jamaica, to factories in Louisiana. An essential material for the aero, space, and technology industries, Bauxite is currently being mined from Cockpit Country, a rugged part of western Jamaica whose difficult-to-navigate landscape historically provided sanctuary for maroon communities––individuals who escaped slavery––and today holds precious sources of fresh water, increasingly threatened by mining.
Named for a cargo ship that transports Bauxite from Jamaica to Louisiana, Bulk Pangaea juxtaposes scenes of industry, history, and nature—both real and imagined, terrestrial and extraterrestrial. The film opens with a conveyor belt moving Bauxite at a factory alongside a 3D rendering of Mars’s landscape—a sight that recalls the mountains of Cockpit Country after excavation. At the end, lush nature scenes contrast against an animated sequence featuring a Victorian greenhouse in a barren place populated by four figures wearing iconic Russian Sokol KV-2 spacesuits. Purposefully ambiguous, the landscape could be either Mars or the red bauxite fields of Jamaica. Through these juxtapositions, Sabur connects raw materials with their source, the products they become, and their ultimate destination, emphasizing relationships across space and time that brought us to this point.
about the artist
Jamilah Sabur is a multidisciplinary artist who works in performance, video, and installation. She frequently references her Jamaican heritage, as well as geography and geology in her pieces, which explore the temporary nature of our world and of our fleeting presence in it, a fact that connects us all. She uses language and landscape to depict the relationship between memory and community. Hammer Projects: Jamilah Sabur was featured at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, in 2019. Several galleries and institutions have exhibited her work, such as Nina Johnson, Miami; Pérez Art Museum, Miami; the New Orleans Museum of Art; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit, among others. Sabur earned a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore (2009), and an MFA from the University of California, San Diego (2014).
Jamilah Sabur, Bulk Pangaea, 2021. Two-channel color video, with sound, 17 minutes, 22 seconds. Installation view: Prospect.5: Yesterday we said tomorrow, 2021–22. University of New Orleans St. Claude Gallery, New Orleans. Courtesy Prospect New Orleans. Photo: Jose Cotto
Jamilah Sabur, Bulk Pangaea, 2021. Five-channel color video, with sound, 3 minutes, 52 seconds. Installation view: Prospect.5: Yesterday we said tomorrow, 2021–22. New Orleans Lakefront Airport, New Orleans. Courtesy Prospect New Orleans. Photos: Jonathan Traviesa