FRAMEWORKS OF ABSENCE
IMPRINTING SPECIES LOSS TO COUNTER FUTURE EXTINCTIONS, 2006-ONGOING
BRANDON BALLENGÉE (US)
Brandon’s work reflects that we are in the middle of a biodiversity crisis, often referred to as the Anthropocene or sixth great extinction. Species are disappearing at upwards of a thousand times the natural rate. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of animals have disappeared from the Americas in recent centuries. Such extinctions started when the Europeans first colonised these new lands and have continued until today with recent losses like the Eastern Cougar (2013), Pinta Island Tortoise (2012), Florida Fairy Shrimp (2011), and many others.
Responding to this, Brandon physically cut images of missing animals from historic prints and publications printed at the same time in history when the depicted species became extinct. The resulting image minus the subject is what he refers to as a Framework of Absence.
The Frameworks of Absence is accompanied by the Book of the Dead, a memorial book of lost species that is available to the public.
BIO
Brandon Ballengée was born in 1974 and is a visual artist, biologist and environmental activist based in Arnaudville, Louisiana. Brandon creates transdisciplinary artworks inspired from his ecological field and laboratory research. Since 1996, a central investigation focus has been the occurrence of developmental deformities and population declines among amphibians and other ectothermic vertabrates. Since 2016, he has been a Postdoctoral Research Associate Museum of Natural Science at Louisiana State University and is a 2017/18 Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow at the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) and Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) in Washington D.C. examining species missing from the Gulf since the 2010 oil spill.
Brandon’s artwork has previously been exhibited throughout the USA and internationally in eighteen countries. His art has been featured in numerous major publications, including ARTnews, The New York Times, New Yorker, The Observer (UK), The Guardian (UK), and BBC News (UK).