CROSSING
Reflected in the masked images of these creole saints are the multivocal, transcultural processes born from the liminal waters of the Atlantic.
Like these liminal waters, the saints can be understood as visualizations of the history of diaspora and creolization in the Caribbean. Rather than fixed or essentialist images, they symbolize the oceanic layering and movement of the multiple ruptures at the crossroads of the world. Their identity is not singular or pure, they have many names (Caridad, Yéyé Cachita, Ochun, Regla, Mama Dlo, Yemayá) and their faces reflect the faces of the Caribbean. They are sites of history, memory, multiplicity, diaspora, violence and creation. They exist as many things, all at once, in the polyrhythmic flux of non-linear time, functioning as tidalectic relations (caminos) beyond artificial boundaries.
The virgin/orishas simultaneously symbolize the vessels themselves, the people in them, and the water being crossed.
