Unmaking the Map: Feminist Cartographies in Contemporary Caribbean Art

My dissertation project develops an archipelagic analysis of gender and space in the contemporary cultural production of the Caribbean and its diasporas. Drawing from a diverse archive—including painting, photography, maps, and literary texts—I argue that minoritarian Caribbean artists document and reconfigure the geographic dimensions of Caribbean life in order to resist colonial organizations of space, produce alternative forms of spatial freedom, and center the geographic knowledge and experiences of gendered and racialized Caribbean subjects. With the help of the Graduate Global Research Grant, I will be able to conduct preliminary research necessary to write the first chapter of my dissertation project on the work of Dominican-Haitian artist Firelei Báez.