Black Earth Rising

   May 18, 2025 - September 21, 2025
   Baltimore Museum of Art

Air Kid (Boy), Yinka Shonibare, 2020. Fiberglass mannequin, Dutch wax, printed cotton textile, globe, brass, steel baseplate, umbrella. Photo by Phoebe d'Huerle, © Yinka Shonibare, courtesy of the artist and James Cohan Gallery.

Artists Included:
Yinka Shonibare

See nature’s beauty and power through the eyes of today’s leading artists.

Organized by guest curator and renowned author Ekow Eshun, this exhibition explores today’s climate crisis from a new perspective and celebrates our shared connections to the natural world.

Among the artists featured are:

  • Firelei Báez
  • Alejandro Piñeiro Bello
  • Frank Bowling
  • Teresita Fernández
  • Todd Gray
  • Sky Hopinka
  • Tyler Mitchell
  • Jamal R. Moore 
  • Wangechi Mutu
  • Otobong Nkanga
  • Jaune Quick-to-See Smith
  • Yinka Shonibare
  • Alberta Whittle

The show takes its title from terra preta, Portuguese for “black earth,” which refers to a type of fertile soil created by ancient Indigenous civilizations in the Amazon basin thousands of years ago. Recently rediscovered by scientists, it remains more fertile than ordinary land.