Memory and the Contemporary Visual Arts of the Francophone Caribbean

The titles of the exhibitions and works of visual artists from the Francophone Caribbean often underline the extent to which the theme of memory remains at the heart of their work. This problematic is broken down into three branches. The feeling of an irremediable loss provokes resistance to amnesia and the willful reconstitution of an occulted past. Their works, like those of other, non-Francophone artists from the Caribbean or from the diaspora place “identity in the interstices,” stigmatize the caricatured representation of blacks, are frequently founded on historical documents, and propose a reading of the slave societies of the Caribbean. Does the unity of Caribbean art not reside in its critical function, in this contemporary look towards a shared memory that until now has been lost, hidden, denied, and unacknowledged?