From the Archives to the Everyday: Caribbean Visualities and Meanings

February 1 – 28, 2018

Curators

Christiana Abraham, assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies

Others

Centre International de Documentation et d’Information Haïtienne, Caribéenne et Afrocanadienne (CIDIHCA) and the Concordia Caribbean Student Union (CCSU)

Description

Within the context of Black History Month, the Webster Library was pleased to present an exhibition of archival photographs and contemporary texts exploring the rich and diverse visualities of the Caribbean region. The photographs themselves, selected by the Centre International de Documentation et d’Information Haïtienne, Caribéenne et Afro-canadienne (CIDIHCA) and Christiana Abraham, date from the 19th century onwards and were drawn from the archives of the Montréal-based CIDIHCA.

The historic and vintage images document the day-to-day lives of people from a number of islands throughout the Caribbean including Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago, Guadeloupe, and Dominica. Integral to this exhibition was an experimental interactive audience research that explored contemporary meanings to these rarely seen images from the past by members of various Caribbean diaspora communities. The exhibition was interested in how these archival photographs function as glimpses of the past that circulate in current space and time.