Advance Praise

“Aviva Rahmani once collaborated on a performance about rape that included nailing raw kidneys to walls (‘Ablutions’ 1972). In Divining Chaos she nails her own heart to the Earth’s gallery wall and invites us to examine it, a daunting experience of critical life-moments revealing the complex dialectic of violation. Her ‘trigger point theory’ for healing emerges with ecologically inspired art and empathy for the human community and the self. To read about the deflowering of the Earth as personal biography is powerful. Yet, to fight ecocide and regain the symphony of life, we must 'read' and 'listen' to her beautiful, beating heart, an avatar of harmonia mundi.”

— Glenn Albrecht, environmental philosopher; author of Earth Emotions and Solastalgia

“Fluidly oscillating between art, science, poetry, theory, and diaristic prose, Aviva Rahmani offers a memoir of anti-capitalist, anti-ecocidal storytelling imbued with a deep and abiding faith that people and art can interrupt and reinvent the status quo. In twinning deep scientific and theoretical knowledge with her art, she manages a near-impossible task of rendering the world as it is—precarious, violent, dangerous, beautiful. Divining Chaos pairs Rahmani's generosity and vulnerability with her keen eye and prose focused on the urgencies of our times: the need to recuperate the planet and our human and non-human compatriots from an oblivion brought on by greed. Through her art, she gifts hope.”

— Laura Raicovich, writer and curator; author of Culture Strike: Art and Museums in an Age of Protest and former director of the Queens Museum of Art

“Aviva Rahmani’s remarkable Divining Chaos is part bildungsroman, part eco-action guidebook, part pandemic diary, and part portrait of a turbulent time in American art and history. With searing honesty, Rahmani presents her complex multidisciplinary thinking as it has evolved through the twists and turns of a tumultuous life. This is the story of a life in art that is also a life in politics, science, and environmentalism. And, in our dark times, it is also a story of what we may still be able to do to save our planet.”

— Eleanor Heartney, art critic and curator; author of Art & Today and Doomsday Dreams

“Divining Chaos is a compelling and courageous memoir of historical importance, written by a central figure in the emergence of ecofeminist art. Aviva Rahmani makes clear that the same entrenched systems of power enable the abuse of women and the abuse of nature. Her personal experiences of trauma might well have defeated her. Instead, they seemingly empowered her to become a strong and persistent advocate for ecological issues through her artwork, and to challenge the status quo in innovative and effective ways. The book narrates her prescient interdisciplinary approach to environmental problems and her willingness to avail herself of any field of knowledge that can be wielded as a tool in the fight.”

— Julie Reiss, PhD, editor of Art, Theory and Practice in the Anthropocene