Archival Art Print of "Mali" by Aurora Levins Morales

About The Work Mali honors the scientists in Mali who have been researching species of bacteria and fungi that can remediate pesticide-drenched soil and water. In it I imagine a future Mali scientist, at a time when the whole world honors their contributions to healing the world. Crowned in amethysts, my female scientist holds a blaze of the pesticide detoxifying species Pseudomonas fluorescens in her hands, Below her, behind a clump of the famed red rice of the inland Niger delta, stands Sankore University, a center of learning established in Timbuktu in the 10th century CE. The landscape of Mali is layered with traditional mud cloth to make a backdrop. This piece celebrates West African innovation, past, present and future. About The Ferment Series My multi-genre project, Ferment, explores the impact of “chemicals of control” starting with my own pesticide-induced epilepsy and expanding into a global story of military and agricultural toxicity. My work, in words or in visual art, never documents the terrible without offering some medicine for it. In this case, it’s an immersion into microbiology and the beneficial bacteria that can bioremediate everything from the pesticide dieldrin, to plastic waste, to the residues of war.