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The Inheritance of the Haitian Diaspora is One of Spoiled Promise:
How can the arts be used as a structured experience that provides pathways for the Haitian Diaspora to be challenged with interpretations of their own rich cultural inheritance? Inheritance is a sculpture-based gallery installation that integrates audiovisual media, Antillean Creole cuisine, and American fast food into responses to this question.
Creole cuisine, as an inheritance of the Haitian people, suffocates and decomposes beneath the clear acrylic surface of an outer table, encapsulating opulent amounts of specially spiced meats, mountains of different styles of rice, millet and maize, greens, sauces, beans, French chocolates, soups, fine alcohols and malta, and raw ingredients. A clear acrylic table acts as a see-through shell, which completely contains the inner wooden table and all of its food contents. The food is left beneath the acrylic to rot for a month just as some Haitians have left their inheritances to rot for years, absolving themselves of all responsibilities to their homeland and people or just unable to maintain. Prepackaged American food wrappers litter the surface of the acrylic table with the rotting Haitian food lurking just beneath the surface. The movement of the audience in the space triggers audiovisual media that informs, while deconstructing, Creole cuisine and its polyvalent relationship to the people that live it.
