La Vaughn Belle

La Vaughn Belle is best known for working with the coloniality of the Virgin Islands, both in its past relationship to Denmark and its present one with the United States. She works in a variety of disciplines that include: painting, installation, photography, video and public interventions. Borrowing from elements of architecture, history and archeology Belle creates narratives that challenge colonial hierarchies and invisibility. She has exhibited her work in the Caribbean, the USA and Europe in institutions such as the Museo del Barrio (NY), Casa de las Americas (Cuba), the Museum of the African Diaspora (CA) and Christiansborg Palace (DK).  Her art is in the collections of the National Photography Museum and the Vestsjælland Museum in Denmark. Her work with colonial era pottery led to a commision with the renowned brand of porcelain products, the Royal Copenhagen. She is the co-creator of “I Am Queen Mary”, the artist-led groundbreaking monument that confronted the Danish colonial amnesia while commemorating the legacies of resistance of the African people who were brought to the former Danish West Indies. The project was featured in over 100 media outlets around the world including the NY Times, Politiken, VICE, the BBC and Le Monde. Belle holds a MFA from the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, Cuba and an MA and BA from Columbia University in NY. Her studio is based in the Virgin Islands.

Neither Subject Nor Citizen: Virgin Islanders in the Harlem Renaissance

2017 marked the centennial anniversary of the sale and transfer of the Virgin Islands from Denmark to the United States. Much of the year was spent reflecting upon the past relationship between the Virgin Islands and its former colonizer while little attention was paid to the last 100 years of American rule. After the transfer in 1917 thousands of Virgin Islanders migrated to the United States and in its greatest numbers to Harlem, thereby coinciding with one of the most significant cultural moments in US history-the Harlem Renaissance. Often dubbed an important political, social and artistic cultural movement in African American culture spanning the 1920’s, many of these Virgin Islands immigrants became influential in the Harlem Renaissance. However, being that it took until 1927 for American citizenship to be granted, these Virgin Islanders were nationless, being no longer Danish subjects and not yet American citizens.  

As an Artist in Residence, Belle will explore the space of liminality created after the sale and transfer of the Virgin Islands from Denmark to the US as this relates to the Harlem Renaissance and the Virgin Islanders who became key agents in this movement. Belle is also interested in what can be learned from this movement at a time when the Virgin Islanders remain on an unfulfilled path toward full citizenship–still unable to vote and without a voting representative in Congress.

Belle’s project will begin by engaging in research into the archives at such institutions as the Schomburg Center, (Arturo Schomburg was also a descendant of a Virgin Islander) and creating a body of artwork that is inspired by this research. She is particularly interested in exploring the biographies of such individuals as Casper Holstein, Hubert Harrison, Ashley Totten, Elizabeth Hendrikson and Frank Crosswaith, many of whom were also actively engaged in the fight for social justice back home in the Virgin Islands. Belle works in a number of styles, including painting, sculpture, and mixed media, and plans to engage these multiple styles in her work, culminating in an exhibition in New York and the Virgin Islands.

Related Work 

I Am Queen Mary: Artist Talks 

This video is a part of the “I Am Queen Mary” series of artist talks and open forums which took place in the Virgin Islands July 15-17, 2018. In this talk La Vaughn Belle and Jeannette Ehlers present their collaborative sculpture project, “I Am Queen Mary”, which was inaugurated on March 31, 2018 in Copenhagen and challenges the Danish colonial amnesia to their relationship with their former colony, the US Virgin Islands. Learn more on the I Am Queen Mary website.

Video  

The Islands We Sold: A Four-Part Series 

This 10 minute documentary was commissioned by the Danish Ministry of Education to educate school children about the colonial history and relationship with the Virgin Islands by doing documentary profiles of Virgin Islanders today. La Vaughn Belle was one of the four people selected for this series, “The Islands We Sold,” filmed in 2016.

“I Am Queen Mary”
Promotional Video

“I Am Queen Mary”
Interview with La Vaughn Belle and Jeanette Ehlers 

Photo credit: Kevin Moolenar