Ancestral Archives and (re)Configuring the Caribbean Pinturesco

Artists throughout the African Diaspora engage in various counter-archival practices that not only re-read the colonial archive, but challenge epistemes often formed from them. Artist La Vaughn Belle’s work revisits various colonial archives to highlight acts of maroonage, resistance to colonialism, and overall identity formations in the Caribbean.

Belle is specifically interested in challenging the ways colonial archives contribute to framing contemporary images of the Caribbean. This talk reflects on this process, analyzing the ways Belle centers cultural tradition and knowledge to create new ways of looking at the past.