Most of the art that I make is rooted in my experiences: my experiences as a Black person, as a Trini, as a queer woman and as a human being living on planet earth at this time. I spend a lot of time thinking about the earth and being inspired by the beauty that surrounds me. There’s so much pleasure to be experienced here, so much love that blooms here.
I’ve been thinking about the island that I come from, my ancestral land, Trinidad. I’m creating this commissioned work, a portal, as a space to talk about the way that Black people relate to the land here.
Trinidad has everything we need to survive. This beautiful island has fresh water, fertile soil, an abundance of food and incredible biodiversity. It is a truly magical land. It is also a land that many of our ancestors were brought to without their consent. A land that they were enslaved on and forced to labour on under violent colonialists like Picton. A land wrought with pain and grief.
I believe that the trauma of slavery has deeply affected the Black diaspora’s relationship to the earth. Our connection to the spaces that we are born into gives us a sense of belonging and responsibility to that land. It encourages us to love and care for the earth and to celebrate it’s beauty as a reflection of our own.
Many of us have ancestors who were displaced, stripped of their agency and forced to labour on a land that they were brought to against their will, ancestors who were punished for practicing their traditions. This legacy of violence was recorded in the body, internalized as trauma and disconnection, and then turned into patterns of behavior that were passed down through generations. This is my understanding of generational trauma. When I say patterns of behavior, I’m talking about the fact that in Trinidad, it feels as though we are much more interested in extracting from the land for profit than in fostering a sustainable relationship with the earth.
In this work, I envision this portal to be a healing opportunity for Black Trinidadians to re-connect to self, to each other and to this island.
