Acting as a form of rasanblaj (a Haitian Kreyol term which can be translated as an assembly, compilation, enlisting and regrouping of ideas, things, people and spirits), An Equitable Human Assertion Rasanblaj I is a site-specific work that gathers together materials from around the world, including Australia, which are not simply objects but have agency, as well as multiple functions and significations, sometimes helping to draw together shared histories. Kwi – shells made from the kalbas or calabash tree (Lagenaria siceraria) are used as containers for eating and storage, carvings, musical instruments, and as religious objects. Here, they are the simple, sacred and profane holder of rasanblaj and become living things, creating possibilities for new encounters.

Gina Athena Ulysse is a feminist interdisciplinary artist whose approach considers manifestations of power and vulnerability in unprocessed horrors of the past. With her method / praxis of rasanblaj (gathering ideas, things, people and spirits) she confronts the visceral in the structural. Her work reorients notions of aesthetics by pursuing beauty in the simplest of natural things.

Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney with generous support from Open Society Foundations, and assistance from the U.S. Consulate General Sydney and NIRIN 500 patrons. Courtesy the artist.

“What if our point of departure in encounters with difference stemmed not from domination, but an impulse of radical vulnerability? What would we turn to if we did not cling to power? Would we recognise and comprehend that difference as an opening? Expansive. Limitless. Extremities. Revelation. A space to meditatively confront and embrace our socially limited imagination? Would we become more aware of our sensibilities … feel a multitude of sentiments, feel that, as Toni Cade Bambara asserts, ‘the revolution begins with the self … in the self’. Deference. Humility. Surrender. Grace. Can these sentiments be reflected? What reflects them?”