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Soucouyant (also know as the Ole-Higue) is a witch-vampire in Dominica, Trinidadian and Guadeloupean folklore.

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La Diablesse is the Devil woman in Caribbean Folklore.. She appears with the full moon, haunting old plantations and winding mountain roads. Singing an old Patois rhythm, she enchants men who become wild with lust. But her wide brimmed hat hides her secret, her hideous dead face, and the full skirts of her old Martinique dress hide her cow hoof leg.. Once she lures her prey into seclusion, she reveals herself - shrieking KISS ME KISS ME!!!! The men, delirious with fear, lose themselves in the maze of the forest and starve to death. 

Piece for the ‘Prints Charming’ exhibition that will be raising funds for Art Refuge UK, an amazing vital charity who help refugees through art and art therapy. Hamilton House Gallery, Stokes Croft, Bristol. 13th-18th September 2016.

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Hello, are you a historian?

Hello good morning! Unfortunately I'm not technically a historian, but I'm definitely interested in capturing the Caribbean through time through the branches of visual and literary art, primarily because so much of our history is captured in oral tradition. To be honest I originally made this blog so I'd have a resource to quote in my papers so that my then professors wouldn't just brush aside the information I was presenting in my papers as hearsay. If you have anything you'd like to submit, please let me know!

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in our fiftieth year of independence.

I see seas of Caribbeans. I never knew or even met anyone from Belize until a group on girls got on the train and asked me if I was going to the parade all by myself. Even though I was not Belizean (and could barely understand their Kriol in Yankee accents), we were one. All different tones, with all different types of hair, coming from the same place. Children of the Diaspora, yearning to be a part of countries that scoff at us because we’ve never had to iron pleats into uniforms or see a chicken beheaded in the smoothest of motions with the kitchen’s cutlass. The only thing that separated me from them, was that I didn’t have any glitter on me yet.

This is where I see my people. My people, who left warm countries with unstable pasts and uncertain futures, for colder countries with promises of more money. At parades and festivals held in small booths set up with picnic tables, legs hidden by flags yanked down from being curtains, this is where I see my people. I meet them on the road, at work, and at events that slump us together under heightened supervision. These fleeting moments of laughter, dance, remembrance, and learning are short and far in-between. In school, we are bombarded by justified conquest and colonizations, with no respect for the peoples and traditions lost. Everything I have learned, which is all so little, of my country and the ones it is associated with, I have learned at the feet of my grandparents and parents, patiently waiting for whatever morsels they will remember. Research is not always easy to come by, the stories they recant to me are rarely in my neighbourhood’s library.

I live in a country that doesn’t accept me as a true citizen, yearning for a country that sees me as its bastard. As both doors close against me, I can only find myself in the few on the corner who are like me. There is no where else I easily find my story.

— “The Moon Looks Different in Barbados: Essays on Accepting the Hyphen.” rough drafts, still in production. leslie nikole. january 2014.

I’ve been working on this for a while. I made a trip last minute to Barbados a year ago for a funeral and came back with the books I’ve always wanted. Then life got in the way, as it has a habit of doing when you’re excited about something. I’ve been carrying the process journal I’ve been using since I birthed the idea of this complied project in late 2013, and I’m hoping that this year, in our fiftieth year of independence, I’ll have something to show for it.

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The imagination is a tool of resistance. Creating stories with people of color in future defies the norm. With the power of technology and emerging freedoms, black artists have more control over their image than ever before.

Womack, Ytasha. "Evolution of a Space Cadet." Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-fi and Fantasy Culture. 24. Print.

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The Miracle Tree and the Angel Destroying the Serpent by Albert Artwell 

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Junot Díaz and I. New York City 2013, Montréal 2015.

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The Caribbean is a place of extraordinary beauty, people of enormous spirit, unique talents, a wonderful culture. We are bound by friendship and shared values, and by family. And we have a great stake in each other’s success.

President Barack Obama, April 9, 2015

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John Dunkley Banana Plantation 1945

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Ramón Frade Our Daily Bread 1905

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Antonio Gattorno Women by the River 1927

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Carlos Enríquez The Abduction of the Mulatas 1938

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