For Those Among Us Who Inherited Sacrifice, Rasanblaj

“Haitian American artist Gina Athena Ulysse’s cascading installation For Those Among Us Who Inherited Sacrifice, Rasanblaj! (2024) welcomes visitors with a vision of potent ruins or artifacts—a curtain of cowrie shells spilling into a pile of rubble—a sensitive amalgamation, rocky and fertile terrain—that underscores the kinship among formerly colonized nations.” – Eve Hill-Agnus, ArtForum

Created for the 15th Edition Biennale of Dakar: The Wake
Nov 7 – Dec 7, 2024
Artistic Director: Salimata Diop

Facade of L’Ancien Palais de Justice
Calabash, Cowrie shells, Kinkeliba, Palm leaves, Natural pigments, Ledgers and Debris
9.6 x 3.6 m

Activations:
Nov 8: Artist Keynote: Gina Athena Ulysse, Museum of Black Civilizations
Nov 11: Ceremonial Response: Yanique Hume, L’Ancien Palais de Justice

A monumental, site-specific installation and ceremony created over two extended stays in Dakar with a team of local and international collaborators, the work rearranges and reimagines relationships created through resistance, enslavement, debt and ongoing colonization. The work uses “rasanblaj” as a method, bringing together networks, objects and ideas stemming from Haiti and Senegal’s shared colonial history to create layered meanings that reposition Haiti as an avant-garde. In this way, aesthetics, commerce, debt and divination merge in a world of calabashes, cowries, tea leaves, and ledgers. The transformation of materials into a literal and spiritual portal create a possibility that transcends and revalues the relational propositions among humans and non-humans, and between mortals and the spirits.

Photo credit: Gina Athena Ulysse

Photo credit: Risee Charderton-Charles

Press

ARTFORUM
UC Santa Cruz
Le Quotidien De L’Art
Berlin Art Link
NYTimes