Search results | Digital Grinnell

Title: Chaos
Description: Unlike many of the blocks in this piece, this block is not tied to an individual story or person but rather attempts to show an idea. The block is centered around an image of a head both human and alien, evoking emotions such as pain, fear, and sadness. These are the emotions associated with colonialism and violence, of oppression and disease, and were likely felt by Haitians at the time of the revolution. While this musical being appears cry and mourn, it also inspires a sense of power and awe in the viewer, similar to the feeling of power that many Haitians were beginning to sense as the revolution took hold of Haiti. This block, while more abstract than others, contributes to the abolitionist story by recognizing the role of terror and chaos, while representing the relationship between pain and strength, fear and power.
Date Created: 2017
PID: grinnell:25503

Title: Collision
Description: This block is a visualization of the clash between the cosmic forces of nature and the institutions of humankind. This encounter was especially apparent during the revolution in Haiti; the very concept of slavery and the violence that grew from it defies nature in every way. The plantation economy which ran off the energy of slaves turned a lush tropical landscape into flat planes of torture. Confrontation between armed forces over these plantations wreaked havoc on the earth and the destroyed the natural landscape. In this block an image of a classical Greco-Roman building, representing the institutions of a “more civilized” people, collides with the cosmic forces of earth and nature. These forces are commonly called upon in Haitian Vodou ceremonies, making this collision not just one between man and nature but also between ideologies and philosophies.
Date Created: 2017
PID: grinnell:25492

Title: Invitation
Description: This block emerged from an invitation to participate in a campus-wide reflection on race, revolution, and artist’s place in our troubled social context. The ominous and powerful insect, the central image in this piece, is based on Alejo Carpentier's magical realist novel on the Haitian revolution, The Kingdom of this World. Is the insect colonialism? The revolution? It confronts the viewer with questions: Why don’t we know our own history, and why are we so afraid to teach it? In the same way that the insect confronts the viewer in this piece, we must confront our history and the ways in which it impacts our lives today. Although the insect hovers over us, threatening to destroy our memories, histories, and futures, we continue to coexist with it, allowing it to grow and respond to our changing conditions. The layering, movement, and sedimentation of the composition is meant to evoke the oceans, currents, and the troubling depths of race as “natural” yet at the same time constructed, still powerful and unsettling. It is a sea constantly troubled, whether we are aware or not. This block, and this installation as a whole, acts as an invitation to calmly evaluate ourselves in relation to our histories and education, without drowning in the waves.
Date Created: 2017
PID: grinnell:25500

Title: The Storm
Description: The center image of this block, placed on the very bottom of the mold so as to appear farthest from the viewer, depicts the capital city of Port-au-Prince after the magnitude 3.1 hurricane which devastated the island in 2010. In this piece, the city is divided by a trail of nails; the buildings on the left side of the nails had received government funding for repair and the buildings on the right did not. The national poverty that necessitated this divide is one of the many ailments that plague formerly colonized nations; either you submit to imperial rule, or suffer economic consequences so often brushed aside as “third world problems.” In popular images of Port-au-Prince the right side of this picture is often cut out, eliminating the catastrophe from contemporary memory and thereby erasing the physical and emotional trauma caused by the disaster. The left side of this block depicts an ideal Haiti. A land warmed and nurtured by bright sunshine, this Haiti is known for its brightly colored houses and shell-speckled beaches, represented here with colorful sequins, marbles, and sea glass. The set of keys, paired with reflective shapes evocative of windows, call to mind a welcoming community where every family has a home. The right side of the block, however, represents the true Haiti. Economic class seems fixed enough to be nailed down. The black and amber stones represent Haiti’s crippling dependance on oil and external revenue, and the true Haiti is seen here still entangled in the net of poverty and colonialism. While this Haiti may seem grim, it is comprised of tools which can be used to build a brighter future. Buttons, screws, nails, and netting may look like detritus to some, but can transform into implements with which to achieve a more idyllic Haiti.
Date Created: 2017
PID: grinnell:25514