John Doe
Aug 17
ART AS ACTIVISM:
Environmental + Reproductive Justice Art Showcase
presented with Coalition for Environment, Equity, and Resilience (CEER) + Air Alliance Houston
Friday, June 21, 2024
5:30 - 8:00PM
at POST HTX, X-Atrium [map]
Featuring work by Zsavon Butler, Dakota Cooley, and Asenette Ruiz
CEER with support from the Houston Climate Justice Museum and Air Alliance have commissioned work from three Houston-based artists which will serve as an accessible call to action and cultural education to draw the connections between the reproductive justice and environmental justice frameworks.
The art showcase is a way for us to visualize the shared struggles for bodily autonomy, raising safe families, and environmental/climate degradation. Zsavon Butler has created a mixed media work that illustrates how marginalized communities live in areas with higher levels of pollution and toxic waste and how all these factors play a major role in adverse reproductive outcomes. Dakota Cooley's work highlights how women are more susceptible to the effects of VOCs due to their biological composition of having a higher percentage of body fat. Asenette Ruiz's work explores the concept of place as both sites of injustice (on land, on women) but also sites of healing and joy.
About the Artists
Zsavon Butler was born in Woodbridge, VA. She pivoted from an uninspired IT career and rediscovered a deep passion for art making at American University in Washington, DC. Zsavon graduated with a BA in Visual Media and a Minor in Studio Art. Soon after graduation, she chose to put her dreams to the side to raise her son and support her husband’s demanding career. She would continue to create in the background, showing her first exhibition in 2009.
Another relocation to Houston in 2012 reignited her art career. Exploration, experimentation and love of process has driven her recent flurry of exhibitions and private collections. Her work has been exhibited in many group shows from 2019-2022 including the Citywide African American Artist Exhibition in Houston, TX, and includes her first solo show In April 2022 at Houston Museum of African American Culture (HMAAC).
Dakota Cooley is an artist and architect living in Houston Texas. She studied art at the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, where she focused on installation art and painting. She then went on to study Design and Hispanic Linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin. Wanting to better understand the built and natural environment, she went on to pursue her Master’s degree in Architecture and Environmental Management at Yale University. She is passionate about research and its ability to elevate design practice. Throughout all her interdisciplinary practices, she is motivated by environmentalism and social equity.
Asenette Ruiz is a facilitator and creative engineer working to bridge STEM, art, and justice for herself, others, and collectives. She focuses her work on environmental justice with intersectional approaches that consider the impacts of gender, race, education and more. Asenette currently works at trubel&co, a tech-justice nonprofit championing youth to learn technical skills for community advocacy. Asenette is also a fellow at our climate, focusing on channeling her artistic visions to support organizing efforts. She’s exploring how to bridge her artistic side with her commitment to justice and equity and STEM background.
Asenette grew up in Houston and often connects her “climate story” of what got her into environmental justice to this experience, remembering how the creek surged next to the mobile home she grew up in during heavy rain, how water crept up the driveway during Ike and Harvey, or walking through a flooded parking lot during heavy rain in high school. She recognizes that this, and many more environmental issues, are only magnifying which drives her commitment to addressing environmental injustices. Asenette is a proud first-generation graduate, with a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Brown University and a certificate focused on environmental justice. To center joy and peace in her life, she loves to hammock, be outside with her plantitas, and enjoy a cup of tea.
About the Organizers
CEER (Coalition for Environment, Equity, and Resilience): CEER envisions a region that is equitable, environmentally sustainable and economically strong where residents have the opportunity to live, work, learn, play, and pray free from environmental hazards. To make that vision a reality, we advocate for public and private investment in protecting communities by cleaning up hazards that contaminate our air, water, and land, while at the same time prevent or reduce flooding
Air Alliance Houston: Air Alliance Houston is a non-profit advocacy organization working to reduce the public health impacts from air pollution and advance environmental justice.
