Stephanie Pierre | EAST FLATBUSH

Stephanie Pierre, MBA is a cultural curator and creative placemaker who crafts transformative experiences blending arts, wellness, and social impact. As founder of The Melanin Project, she pioneers initiatives celebrating marginalized narratives and collective healing. Stephanie led the establishment of NYC’s first Haitian Heritage Parade and partners with diverse organizations to develop culturally-affirming programs. A yoga teacher and cannabis advocate, she creates sacred spaces for BIPOC communities to reconnect with ancient practices and reclaim their power. Stephanie’s innovative placemaking uplifts underrepresented voices and fosters healing, joy, and transformation, driven by her vision of a more just and equitable world.

—

“What started out as a simple digital map to help East Flatbush residents and those that love them navigate their neighborhood with deeper appreciation, turned into the foundation for an information system that houses the history of Haitian social action movements in East Flatbush. As a first generation Haitian-American born and bred in the county of Kings, the practice of reclaiming Haitian identity by learning of our history can be fraught with many challenges. Faded memories, lost documents, and copyright clauses were the most obvious of these obstacles, but the most impactful to the process were the fractured relationships, intolerance or varying viewpoints, and the idea of “needing permission”. Roots to Routes has crystallized my living between worlds – my parents’ Haiti that lived in our meals, in the kreyòl that filled our apartment, and the Brooklyn streets that raised me.This liminal space is where my parents made memories that, while historic, have succumbed to erasure due to gentrification, poor information systems, and sometimes straight up beef. 

I approached this project not like a trained historian, but like any Haitian American with limited knowledge of the history of Haitians here in New York, East Flatbush specifically; I followed a thread. One conversation with a trusted elder led me to another and to another. When I realized how voluminous the information was, I narrowed down the number of stories and locations I wanted to activate down to keep overwhelm at bay. This redirection and engaging The Haitian Studies Institute Archives seated at Brooklyn College led me to a more refined list of organizers, activists, journalists, and participants of these watershed moments. While headway was being made in terms of information collected, original photos and digitized archival materials not preserved at the archives presented the greatest challenge as much of the media that would have painted the clearest picture of the events were housed across state lines or subject to third party copyright clauses. I pivoted again to use microfilm as the foundational images and opened the opportunity for participants to submit any originals they may be in possession of. Digitally, we created a GIS map of East Flatbush that points out the physical locations connected to those moments and their current facades to help visitors orient themselves to where events actually happened. The site also has profiles for organizations in East Flatbush and their connections to this shared history and a musical playlist of the top charting Haitian and American music at the time.”

– Stephanie Pierre

Photos by Stephanie Pierre and Marleen Moise.

—

Roots and Routes traces key moments in history and subsequent watershed social action movements of the Brooklyn Haitian community. The piece creatively highlights cultural context and historical information, navigating archival materials and accounts from following five moments in Haitian history: The Fall of “Baby Doc” in 1986, March on Brooklyn Bridge in April 1990, The Military Coup of Jean Betrand Aristide in 1991, Police violence against Haitian Immigrants (Abner Louima/Patrick Dorismond), and The 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti in January 2010. 

Three of these stories were activated to draw local attention to the publicly accessible digital resource map, physical photographs, ephemera, and microfilm of select moments were placed on the facade and in the windows of places in East Flatbush that serve as sites of information exchange – Bon Bon Bon and the Brooklyn Public Library – Clarendon Branch. 

Elements from those public installation sites highlighting the community story on the assault of Abner Louima in August 1997, the murder of Patrick Dorismond in March 2000, and the AIDS policy protest march across the Brooklyn Bridge in April 1990 are exhibited here. 

Collaged microfilm periodicals from well known Haitian publications of the time, Haiti Progres and Haiti Observateur, alongside noteworthy New York based publications The New York Times and The New York Daily News will set the foundation of this installation. The layered disorder of these archival materials represents the disorienting journey of collecting this information through the lens of the first generation Haitian American, seeking and locating a mosaic of information, connections, and materials to build a mere snapshot of community history. 

Map illustrations recontextualize the boundaries of the East Flatbush neighborhood by marking locations connected to researched historical moments (identified by conch shells) and local institutions and sites of interest that give East Flatbush its textured character. 

Key snippets from event specific media, ephemera, and a very Haitian American playlist embody the blending of Haitian and Brooklyn culture formed during that time offer context before leading to a space of remembrance for the 15th year anniversary of the Earthquake in Haiti, the 25th anniversary of Patrick Dorismond’s murder and the 25th anniversary of the March on Brooklyn Bridge.