Habana Biennial 15
Image Courtesy of Omar Estrada, Alexandra Majerus and Joscelyn Gardner.
Group Exhibition
Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana, Cuba
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November 15, 2024 - February 28, 2025
Curator José Manuel Noceda and Jorge Fernández Torres
Titled La tradición se rompe pero cuesta (Breaking with Traditions Isn’t Free), this exhibition brings together 17 Caribbean women artists and is generously supported by UNESCO Cuba and Anne Lemaistre, Director of the UNESCO Regional Office in Havana. I am honored to have my work displayed within the Universal Art Building of the National Museum of Fine Arts (MNBA), a venerable institution that continues to champion contemporary art from the Caribbean and the Global South.
For this exhibition, I am presenting four photographs from my series Sweeping the Fields.
This work originated from my practice of walking the fields at Walkers Dairy in Barbados, where I live and work. Walkers, once a sugarcane plantation operational since the 1660s, is emblematic of a 350-year-old colonial history that links the Caribbean to the wider world.
Sweeping the Fields is a meditation on memory, history, and healing. The act of sweeping is both a gesture of cleansing and an acknowledgment of the groan of history. This work resists concealing the dark legacies of the plantation era and instead seeks to reckon with collective trauma, imagining the possibility of an emerging post-plantation reality. Through the resurgent botanical archive that asserts itself against the imperial landscape, Sweeping the Fields envisions a contemporary apothecary rooted in resilience, diversity, and the regenerative power of nature.
The exhibition, Breaking with Traditions Isn’t Free, delves into themes of gender, race, authority, historical memory, and coloniality. It is a profound privilege to be part of this collective, which showcases the advanced sensibilities of contemporary Caribbean women artists, including:
Alida Martínez @alidamartinez_ (Aruba)
Bárbara Prezeau @barbara_prezeau Haití)
Guy Gabon @guygabon (Guadalupe)
Jolle Ferly (Guadalupe)
Jeannette Ehlers @jeannetteehlers (Denmark-Trinidad)
Joscelyn Gardner (Barbados)
Annalee Davis @annalee.devere (Barbados)
La Vaughn Belle @lavaughnbelle (US Virgin Islands)
Elsa María Meléndez @elsamariamelendez (Puerto Rico)
Anaida Hernández @anaidahernandez_ (Puerto Rico)
Gisela Colón @gisela_colon_ (Puerto Rico)
Jaime Lee Loy @jaimeleeloyart (Trinidad & Tobago)
Raquel Paiewonsky @raquelpaiewonsky (Dominican Republic)
Tabita Rezaire (French Guiana)
María Magdalena Campos-Pons @maria_magdalena_campos_pons (Cuba)
Belkis Ayón Manso @belkis_ayon (Cuba)
Lisandra Ramírez Bernal @lisandraramirezbernal (Cuba)
The Bienal de La Habana has, since 1984, provided an essential platform for Latin American, Caribbean, and Global South artists to engage in dialogue and raise awareness of contemporary art’s role in reflecting and transforming society. I am honored to contribute to this legacy, and invite everyone to visit the exhibition, which will remain open at the MNBA until February 2025.
