Dark Gardens and Eco-Caribbean Contemporary Art - Presentation at the University of Tennessee

I am so happy to have been invited by the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga to present on my work.

It was great meeting the students and faculty to discuss contemporary Caribbean art and eco-critical perspectives. This presentation on Dark Gardens takes up the work of Caribbean diasporic artists and their engagement with various ecologies. I’m interested in how these contemporary artists address native landscapes in ways that interrogate environmental changes, tropical signifiers, island mythologies, and gendered cartographies.

I focus on the work of two artists, Ebony G. Patterson and Firelei Báez. Patterson’s recent body of work has consistently explored the role of gardens and tropical foliage as dark landscapes intertwined with social ills and the concealment of unsolved investigations. Báez combines representational cues that span from hair textures to textile patterns, plant life, folkloric and literary references, cartographies, and wide-ranging emblems of healing and resistance. Together, Patterson and Báez, create Afro-Caribbean topologies that explore dark landscapes and historical knowledge as shapeshifting and living creations.

A special thanks to Professor Stephen Mandravelis for the invitation! What a wonderful group of students who asked some really great questions.