Join us for the 2022 Lakou NOU culminating event on Saturday December 3rd at BKLYN Commons!
The 2022 Lakou NOU culminating event demonstrates the sheer resistance and power within Brooklyn’s Haitian diasporic community. Four unique projects by the 2022 Lakou NOU artists-in-residence examine crucial issues on the minds of many Haitians: the Haitian queer experience, immigration policy, language and identity, and what it means to be Black and Haitian in America. This free event presents the artists’ work in conversation with each other, demonstrating how these topics are intersectional.
Unlike traditional artmaking, where an artistic creation amplifies a sole artists’ perspective, Lakou NOU residents generated this work collaboratively with community members, weaving participants’ collective creativity into their respective art forms. The Lakou NOU culminating showcase will include visual art installations and photography by Steven Baboun, audio soundscapes by Lalin St. Juste, a live musical performance by Sherlee Skai, and a live dance performance by Robenson Mathurin.
The artists projects are as follows:
Steven Baboun (Canarsie): Fanmi M, Men Yo! (“My Family, There They Are!” in Haitian Kreyòl) is a series of photographs, sculptures and sound pieces birthed and inspired by the Haitian Queer community and reality. Each textile sculpture features a sound piece created collaboratively with participants in the Haitian Queer Educational and Artmaking workshop facilitated during Steven’s Lakou NOU residency.
Robenson Mathurin (Crown Heights): Koulè M Idantite M (My Skin, My Identity in English), is a dance workshop series that reflects on the complexity of Black identity in different societies and, specifically, as part of the immigrant experience. Community members engage workshops in which they discuss: what does it mean to live, survive, and thrive in your own Black skin?
Lalin St. Juste (East Flatbush): Mother Tongue, a multidimensional performance utilizing the soundscape of conversations around Kreyòl Ayisyen to interpret the celebratory and complex relationship to this language for Haitians throughout the diaspora.
Sherlee Skai (Flatbush): Conversation Through Music combines community conversation, storytelling, and acoustic ballads (shaped by multicultural influences from Haitian folklore to American jazz and soul); the aim is to raise awareness of immigration rights and advocate for justice centered policies for Haitian migrants.