Please introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about where in the region you are based, and share some of the major ideas and themes you engage with in your practice.
My name is Stephanie Jeanty. I am a Haitian visual artist and filmmaker. My practice takes a resolutely multidisciplinary approach, at the intersection of film, photography, installation, painting, and performance.
My work explores the memory of interior spaces intimate, domestic, and historical by drawing on personal memories as well as stories collected from my loved ones. By interweaving archives, staged scenes, personal documents, and various forms, I seek to examine the complexity of individual trajectories and collective memories.
Through my work, I seek to develop a mythology of places from a decolonial perspective. To this end, I use various mediums such as photography, video, and installation to create hybrid works that suggest diverse cartographies as well as alternative ways of being and inhabiting the world.
Can you share the experience of mounting your solo exhibition in Haiti, how that has allowed you to bring together several of your projects over the past five years and if this has opened up avenues leading to new collaborative projects?
I was unable to achieve my main goal, which was to organize my solo exhibition in Haiti. I had to postpone it, but it has not been canceled. Given the highly unstable situation in the country, I decided to reschedule it for a later date. This preparatory work made me realize the need for more substantial funding in order to better structure the project and fully showcase the works I wish to present.
Working on organizing my exhibition opened up new perspectives, leading me in particular to consider the choice of venue between Port-au-Prince and Jacmel. These two cities present distinct challenges: Port-au-Prince offers visibility to a diverse audience and a more developed institutional base, but remains marked by an extremely complex security and logistical context. Jacmel, on the other hand, offers a more stable environment conducive to artistic dissemination, although it is more distant from certain networks and audiences. This reflection allowed me to engage in discussions with key players in the sector to anticipate these constraints and prepare my exhibition as effectively as possible.
Furthermore, the TENDER grant was invaluable, as it allowed me to focus fully on my practice and produce new works. I began a new series of paintings by experimenting further with materials and deepening a sensitive representation of the home and interior spaces—recurring themes in my work. In addition, I also invested in creating my new website, which will better showcase my work.
In addition to initiatives like TENDER, what other kinds of support or programming geared towards the needs of contemporary creative practitioners would you like to see implemented in the Caribbean?
Initiatives like TENDER are particularly important for artists working in the Caribbean. However, this type of support remains underdeveloped in our regions. In my view, similar programs should be established more widely across the Caribbean.
Indeed, many artists struggle to develop their work, and those who produce art often face difficulties in exhibiting it. This situation makes it particularly difficult for artists to make a living, even a modest one, from their creative work. Working in a region where access to art and exhibition spaces is becoming increasingly difficult, it seems essential to rethink the conditions for artistic production and dissemination.
In the past, and particularly in 2022, I benefited from the support of Catapult Arts Caraïbes, which truly helped me in my professional journey. I would like to see more similar projects developed. Furthermore, we need residency programs bringing together artists from the Caribbean, in short- and/or long-term formats, to develop individual or collective projects. The goal would be to create spaces for meeting and exchange, fostering collaborative work around shared themes.
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