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The (un)sunken place series began with discarded chairs salvaged from the street and from the various cities Balan-Gaubert has lived, objects marked by cycles of gentrification and displacement. For the artist, the chair embodies a liminal zone where beautification collides with loss and estrangement. The title recalls Jordan Peele’s 2017 film Get Out and the racialized zombie figure that originated in Haiti before being distorted through Western popular culture. In her hands, these salvaged chairs become thrones, transformed by intention and marked by Vodou aesthetics recognizable through sequins, fabric, and beads. Through this gesture, the discarded is reanimated into vessels of remembrance and reckoning, situating personal experience within longer histories of enslavement, resistance, and survival in the Black diaspora.
The (un)sunken place series began with discarded chairs salvaged from the street and from the various cities Balan-Gaubert has lived, objects marked by cycles of gentrification and displacement. For the artist, the chair embodies a liminal zone where beautification collides with loss and estrangement. The title recalls Jordan Peele’s 2017 film Get Out and the racialized zombie figure that originated in Haiti before being distorted through Western popular culture. In her hands, these salvaged chairs become thrones, transformed by intention and marked by Vodou aesthetics recognizable through sequins, fabric, and beads. Through this gesture, the discarded is reanimated into vessels of remembrance and reckoning, situating personal experience within longer histories of enslavement, resistance, and survival in the Black diaspora.