Kontredans: Nou La / Counterdance: We Here, 2026

Kontredans: Nou La / Counterdance: We Here, 2026 by Ulysse re-maps Haiti’s imprint on American identity and struggles for self-determination. Re-imagined as a cabinet of curiosities, the work includes all pages of Haiti’s indemnity payments to France, calabashes from West Africa, and other materials gathered from the diasporic ports of Chicago, Miami, New Orleans, and New York. It is a reminder of the price that Haiti paid, and continues to pay, in fighting for freedom. Exhibited in Moving History Forward’s Roots of the Urban North gallery, Ulysse’s piece pays homage to those who lost their lives from the violence of the slave trade, as well as those who sought their freedom by joining the sea, to the original revolutionaries of the Haitian Revolution, and those who continue to fight for sovereignty and justice. 

Gina Athena Ulysse is a Haitian-born artist and Professor of Humanities at UC Santa Cruz. Ulysse utilizes found objects from Haiti and the diaspora to honor their shared histories of colonization and repression. The key principle in Ulysse’s practices is Rasanblaj to “embrace the spiritual” as a way to confront the long-lingering fragmentation in the aftermath of colonialism.