Dhara Rivera, Habitante. 2019. Mixed media. Collection of the artist. Image courtesy of the artist. Photograph by
Javier Del Valle (Galería Fundación Angel Ramos, February 15, 2019).

Charlotte Rogers: Your 2019 installation Abra Paisaje features Cayo Aurora, more popularly known as Guilligan’s Island, a small island off the southern coast of Puerto Rico that has been a popular day trip for snorkeling and barbecues among school groups, tourists, and locals on vacation. In 2018, the island was overrun by rats attracted to the animal bones and other refuse left by visitors and had to close for fumigation, a circumstance you allude to in pieces like Habitante in the Abra Paisaje installation. How did you decide to make art about Guilligan’s Island?

Dhara Rivera: The way I work is never linear but rather tied to personal experience. I often approach a topic from an affective perspective, when I feel a certain attraction, curiosity, or fascination. I had visited Guilligan’s island for many years and I saw how it changed from a rarely visited place to one used and abused by too many visitors. The quantity of human visitors was overwhelming the island. On a visit in 2017, I found the bones of rats mingled with the dried corals among the mangrove roots. I was shocked by the huge number of bones mixed in and camouflaged by the rest of the ecosystem. It made me understand how profoundly we are changing the archaeological, anthropological, biological, and geographical reality of the island. That’s where the piece began. It sparked my research into “el ocio desmedido,” or the excessive leisure that verges on destruction of the environment. 

CR: The Spanish-language title of the installation, Abra Paisaje, can be interpreted in multiple ways, both as “Open, Landscape” as in “Open, Sesame” and “Will There Be a Landscape?” What possibilities does this title open up for the viewer of the exhibition?  

DR: The title opens up many possibilities. My work always raises questions and sparks curiosity; the word “abra” seeks to open up a conversation. On the other hand, I wanted to play with language a bit, so the question “¿habrá paisaje?” depends on having someone or something look at the landscape, to see it. So the title asks the question, “who will be there and who will not?” It’s a bit like the ending of the Werner Herzog film Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2011), in which lizards are left in the cave after the humans have gone. 

María, from which the island has still not recovered. Guilligan’s Island subsisted during the earthquake, destroying the docks, barbecues, and signage installed by the Department of Natural Resources (DRNA). Much of the island now lies several meters underwater, still visible but inaccessible to humans. The once-frequent ferry service from the mainland has ceased operations. Do you feel that Abra Paisaje in some way anticipates the new configuration of Guilligan’s island? How might the piece and the new ecology of Guilligan’s speak differently to an audience now in comparison to 2019?

DR: Now what we have is evidence of the lasting effects of some many thousands of people going to Guilligan’s. Seeing the barbeque grills underwater is a teachable moment, for sure. But in 2019 the piece already anticipated this moment in which the island would no longer have a human presence. I think it is useful to see ourselves from a hypothetical future perspective in which we are no longer damaging our surroundings. It raises the possibility of a recuperation for the ecosystem.  

Abra Paisaje (2019) was first exhibited at the Galería SalaFAR. The central piece in the installation was purchased by the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña in 2022. A selection of works from the installation is currently on display at the Museum of Arte de Puerto Rico.

Read more about Dhara Rivera's work in Charlotte Rogers, "A Multispecies Caribbean: The Aesthetics of Ecological Reinvention in Art by Dhara Rivera." Small Axe 73, March 2024.

Artist and Author Bios

Dhara Rivera is a multimedia artist living and working in Puerto Rico. She holds Bachelor degrees in Humanities and Sculpture from the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) and Pratt Institute in New York. She graduated from Hunter College with a Masters Degree in Sculpture and later, she completed the first year of doctoral studies in the Public Space and Art Program of the University of Barcelona, Spain. Over the last two decades Rivera’s work has focused on bodies of water and their place in society. Her work takes a poetical approach to interweaving social, political, and historical aspects into each of her ecological art projects.

Charlotte Rogers is Associate Professor of Spanish at the University of Virginia. She specializes in twentieth- and twenty-first-century Latin America and the Caribbean, with a comparative focus on representations of the tropics in literature, art, and culture. She is the author of Jungle Fever: Exploring Madness and Medicine in Twentieth-Century Tropical Narratives (Vanderbilt University Press, 2012) and Mourning El Dorado: Literature and Extractivism in the American Tropics (University of Virginia Press, 2019). Mourning El Dorado received Honorable Mention in the Latin American Studies Association Amazonia section Best Book Prize competition in 2020. Her articles appear in journals including PMLA, ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment, Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, Hispania, MLN and the Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos. She serves on the Editorial Boards of ISLE of the Revista de Estudios Hispánicos.

It is with deep sorrow that the Small Axe Project notes and tries to digest the passing of the Guadeloupean writer Maryse Condé (11 February 1934--2 April 2024). Novelist, essayist, playwright, critic, teacher, and more besides, she was a formidable and incisive thinker and an elegant composer of pages of prose. Across an extraordinary body of work, including such unforgettable books as Ségou (1984, 1985), and Moi, Tituba ... Sorcière de Salem (1986), she mined the gendered character of the historical trauma of the African diasporic condition. Significantly, Condé belonged to a generation of Caribbean intellectuals and artists whose direct experience of the African continent (Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana) was formative for their moral-political sense of post-emancipation Black presents in the Americas. One only has to read her memoirs, Le cœur à rire et à pleurer : souvenirs de mon enfance (1999), and La Vie sans fards (2012). She will be missed by us all, those who knew her, and those who didn't. Bon voyage Madame Condé.

 

Photo of Maryse Condé Copyright Matsas Leemage-Hollandse Hoogte

Irreparable Evil: An Essay in Moral and Reparatory History asks what was distinctive about the evil of the transatlantic slave trade and New World slavery? In what ways can the present seek to rectify such historical wrongs, even while recognizing that they lie beyond repair? Irreparable Evil explores the legacy of slavery and its moral and political implications, offering a nuanced intervention into debates over reparations.

David Scott reconsiders the story of New World slavery in a series of interconnected essays that focus on Jamaica and the Anglophone Caribbean. Slavery, he emphasizes, involved not only scarcely imaginable brutality on a mass scale but also the irreversible devastation of the ways of life and cultural worlds from which enslaved people were uprooted. Colonial extraction shaped modern capitalism; plantation slavery enriched colonial metropoles and simultaneously impoverished their peripheries. To account for this atrocity, Scott examines moral and reparatory modes of history and criticism, probing different conceptions of evil. He reflects on the paradoxes of seeking redress for the specific moral evil of slavery, criticizing the limitations of liberal rights-based arguments for reparations that pursue reconciliation with the past. Instead, this book argues, in making the urgent demand for reparations, we must acknowledge the fundamental irreparability of a wrong of such magnitude.

Irreparable Evil is available for purchase here.

Check out the conversation between David Scott and Eric Schwartz about the release as a part of the Library Chat series at the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination here.

 

 

 

Photo taken from the American Academy Society of Arts and Sciences website

Congratulations to Belinda Edmondson whose book Creole Noise: Early Caribbean Dialect Literature and Performance won The Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for African Studies awarded annually by the Modern Language Association!

You can read the essays from the book discussion on Creole Noise in sx 72 here.

Editora Educación Emergente (EEE), proyecto editorial independiente, arbitrado y de pequeña escala, fundado en 2009 y con base en Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, presenta al amplio y diverso público caribeño sus títulos más recientes.

Editora Educación Emergente (EEE), a small-scale, peer-reviewed, and independent publisher established in 2009 in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, is proud to announce the release of its most recent titles to the Caribbean’s ample and diverse reading public.

 

Será otra cosa (2016-2022)

Autoras / Authors: Rima Brusi-Gil de Lamadrid, Sofía Irene Cardona, Beatriz Llenín Figueroa, Mari Mari Narváez, Ana Teresa Pérez-Leroux, Vanessa Vilches Norat, Claudia Becerra y Zahira Cruz Gómez

Serie / Series: Crónica otra

Descripción / Description:

Colección de textos recientes en prosa de diversas autoras y, originalmente, publicados en la sección “Será otra cosa” del periódico semanal puertorriqueño Claridad. 

Collection of recent prose texts by diverse women authors and originally published in the Será otra cosa section of the Puerto Rican weekly newspaper Claridad. 

 

Bailando en un encierro: duelo, danza y activismo en las manifestaciones del Verano Boricua de 2019

Autor / Author: Arnaldo M. Cruz-Malavé

Serie / Series: reVolucionA

Descripción / Description:

Ensayo sobre el Verano Boricua de 2019 con especial atención al vínculo entre la corpo-política del baile, la calle y el duelo. Originalmente publicado en inglés en la revista Small Axe y traducido al español por su autor.

Essay on the 2019 Verano Boricua paying special attention to the link between the body-politics of dance, street and mourning. Originally published in English in the Small Axe journal and translated to Spanish by the author.

 

La piedra es una sombra que da vida: prosa selecta (2017-2022)

Autora / Author: Beatriz Llenín Figueroa

Serie / Series: Crónica otra

Descripción / Description:

Colección de textos recientes en prosa sobre la condición sociopolítica de las islas puertorriqueñas, sus ecosistemas y su animalia.

Collection of recent prose texts on the sociopolitical condition of the Puerto Rican islands, their ecosystems and their animals.

 

4645: crónica del Verano Boricua (con Coda añadida)

Autor y traductor / Author and Translator: Christopher Powers Guimond

Serie / Series: reVolucionA

Descripción / Description:

Crónica sobre el Verano Boricua 2019 –en el que Powers Guimond y su familia participaron activamente– traducida al español por su autor e incluyendo una nueva Coda.

Chronicle on the 2019 Verano Boricua –where Powers Guimond and his family actively participated– translated to Spanish by its author and including a new Coda.

 

Huerto de papel: ABC para una educación agroecológica inclusiva

Autora e ilustradora / Author and Illustrator: Paola A. González Santiago

Serie / Series: Otra escuela

Descripción / Description:

Abecedario y varios recursos para la enseñanza y el aprendizaje agroecológicos e inclusivos.

Alphabet and several resources for agroecological and inclusive teaching and learning practices. 

 

Diásporas decolonizadoras: cartografías radicales de literaturas Afroatlánticas

Autora / Author: Yomaira C. Figueroa-Vásquez

Traductora / Translator: Beatriz Llenín Figueroa

Serie / Series: Otra universidad

Descripción / Description:

Estudio de textos literarios y otras manifestaciones culturales del mundo Afroatlántico marcado por la colonización española, incluyendo a Guinea Ecuatorial, el Caribe hispanohablante y sus diásporas.

Book-length study on literary texts and other cultural works from the Afroatlantic world marked by Spanish colonization, including Equatorial Guinea, the hispanophone Caribbean, and its diasporas.

 

De la brevedad de las formas: escritos sobre cultura, poder y lenguaje

Autor / Author: Dennis Alicea

Serie / Series: Otra universidad

Descripción / Description:

Colección de ensayos en formas breves sobre debates filosóficos, culturales y lingüísticos desde Puerto Rico como locus de enunciación.

Collection of essays in brief forms on philosophical, cultural, and linguistic debates from Puerto Rico as its place of enunciation.

 

Páramos del amor: escrituras del VIH y sida en la literatura puertorriqueña

Autor / Author: Daniel Torres Rodríguez

Serie / Series: Queer.y

Descripción / Description:

Texto crítico y breve muestra antológica de poesía puertorriqueña sobre el VIH y sida, incluyendo comentarios sobre textos de Manuel Ramos Otero, Víctor Fragoso, Alfredo Villanueva Collado, Moisés Agosto-Rosario, Joey Pons, Ángel Lozada y Eïrïc R. Durändal Stormcrow, así como de piezas visuales seropositivas de Nelson Millán.

Critical study and brief anthological sample of Puerto Rican poetry on HIV and AIDS, including commentary on texts by Manuel Ramos Otero, Víctor Fragoso, Alfredo Villanueva Collado, Moisés Agosto-Rosario, Joey Pons, Ángel Lozada, and Eïrïc R. Durändal Stormcrow, as well as on seropositive visual pieces by Nelson Millán.
 

 

Voces en el matorral: otro Poblado

Autor / Author: Eduardo Alegría

Serie / Series: Otra escena

Descripción / Description:

Libro que reúne varios textos e imágenes sobre la escena musical independiente en Puerto Rico y, específicamente, sobre el trabajo reciente de la banda Alegría Rampante y su fundador, Eduardo Alegría, con énfasis en la producción del disco Poblado.

This book includes various texts and images on the Puerto Rican independent music scene, and, specifically, on the recent work of the Alegría Rampante band and its founder, Eduardo Alegría, with an emphasis on the production process of their disc Poblado.

 

quienes tajan mar: registro de una práctica artística andariega

Autora / Author: Teresa Hernández

Serie / Series: Otra escena

Descripción / Description:

Libro-registro sobre el trabajo transdisciplinario (performance-teatro-danza-vídeo) de Teresa Hernández en años recientes como parte de su plataforma de investigación y creación artística, Bravatas, que gira en torno a las múltiples formas de erosión (histórica, económica, política, corporal, costera…) que se experimentan en Puerto Rico.

Book-register on Teresa Hernández’s transdisciplinary work (performance-theater-dance-video) in recent years as part of her artistic research and creation platform, Bravatas (Sea Swells), which revolves around the multiple forms of erosion (historical, economic, political, bodily, coastal…) that are experienced in Puerto Rico.  

  

Observatorio de lagunas

Autora / Author: Sofía Gallisá Muriente

Serie / Series: Otra escena

Descripción / Description:

Libro que reúne textos e imágenes vinculadas a Observatorio de lagunas, proyecto de investigación y creación artística de la artista visual Sofía Gallisá Muriente en torno a las dinámicas de memoria y desmemoria en Puerto Rico y su relación con la larga historia de colonización del país.  

Book that includes texts and images related to Observatorio de lagunas (Observatory of Lagoons), an artistic research and creation project by the visual artist Sofía Gallisá Muriente concerning the dynamics of what is remembered and forgotten in Puerto Rico, and their relationship with the country’s longstanding history of colonization.

 

coreografías del weather, o el clima también es rumor (bilingual edition)

Autora / Author: nibia pastrana santiago

Traductora / Translator: Beatriz Llenín Figueroa

Serie / Series: Otra escena

Descripción / Description:

Libro que reúne reflexiones e imágenes sobre el trabajo de investigación y creación en danza de la artista nibia pastrana santiago a partir de su indagación sobre el clima y la crisis climática, la geografía del archipiélago y el cuerpo.

This book includes reflections and images on the research and creative work in dance by artist nibia pastrana santiago concerning the weather, the climate crisis, the archipelagic geography and the body.  

 

¡Juntes por la justicia climática! / Together for Climate Justice!

Autorxs / Authors: Muchas personas / Many People

Serie / Series: Otra escuela

Descripción / Description:

Este libro cuenta la historia de Maya y su viaje con varias personas jóvenes para aprender sobre la justicia climática, la justicia migratoria, el racismo ambiental y el Fuego Cultural Indígena.

This book tells the story of Maya and her journey alongside several young people to learn about climate justice, migrant justice, environmental acismo, and Indigenous Cultural Fire.

 

Borinquen Field

Autora / Author: Marta Aponte Alsina

Serie / Series: Edades de Siddhartha

Descripción / Description:

Novela sobre Borinquen Field, nombre original de la base militar estadounidense Ramey, construida en la costa de Aguadilla tras el desplazamiento de la población local.

A novel on Borinquen Field, original name for the US Ramey military base, built on the coast of Aguadilla after the displacement of the local population.    

 

La niña y la mosca

Autora / Author: Ileana Contreras Castro

Ilustradora / Illustrator: Vicky Ramos

Serie / Series: Otra escuela

Descripción / Description:

Este es el relato de la amistad entre la niña Engracia y la mosca Pandora. Este libro sólo está disponible en formato e-book por el momento.

This is the story of the friendship between Engracia, the girl, and Pandora, the fly. This book is only available in e-book format for now.  

 

The Spanish edition of Julia de Burgos: La creación de un ícono puertorriqueño (University of Illinois Press, 2022), written by Vanessa Pérez-Rosario and translated by Isabel Zapata has received a silver award for best Latina themed book, and honorable mention, Dolores Huerta best cultural and community themed book in the 25th International Latino Book Awards, 2023 competition. Join us for a conversation with the author and award-winning poet and translator, Roque Raquel Salas Rivera. They’ll talk about poetry, translation, and the enduring legacy of Julia de Burgos. Join us!

 

Register for the event here.
The book is available for purchase in Puerto Rico at Librería Laberinto, just follow this link.
The book can be ordered directly from the University of Illinois Press here.

Contact:
Dantaé Elliott
SmallAxe.Assist@smallaxe.net

 

Co-sponsors

The Latinx Past Working Group, Crossing Latinidades

English Department, Queens College, City University of New York

Latin American, Iberian, and Latino Cultures, PhD Program, The Graduate Center, CUNY

 

Speaker bios

Vanessa Pérez-Rosario is a translator and professor of English at Queens College and professor of Latin American, Iberian, and Latino Cultures at the Graduate Center, CUNY. She is the author of Becoming Julia de Burgos: The Making of a Puerto Rican Icon (2014). The Spanish edition of this book, Julia de Burgos: la creación de un ícono puertorriqueño(2022) translated by Isabel Zapata, garnered the silver medal from the International Latino Book Award 2023. She is editor of Hispanic Caribbean Literature of Migration: Narratives of Displacement (Palgrave 2010) and translator of Boat People (2021) by Mayra Santos-Febres, which received honorable mention for the International Latino Book Award 2023. Her critical edition titled “I Am My Own Path: Selected Writings of Julia de Burgos” is forthcoming with the University of Texas Press, 2024. She is managing editor of Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism.

Roque Raquel Salas Rivera (Mayagüez, 1985) is a poet, editor and translator. His honors include being named Poet Laureate of the City of Philadelphia, the New Voices Award, and the inaugural Ambroggio Award. He is the author of six collections of poems. He is the editor of the anthologies Puerto Rico en mi corazón (Anomalous Press, 2019) and La piel del arrecife: Antología de poesía trans puertorriqueña (La Impresiona & Atarraya Cartonera, 2023). Among his translations, he has The Rust of History (Circumference Press, 2022), a selection of the poetic work of his grandfather Sotero Rivera Avilés, and The Book of Conjurations by the poet Irizelma Robles. He is currently writing a trans epic poem titled Algarabía, which will be published in 2025 by Graywolf Press.

 

Vanessa Pérez-Rosario es traductora y profesora de inglés en Queens College y profesora en el programa doctoral de Latin American, Iberian, and Latino Cultures en el Graduate Center, CUNY. Es autora de Becoming Julia de Burgos: The Making of a Puerto Rican Icon (2014). La edición en español de este libro, Julia de Burgos: la creación de un ícono puertorriqueño (2022) traducida por Isabel Zapata, obtuvo la medalla de plata del International Latino Book Award 2023. Es editora de Hispanic Caribbean Literature of Migration: Narratives of Displacement (2010) y traductora de Boat People (2021) de Mayra Santos-Febres, que recibió mención de honor en el International Latino Book Award 2023. Próximamente se publicará su edición crítica titulada “I Am My Own Path: Selected Writings of Julia de Burgos”con University of Texas Press, 2024. Es editora en jefe de Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism.

Roque Raquel Salas Rivera (Mayagüez, 1985) es un poeta, editor y traductor. Sus reconocimientos incluyen el nombramiento como Poeta Laureado de la ciudad de Filadelfia, el Premio Nuevas Voces y el inaugural Premio Ambroggio. Cuenta con seis poemarios. Es el editor de las antologías Puerto Rico en mi corazón (Anomalous Press, 2019) y La piel del arrecife: Antología de poesía trans puertorriqueña (La Impresora & Atarraya Cartonera, 2023). Entre sus traducciones, cuenta con The Rust of History (Circumference Press, 2022), una selección de la obra poética de su abuelo Sotero Rivera Avilés, y The Book of Conjurations de la poeta Irizelma Robles. Al presente escribe un poema épico trans titulado Algarabía, que será publicado en el 2025 por Graywolf Press.

Photo taken from Kelly Sinnapah Mary's facebook page 

Small Axe editorial committee member  and curator of SX Art, Professor Andil Gosine is pleased to be presenting the debut North American solo exhibition of Guadeloupean artist Kelly Sinnapah Mary at Aicon Gallery in Soho. Gosine and Sinnapah Mary have previously collaborated on several projects, including the cover of his book Nature's Wild: Love, Sex and Law in the Caribbean, and this exhibition includes both now iconic works by the artist and new works which channel Caribbean thinkers like Maryse Condé. The exhibition will run concurrently with a retrospective of work by Martinican artist-thinker Serge Hélénon.

You can read more about the exhibition here.

Check out sx 68 where Andil Gosine's visual essay, "Everything Slackens in a Wreck," likewise showcases the work of Kelly Sinnapah Mary.

This issue features essays by Jocelyn Sutton Franklin, Melanie White, and Kerry White. The issue features a special section titled "Walter Rodney's How Europe Underdeveloped Africa Fifty Years Later" and includes essays by Adom Getachew, David Scott, Natasha I. Shivji, Peter James Hudson, David Austin, Michaeline A. Crichlow, D. Alissa Trotz and Nigel Westmaas, and Richard Drayton. The cover and visual essay feature the work of Heino Schmid. Carolyn Cooper contributes to the "Translating the Caribbean" section with her essay titled "(W)uman Tong(ue): Writing a Bilingual Newspaper Column in "Postcolonial" Jamaica." Finally, Supriya M. Nair, Tim Watson, and Barbara Lalla discuss Belinda Edmondson's work Creole Noise: Early Caribbean Dialect Literature and Performance in the book discussion.

Check out the table of contents here: https://smallaxe.net/sx/issues/72

                                          From Coral & Ash opening reception, April 25. Photo used with permission of the artist. All rights reserved. 

Nadia Huggins’s work challenges us to look back at the island where she grew up from a different vantage point, from what bubbles under the surface to the transforming landscapes of post-volcanic eruption. She captured the eruption of La Soufrière, chronicling the journey of St. Vincent in a time of uncertainty to witness Vincentians adapting to their changed environment. Coral & Ash addresses the life cycles of coral breaking down and creating coastlines to ash from La Soufrière meeting sand to the island breaking down and decaying. Through small details in the space of exceptional loss and life cycles, the gradual changes prompt us to question what the future of the Caribbean can be with these small, documented details. Turning her gaze towards the natural disaster in her lived environment opens room for multispecies interaction: coral, land, ash, and bodies.

Since inviting Nadia to share her experience documenting the volcanic eruption in St. Vincent and Grenadines and speaking on her various projects over the years, I further realized how vital this perspective is from someone who lives and works as an observer of the environmental changes on her island (seascapes and landscapes). Being from the Caribbean, seeing someone deliberately represent spaces, places, and people in their natural way was different from what many are used to seeing. Reminiscing these natural disasters' aftermath helps us look at a region with a different lens outside being framed/owned by the picturesque. The most compelling part of her work and what indeed drew me to it is her understanding of storytelling and acknowledging our position of privilege. This showcases documentation without people being the focus and telling a story through colours, physical spaces, and human interactions in and around these places. Diving into community knowledge and the story these various environmental spaces tell. How do you represent the unrepresentable? A question that this work interrogates.

I looked towards Barbadian philosopher Kamau Brathwaite’s embrace of the figure of the hurricane to frame Caribbeanness. According to Brathwaite, “Art must come out of catastrophe.” With that in mind, I began to look at Nadia’s most recent series in depth and her eloquent way of using her camera to tell a story of “disaster” and locate the agency within it. We can think of how we frame our identities and position our Caribbeanness. Brathwaite sees catastrophes as something that continues. We discussed how these experiences have been ongoing for the past two years. As the Caribbean environment changes, it does not end with a catastrophic event. Instead, it informs our understanding of our environment and how to adapt, evolve, and cope with our new space.

The exhibition features photographic work from the series The Beginning is the End, and the End is the Beginning, Circa no Future, Transformation, Coral Survey, and Bush and Hull. To represent these changing landscapes, she merges documentary and conceptual practices, highlighting the day-to-day experiences of humans navigating different natural catastrophes and surveying the aquatic unknown. The selected photographs in the exhibition question perception, capture the invisible and make them visible. The truth hovers between you and how you perceive the images. How do you go beyond your own boundaries? And transform your own connection to your environment as nature reshapes it?
 

            From the series Circa No Future, Fighting the Current and Coral Survey, 2015-2021. Photo used with permission of the artist. All rights reserved.

 

Interview with Dantaé: 

How has your personal relationship to the land framed your understanding of the environment you grew up in and influenced your craft? 

Growing up I think I took a lot of my natural surroundings for granted because it was always so commonplace. It was easy to overlook certain things because I was always engulfed in nature most days. That being said, it took experiencing more urban environments that gave me the capacity to understand and appreciate the uniqueness of what I had been living in. When I started doing photography, the natural environment was always in the periphery of my work. Although, within more recent years, it’s become one of the dominant narratives in what I do. I think time and entropy have been important concepts in my work and understanding the value of my everyday experiences in relation to these have been important in expanding on ideas.

My outlook is mainly from a conservation perspective – seeing man-made developments take shape on my island has helped me to understand in real-time how our decisions impact the environment around us and ultimately people. While I recognize and understand the need for these developments to take shape, I also see the devastating impacts of some of the decisions we make in hopes of creating better built-environments for our societies. I think some of these poor decision processes impact the imagination of future generations and from my experience, it’s the natural world that really ignites our imagination. The balance between both worlds is a delicate one. One example of how nature influenced my imagination was when I was a child, there was a field next to my mother’s house that was a sanctuary for a lot of different birds, insects and bats. In those days we had a lot of power outages – whenever the electricity would cut out, there would be hundreds of Larbelles (fireflies) lighting up the darkness. While the idea of being in complete darkness was scary to me as a child, there was a comfort in seeing them flying over the field and you only saw them in full force when all artificial light went out. Over the years the population has quite rapidly disappeared and if I see one today it would be a rarity. It’s the magic of the unknown and unpredictable that happens in nature that makes me curious and it’s the essence of what I’m exploring. 

How did documentation become an essential part of your work? 

This really has been a direct influence of my father who was an architect and civil engineer. My first encounter with a camera was through him. I would always tag along with him whenever he was doing a site survey documenting a building or a specific site of proposed development. Through this I learned the value of documenting a site before and after construction. I also learned how politics influenced the process of imagination and ways to maintain the integrity of an idea in spite of this. I would often see my father’s initial plans and then the final physical structure. The experience of seeing an idea go from paper onto the landscape really fascinated me. I think photography for me in a way is trying to do the opposite and return to the idea – you’re looking at a 3-dimensional world and trying to strip it back down to its essence on paper or a screen. 

Being from one of the smaller Caribbean islands, was it significant for you to continue living and working on the island?

Yes, it has been partially due to the circumstances of my life, but over the years I have also recognized the importance of being directly connected to a physical space for a significant period of time in order to portray my own lived experiences. The monotony of my day-to-day life is crucial because boredom has made me hyper observant! Also, coming from a smaller island, there has always been a lot of shame attached to not having the same access to resources and support and all of the perceptions that come with that.  A lot of intellectual thought and creative output is rarely associated with the smaller islands. I see this as a challenge and in part my practice is about resisting this notion by pushing back against it through developing ideas and making images that people don’t expect to see in the Caribbean – I really like the element of surprise. I think our lived experiences have tremendous value and I feel an obligation as an artist to express this through a visual language. It’s easy to speculate from the outside what a place is and while my work is very much my personal experience which has its own social implications within my own society, I understand that it’s still a valuable part of the narrative of the world at large. 

Through your process of photographing the environment, did you ever focus on specific colour patterns to tell a story? 

Yes, oftentimes my more concrete projects have evolved from identifying a specific colour palette. My background in graphic design probably has influenced this the most. With design campaigns you have to maintain the integrity of a message through colours, fonts, and images so I think this has spilled over into my photography practice. Also, film has played a huge influence in the way I approach photography, especially in terms of colour grading. I’ve always understood that colours play an important role in the type of mood that is portrayed and in some ways my work is meant to feel cinematic and as though something is on the cusp of happening. I do want to evoke particular feelings in the viewers. I think overtime I’ve developed a range of palettes that I prefer to work with depending on which environment I’m photographing. 

What kind of relationship do you feel you have with the beaches that you observe? Does it feel different as years pass on? 

I primarily document the beach I grew up on, which is Indian Bay, but I have also done some documentation on other beaches, but they have been more specifically in relation to the volcano and understanding volcanic deposits and coral growth. With regards to Indian Bay, I have a deeply personal connection to this beach because it’s home. Historically, it is also the first bay that the East Indian community of St Vincent and the Grenadines arrived on during indentureship - a significant part of my own ancestral identity. 

Growing up, I lived a few minutes walk away from the beach so I’ve spent a significant portion of my life on it. While I don’t have a traditional scientific knowledge of multi-species, I know the beach in fine detail, from where certain types of coral grow, to which species of fish you’d find in particular areas and how the currents and tides affect the beach depending on the time of year. I spend time observing the different types of communities that swim at various times of the day and how the position of the sun impacts the colours and shadows underwater. This has been mostly just through my day-to-day experience of observing the environment. It is because of this understanding through my experiences that I have felt a deep need to protect it when I see it under threat. I document multi-species like coral, sea urchins, sea sponges, fish etc as an attempt to understand the changes that are happening overtime in my environment – I’ve seen the gradual deterioration of the coastline to the degradation of coral reefs first hand. Photography has been an invaluable way to document these changes and show people a world that is not easily visible from just standing on the shores – it’s a good litmus test to understand and show how the health of our oceans can reveal how we impact life in the sea and vice versa.

What was it like to be witness to a volcanic eruption? And the living in the aftermath? 

It was thrilling and terrifying at the same time. In the very early stages, I was awe-inspired; it was similar to that feeling you get seeing the most spectacular sunset, but multiplied by 10! purely because of the vast scale of the plume, which was forcing its way into the stratosphere. Scale is an important aspect when experiencing any sort of catastrophe. However, the awe wears off very quickly, and dread sinks in when you grasp that what is being blasted into the air are essentially rock particles of various sizes – you become very aware of your vulnerability and insignificance when confronted with this scale of nature unfolding before you.  The ash fall was by far the worst experience for so many different reasons, but two moments that stood out was the lack of access to running water and the discomfort with breathing during the heavy ash fall days. I felt particularly challenged because I’m asthmatic – I wanted to document so much more, but my body had limitations. I’m not on a quest to experience the most intense adventures to risk my life; it’s important to know your own limits and create in accordance with this. 

What image of the Caribbean are you intending to communicate? 

I think what I’m intending to communicate is that the Caribbean is not just a site of escapism for the developed world. We are human beings living on multi-faceted fractured islands scattered in the sea, trying to reconcile our own identities with the impacts of our colonial past which have extracted and manipulated significant aspects of the physical environment, while destroying a lot of our indigenous population both human and multi-species. Also, we are simultaneously trying to survive in physical environments that are vulnerable to both natural and man-made catastrophes because of this extractive history and discardment. 

I want people to understand that there are alternative ways of knowledge-making that develop from lived experiences that have real value and influences resilience and how we can successfully adapt. And that understanding the bigger picture is within the fine details. This is why I return to the same space over time.

What are some of the community work you have done with local art spaces?

The majority of community projects that I have worked on have been specifically in relation to the environment. The first project which was called One Drop in the Ocean is a marine debris initiative co-founded by myself and Raven Hoflund which aims to educate and raise awareness amongst local and global audiences. This project was initially inspired by some of the early underwater photographs I had been taking. During my daily shoots I noticed an excessive amount of marine debris in the periphery of all of my images. Simultaneously my colleague, Raven Hoflund, whose background was in Ocean Conservation, had been doing her own daily beach cleanups on the island of Mustique. She spent a lot of time collecting all sorts of different types of debris in hopes of finding creative outputs to give the debris new life. We shared a common interest and passion for the ocean - with my background in Art and her background in Conservation, we decided to collaborate and engage the visual arts community in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The objective of the first iteration of the project was to host a series of beach cleanups with various artists and the general public. We counted, sorted and cleaned all of the debris we collected and shared these statistics with the public.  Afterwards, the artists were challenged to make anything they wanted out of their Favourite pieces of debris, with the sole intention of exhibiting their artwork in a public space alongside specific numbers of the types of debris they were using. The project is meant to provide opportunities for people to reimagine a new life for marine debris and hopefully encourage them to be mindful of their own single-plastic usage on a daily basis. 

The second project I collaborated on was also a response to another type of environmental change – it was instigated by the explosive eruption of La Soufriere volcano. The displacement of people from the more vulnerable (red) zones  near the volcano, had to eventually move back home. When they returned home there were major changes to the landscape as a result of the Lahars caused by the explosive eruptions. After being in conversation with various scientists prior to the eruption, during and after it became apparent to all of us that we needed to think about alternative ways of knowledge making that would engage the communities living near the volcano. Out of this the project Changing landscapesemerged: The objective was to use a citizen science approach to document the changes happening within the North Windward landscapes due to the Lahars that became more dominant after the eruptions took place – this data is crucial to both the scientists and persons living in the community as it gives a deeper understanding of how rainfall and ash deposit influence the changes in rivers. As a photographer, my role was to develop a series of workshops that would ignite a curiosity and interest in photography amongst a selection of people who are living in the red zone. We hoped that they would have the necessary skills to have agency over their own narrative, but also to eventually document these subtle and minor changes that would happen over time. It is noteworthy that persons who primarily live in these areas, belong to the indigenous population of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The project was supported by the University of the West Indies Seismic research centre and the University of East Anglia. We also engaged several local photographers to host different components of the workshops and at the end of the project, the participants decided to show their images in an outdoor exhibition. They decided to host the exhibition in an outdoor space which was previously a Primary school that had been significantly damaged by the eruption. They wanted to share the images that they have been documenting with their own community, to instil a sense of pride and dignity. They also felt that it was important for persons living in areas that were less impacted by the eruptions to visit their community to get a sense of the scale of damage. The images they showed were primarily of and about their community’s way of life and resilience. The indigenous population of SVG has always been marginalised socially and politically, so it was an important gesture for them to display these images that really showed them in their own language. They’re currently learning to enhance their skills further through film making workshops.

 

Photos from the exhibition opening reception

This exhibition is free and open to the public until December 2023. Nadia Huggins is the 2023 Mellon Artist-in-Residence at the Hemispheric Institute. This exhibition is made possible by the support of The Mellon Foundation through the Hemispheric Institute’s ‘Worldmaking and Social Emergency’ initiative, the KJCC, and New York University.

Transformation No. 4. 2014. From the series Fighting the Current, Matte White Aluminum Vibrachrome, and Black Sand, Troumaca, St. Vincent, 2022, Vinyl. Photo Used with permission of the artist. All rights reserved.

 

               From the series Bush and The Beginning is the End and the End is the Beginning. Photo used with permission of the artist. All rights reserved.

 

 Sample of volcanic ash and dead coral. Photo used with permission of the artist. All rights reserved.

Photo credit to Manuel Molina Martagón. All Rights Reserved.