Traces

People and places are shaped by the passage of time, leaving traces both seen and unseen. What traces remain from colonial histories, etched in the memory of bodies, places, and objects? The Caribbean, as a geographic region, was shaped by the movement of gendered and racialized bodies, first as chattel slavery from Africa and afterward as indentured labor from India, China, and other locations. The legacies of colonialism, racism, and gender violence wound both the body and the landscape. Rather than representing these colonial histories, the artists in this section call attention to the traces they left behind through objects, materials, and gestures, which hold just as much of the past as they do the present and future.

Rising (Lynched Land)

Teresita Fernández (b. 1968, Miami, FL; lives in New York, NY) Copper, wood, burlap, and rope In Rising(Lynched Land), the palm tree, a symbol associated with the Caribbean’s tourist economies, is suspended from the ceiling with a rope, appearing as a lynched body. It is a painful yet powerful metaphor for the histories of colonialism, violence, and environmental pillage that connect the Caribbean landscape to the colonially oppressed body. The work takes on one of the most circulated symbols of Caribbeanness, which contrary to popular belief is not native to the region, to allude to the histories of destruction and redemption embedded within its form.

Learn More About the Artist

The soft afternoon air as you hold us all in a single death (To breathe full and Free: a declaration, a re-visioning, a correction)

Firelei Báez (b. 1981, Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic; lives in New York, NY) Acryl-gouache and chine collé on archival printed paper Across this installation of eighty-one individual works, Firelei Báez describes the lives of the queen of Haiti, Marie-Louise Coidavid (1778–1851), and her daughters. Coidavid and her daughters left Haiti after the death of her husband, Henri I, and lived in exile in Pisa, Italy. Several of Báez’s other interests, including flora and fauna, the ciguapa (a female trickster in Dominican folklore), images of protest, and Yoruba mythology, are gathered across the installation’s multiple panels. By intervening directly into historical material from different time periods and geographies, Báez collapses time and space to focus on global histories of Black fugitivity and resistance.

Learn More About the Artist

Figura De Cangrejos

Daniel Lind-Ramos (b. 1953, Loíza, Puerto Rico; lives in Loíza) Steel, aluminum, nails, palm tree branches, dried coconuts, branches, palm tree trunks, burlap, machete, leather, ropes, sequin, awning, plastic ropes, fabric, pins, duct tape, and acrylic Figura de Cangrejos is a human-like assemblage of everyday objects gathered in the artist’s hometown of Loíza, a Maroon-founded community on the northeastern coast of Puerto Rico. A coconut grater serves as a head and painted claw hammers and palm leaves extend outward like appendages, while elements like the drum refer more broadly to Afro-Caribbean rhythmic traditions. Daniel Lind-Ramos collected these objects through a variety of ways: scavenging them from the streets and the shore, purchasing them from local vendors, and receiving them as gifts from friends and acquaintances. These objects all function as repositories of both personal and historical memory, forming a material portrait of Loíza that reaffirms the vibrancy of Black community spaces.

Learn More About the Artist