Ecocide—the large-scale destruction of ecosystems—is among the defining crimes of our time. The term was coined in the context of the Vietnam War to describe the US military’s systematic annihilation of forests and fields across Vietnam—and parts of Laos and Cambodia—through the weaponized use of herbicides, Rome plows, “daisy cutter” bombs, and other methods of environmental devastation. Since then, the term has expanded to encompass the slower, more diffuse devastation wrought by extractive industries, warfare, and environmental neglect. A growing coalition of states, legal scholars, and civil society organizations is now pushing to recognize ecocide as the fifth international crime, alongside genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression, which would create new urgent avenues for environmental justice.

To attain the prospect of justice, ecocide must first be made legible. It often unfolds across vast territories and uneven timelines, in places that are remote, contested, or deliberately obscured. Making ecocide visible—and making that visibility count—requires many different instruments, forms of evidence, and ways of knowing.

Land Testifies brings together student work from two University of Chicago courses that approach ecocide from distinct but complementary directions. Pixels, Planet, Power (taught by Grga Bašić) uses satellite imagery and geospatial analysis to visualize environmental destruction across sites of ecocide worldwide, asking what remote sensing can—and cannot—show, substantiate, or prove. Ecocide: Reckoning with Environmental Destruction (taught by Darya Tsymbalyuk) approaches the same subject through legal testimony, poetry, ethnography, and creative practice, asking what forms of witnessing, evidence, and attention constitute a reckoning.

Together, their work asks: what does it mean for us to listen to soil, trees, rivers, and animals, what would it mean for land to testify?

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Curated by Grga Bašić and Darya Tsymbalyuk

Work by Constanza Aportela, Gray Armstrong, Alex Arnell, Lukas Borja, David Castillo Tavarez, Asjia Chapin, Yufei Chen, Susana Cook, Leah Dimsu, Orion Douglas, Natalie Drozd, Danielle Duble, Defne Ergoz, Sonia Esteva, Eleana Fernandez, Yarselyn Flores, Kai Foster, Vinessa Fressola, Tallulah Gonsky, Jinwei Guo, Ann Haarlow, Eva Herrick, Tae Kyeong Hong, Isimenme Irene, Maria Jimenez Ahumada, Sabrina Kane, Xander King, Andrei Kureichik, Justine Lam, Enas Lefkaditis, Claire Lenden, Jennifer Li, Kelli Lynch, Lekha Masoudi, Jane McElroy, Shane Murtagh, William Penne, Leonardo Quai, Harmony Ramsden, Julian Rapaport, Lucas Ribeiro, Daniela Rivera Solano, Samuel Schuur, Rebecca Shaw, Micah Sheinberg, Matilda Spadoni, Marija Starovoita, Grace Sternberger, Davis Turner, Will Vanman, Narek Yavryan, Oliver Zajac, and Christian Ziebold

CEGU Exhibitions support from Jessica Landau and Carlo Diaz

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