Abstract
Examining Ibejí by Cuban-American photographers, Elliot & Erick Jiménez, and Haitian-American multi-media artist, Didier William’s Ezili Freda, this paper explores how these portraits complicate the traditional understanding of portraiture as a vehicle for providing clarity on its subject. Focusing on the visual obfuscation of their subjects, they propose novel ways of conceptualizing Blackness. Employing postmodern theorizations of race, it is argued that their aesthetic language functions to extricate the Black individual from the violence of racialization reinforced by the colonialist networks in which their portraits circulated. Elucidating on the historical conditions during which portraiture developed in Cuba and Haiti, these contemporary works are also located within a larger canon of Caribbean visual culture. More specifically, the essay explores the visual ambivalence with which the Black individual was treated according to the differing social conditions in each island. Locating their figures within the cosmologies of Santería and Vodou, the artists’ decision to obscure the subject is contextualized within cultural and spiritual manifestations that are distinctly Caribbean. This paper argues that the obfuscation of their bodily forms originates from the systematic concealment foundational to these socio-religious complexes, highlighting the importance of these strategies to their survival. Drawing from Édouard Glissant’s theory of opacity, the paper highlights these works as reifications of the modes of resistance employed in these Afro-diasporic religions. Emphasizing the artists’ experience of living and working in diaspora, this paper serves to advance the understanding of the Caribbean as a site of expansive interactions, open to diverse geographies and temporalities.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Afro-Latinidad, Caribbean, Race and racialization, Latin America, Diaspora
