unhidden graves 2019

Media: super 8 film, hybrid with experimental sounds, continuous loop; color, black, white, and performance transferred to HD Video on a LED monitor in a wooden box.

Unhidden Graves (2019, 03:03 mins) is an experimental non-linear performative narrative that mimics the Dance of the Warrior – the Pétro-Magi Vodou Dance, a dance about sedition and change that is associated with the 1791 Haitian revolution. Arching back to the double meaning of the chorus in Greek drama, which was at the same time the dancing-place beaten flat for the convenience of the dancers and the dancers themselves, the house plays the role of narrator and spin out the fictional yarn while uncovering the layers of myth that have settled over the French emperor and the influence of his ghostly presence in Haiti.

Mixing reminiscences with historical references, natural landscapes and family artifacts, I unbury memories of my past, and in so doing I explore the relationship between Western art and the Voodoo magic I was trained in. Inspired by French filmmaker Eric Rohmer’s ‘mise-en-scène’, it is the opposition between stillness and movement that defines their filmic materiality. In Unhidden Graves, I interweave my family narratives with the historical characters of Toussaint Louverture, leader of the slave revolt in Haiti, and Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France. Their respective parables of ascent and decline frame my own tale of loss and recovery.