"The Border as Confluence: Firelei Báez’s Visions of Hispaniola"
Tuesday, April 28th, 4:45 PM
Goldwin Smith Hall, G22
Abstract
This talk discusses the work of Firelei Báez, an Afro-Latinx visual artist of Dominican and Haitian descent whose art interjects into the histories of Hispaniola. As the only island in the Caribbean Sea that shares a land-based border with another country, Hispaniola (comprised of the Dominican Repuublic and Haiti) is the pulsing center of Báez’s artistic interventions. Yet, rather than focus on the divisions erected by borders, Báez’s penchant for water and fluidity underscores the importance of confluence and continuity between the sister nations, their diasporas, and Afro-diasporic lives across the hemisphere. By paying attention to the forms, colors, and even techniques Báez employs, this talk elaborates on how Báez’s work transcends dominant narratives and (sometimes quite literally) reimagines their contours in order to undo colonial and neo-colonial narratives of division.
Biography
Rebeca L. Hey-Colón is Associate Professor of Literatures in English and Latina/o Studies at Cornell University. She specializes in Afro-Latinx and Caribbean studies. Her first book, Channeling Knowledges: Water and Afro-Diasporic Spirits in Latinx and Caribbean Worlds (University of Texas Press, 2023) was awarded Honorable Mention for the 2024 Isis Duarte Book Prize by the Haiti/DR Section of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA). Focusing on the interrelation between borders, gender, migration, and race, Channeling Knowledges pushes at the boundaries of Latinidad by centering the generative role of Black epistemologies in the Americas. Hey-Colón’s new research project considers iterations of loss in Afro-Latinx, Latinx, and Caribbean cultural production. Her research has appeared in Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies, Chicana/Latina Studies Journal, Latino Studies, Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture, and Small Axe, among others.
