This Saturday, March 14, I'll be joining fellow artists Steven Baboun, Bacheler Jean-Pierre, Christina Rateau, and Kedler St-Hilaire for a virtual conversation about JAKMÈL: The Unveiling of Kanaval, on view at Haiti Cultural Exchange through March 29. I'd love for you to tune in.

My contribution to the exhibition is Gadyen, nine cemented horns invoking the Haitian Lwa Bossou Twa Kon and the carnival figures Lanset Kod. The chains and whip in the work are held at rest, no longer instruments of force or violence but markers of a shift from domination to remembrance. Gadyen holds reclaimed power in balance, an inheritance shaped by collective resistance and survival.

This work comes from a place I know intimately: the long-distance nationalism that many Haitians in the diaspora carry. I've experienced Kanaval in Chicago, Brooklyn, and Toronto, always in relation to Haiti, but always across distance. Kanaval and other cultural celebrations fill that absence, but it's of course not the same. That is the condition from which I make work. The hybrid forms that emerge from my practice are born through syncretism and invention, drawing from Haitian, African, and Indigenous traditions to build something that carries ancestral truth forward.

JAKMÈL | The Unveiling of Kanaval is a living archive of survival stories, memory, and self-expression. I'm honored to be part of it.

Join us Saturday, March 14 | 3–5pm

📍 Virtual Register here

Tomorrow The Logan Center for the Arts and Blacknuss.tv will co-host a special screening of feature film Fanon (2025) by Jean-Claude Flamand-Barn. It will be followed by a public panel discussion with Peter Hudis author of the book Frantz Fanon: Philosopher of the Barricadesand my father independent Haitian scholar/activist Dr William Balan-Gaubert.

The film + discussion is SOLD OUT, but I’m going to see if I can slip in via my dad.

Learn more >>

I’m home in Chicago this week! While I’m here I’m excited to catch Khidr Joseph’s thesis show at SAIC. This show features the work he’s focused on the last two years and is a follow up to his solo show In Loving Memory at NYU The Gallatin Galleries and his All About Love: Community Narratives Create Change AIR 2024 residency with The Laundromat Project in Bedstuy, Brooklyn. Khidr is like a hood hero back in Brooklyn. His gorilla murals inspire, uplift, and spread love not just the Brooklyn way, but Khidr’s way.

Excited to catch up with him and see his new works in-person.

Peep the recaps for In Loving Memory and All About Love: Community Narratives »

JAKMÈL | The Unveiling of Kanaval tells the story of a people who have always used art as a language of survival and freedom. Migration, displacement, and generational distance have often disrupted the transmission of traditions like Carnival. This exhibition is about honoring that legacy and ensuring it remains visible, especially for those in the diaspora who may feel disconnected from Haiti’s cultural history.

Through paintings, sculptural works, archival materials, and contemporary interpretations, this exhibition bridges past and present, showing how Jacmel’s Carnival continues to influence global art, and political expression while remaining deeply grounded in local community traditions. For the Haitian diaspora, the exhibition emphasizes the urgency of cultural preservation and reclamation. By engaging with Jacmel’s artistic practices and historical narratives, the exhibition encourages diasporic audiences to reconnect with their roots and recognize Carnival as a powerful symbol of identity, and continuity of Haitian culture.

Opening Reception:

Thursday, February 12, 6-9pm

Haiti Cultural Exchange

35 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn NY 11217

Featured Artists:

Steven Baboun @stevenbaboun

Tania L. Balan-Gaubert @tanialaure

Bacheler Jean-Pierre @bachbid5

Charles Jean-Pierre @cjpgallery

Lori Martineau @lo_ayiti

Christina Rateau @blue_spiritu

Kedler St-Hilaire @kedlerskyve

+ sculpture from the Tequila Minsky Private Collection

Curated by HCX Curatorial Fellow Yvena Despagne (@yvenadespagneart) and Executive Director Régine M. Roumain

Learn more about the artists »

With deep gratitude, I have to thank Amy Andrieuxfor inviting me to show two of my chairs (my first time attending Art Week / Art Basel as an artist) in Dual Currency: Defiance by Design at the 2nd annual REVOLT Art Fair.

Amy is the Executive Director + Chief Curator of MoCADA, a Professor at Parsons School of Design, and one of the most powerful curatorial voices shaping how Black art enters the global conversation. Her work is rooted in cultural memory, radical imagination, and community as a technology — and being included in a space she intentionally built means the world to me. A true Trailblazer in every sense of the word. Shoutout to Amy!

Listen to the episode >