Utē Petit explores Black-Indigenous, land-based traditions through Ailanthaland, a free Black nation of heavenly beings, realized in charcoal and graphite drawings, quilts, installations, farming, and cooking. She specializes in textile practices and incorporates woven, quilted, and hand-printed fabrics into her art. As part of her process, Petit stewards the lots of her great-grandmother and her three neighbors in New Orleans to repatriate family land stolen by the state of Louisiana. Deeply informed by her ancestry as a quilter, educator, and farmer, Petit attempts to design a nation divested from white-imposed societal constructs and committed to the self-determination of all beings.