publication

In his canonical work Silencing the Past: Power and Production in History, Haitian historian and anthropologist Michel Rolph-Trouillot states: “Silences are inherent in history because any single event enters history with some of its constituting parts missing.” For Haitian artist Fabiola Jean-Louis, those missing parts are the bodies of Black women. By reinserting Black women into historical narratives across the Black Atlantic, Jean-Louis graciously demonstrates that artists have the power to deconstruct and reconstruct the past. Her tool kit includes photography, paper sculpting, and fashion design. Inspired by paintings of the Old Masters, she complicates visual representations of Black life. In this article, I analyze three photographs—Marie Antoinette is Dead, Whispers of a Revolution, and Madame Beauvoir’s Painting—to demonstrate how these works embody the organizing principles of Black revolt and the transnational and trans circular tides of revolution between Europe, Africa, and the New World. Fabiola Jean-Louis’s makes clear the connection between wealth and violence. Her work also portrays Black women as triumphant figures and protagonists as opposed to victimized, fetishized objects. Each of these women tells a distinct yet interconnected story about beauty, memory, spirituality, and emancipatory life, thereby correcting centuries of archival silences and historical neglect.