Art at the edge of the Anthropocene, from a pioneering multimedia artist

From social inequality to population growth to climate change, New Orleans-based multimedia artist Dawn DeDeaux (born 1952) does not shy from exploring difficult topics. One of the first American artists to connect questions about social justice to environmental concerns, DeDeaux responds to a future imperiled by runaway population growth, breakneck industrial development and the looming threat of climate change. Since the 1970s, she has been probing humanity's present and future through videos, performances and installations. This catalog, published for her first comprehensive museum exhibition at the New Orleans Museum of Art, presents DeDeaux's work spanning five decades: from early multimedia works using radio and satellite to recent works from her MotherShip series, in which she imagines humanity's escape from a destroyed Earth. For DeDeaux, art is always closely intertwined with philosophy, science and new technologies.