Kinks in The Value Chain: The Ongoing Materialization of Haiti's Counter-Narratives

Abstract

This thesis outlines the conceptual and material trajectories of my developing artistic practice, which is deeply informed by my Haitian heritage and political position. Rather than merely documenting imperial violence, my work engages with its entanglements across labor, ecology, and incarceration—examining how histories of domination continue to manifest and mutate in the present. Drawing from archival materials, found objects, spatial research, and community memory, I pursue a methodology that foregrounds material poetics and the tactile transmission of knowledge. Through these investigations, I aim to contribute to Haiti’s ongoing production of counter-narratives—ones that reject the imperial scripts of dependency, criminality, and obsolescence.