Know your History

While exploring my family lineage, I found the existence of Rosalie Adolphe Bosquet a political figure who conducted various forms of torture to the Haitian population during the Duvalier dictatorship in Haiti. The victims of her wrath range from mothers, fathers, and children. Deaths related to her role number to 170 people and those are the loosely documented ones.

In a conversation with my mother, she says that in her youth the torturer, my family, was one that visited her home. Recounting my knowledge of this figure to my father he explains, with a grimace of disgust, how the depth of her actions was disdainful of him.

The Know Your History Series is a consideration of my ancestral past in light of today. Know Your History is a 6 part series where I am depicting the women in my family in connection with the features of Rosalie Adolphe Bosquet. The paintings are done on fabric relating to Haiti, with a loose application of paint, and a strong focus on the gaze of the portraits.

This Juxtaposition serves to acknowledge the reality of my lineage. It is unreal to imagine that my experience today is not at all shaped by her influence. In my youth, in Haiti, I remember the tranquility that existed in my town and I always felt an undertone of privilege within my life that came at the cost of some. Within this work, I am leading the process in developing a conversation on privilege in connection to the past, a conversation that is sorely lacking in all Euro-centric societies.