Jota Mombaça on the Cognitive Plantation and Black Fugitivity

In an essay published in Afterall, artist Jota Mombaça delves into the concept of the 'cognitive plantation' to analyze the extraction and commercialization of Blackness within modern art. Drawing on Octavia Butler's 'Kindred' (1979), Mombaça contends that the plantation symbolizes persistent value extraction and anti-Black violence. By engaging with Denise Ferreira da Silva's notion of 'negative accumulation,' the artist emphasizes the economic marginalization faced by freed slaves and their descendants. Mombaça critiques the way art institutions celebrate difference, referencing a 2017 residency in Athens associated with documenta 14. Additionally, the essay challenges Suely Rolnik's reading of Lygia Clark's 'Caminhando' (1963) and introduces the idea of a 'fugitive difference,' inspired by Édouard Glissant's 'right to opacity,' envisioning a Black existence that defies the plantation's constraints.