U. Maryland opens ‘Black & Indigenous’ art gallery to address ‘climate anxiety’
By Jenna Mulhern – Furman University
Outside scholars say gallery may perpetuate ‘extreme and inaccurate messages‘ about environment
A “Black & Indigenous environmental art gallery” recently opened at the University of Maryland, aiming to support students’ “climate anxiety” and other “stresses” of studying “environmental injustice and environmental racism.”
The CEDAR Gallery stands for “Centers Ecologies, Diasporas, and Ancestral Roots.” It showcases “environmental works and teaching at UMD, Maryland, and around the globe,” according to its website.
The gallery, which opened earlier this year, also aims to introduce students “to interdisciplinary and environmental-related art, activism, and scholarship.”
History Professor Jayson Porter is the principal curator and director of the gallery. According to his university bio, he specializes in “environmental justice history, science and technologies studies of race and resistance, and Afro-Indigenous ecologies in Latin America.”
Earlier this fall, Porter posted about a fundraiser for the gallery on X, stating that it will help support “a space that uplifts Black and Indigenous environmental art.”
