Art and Literature in Contemporary Dominican Republic, Haiti, and their Diasporas

1:00pm – 8:00pm
15 March 2018
Room C198 – Center for the Humanities
CUNY Graduate Center

This conference explores the production of literature and the visual arts by contemporary artists and writers in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and their diasporas. This event explores collaboration and intermingling within the current production of literature and the visual arts in both countries and in the diaspora. It will contribute to an essential, growing intellectual discourse about Hispañola and its diaspora in the United States.

This conference is a collaboration with the exhibition Bordering the Imaginary: Art from the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and the Diaspora at BRIC, Brooklyn. The first panel will address intersections in literature and theater of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The second, a roundtable, will examine issues in curating Haitian and Dominican art in the United States, with special attention to race, gender, and institutional critique. The event will conclude with a keynote lecture by Dr. Sophie Mariñez who will discuss midcentury poetry and activism in Hispañola that transcends national boundaries.

SCHEDULE

1:00-1:15pm: Introductory Remarks 

1:15-1:45pm: Film by Leah Gordon, Evel Romain, and André Eugene   

1:45-2:15pm: Discussion between Evel Romain and Eugene André with Abigail Lapin Dardashti 

2:15-4pm: Panel: Border and Queer Literature 
Wilfredo Burgos Matos, The Graduate Center, CUNY
Rachel Afi Quinn, University of Houston
Raj Chetty, St. John’s University

4-4:30pm: Coffee break 

4:30-6:30pm: Roundtable: Curating Hispañola 
Rocío Aranda-Alvarado, El Museo del Barrio
Deborah Cullen, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University
Yelaine Rodriguez, Artist and independent curator
Abigail Lapin Dardashti, The Graduate Center, CUNY
E. Carmen Ramos, Smithsonian American Art Museum
Axelle Liautaud, Centre d’Art, Port-au-Prince
Jerry Philogene, Dickinson College
Moderator: Arlene Dávila, New York University

6:40-7:45pm: Keynote Talk: Sophie Mariñez, Borough of Manhattan Community College
Followed by a Question and Answer session.

Organized by Abigail Lapin Dardashti and Wilfredo Burgos Matos.

Co-sponsored by the Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean (IRADAC), the Art History Department, the Doctoral Students’ Council (DSC), the Dominican Studies Group, and the Center for the Humanities at the Graduate Center, CUNY, and BRIC.

Above adapted from event webpage.

Image Credit: Edouard Duval Carrié, Hispañola Saga: El tigere y el congo, 2016.