Faire Monde(s) reviews the work of Nicolas Derné, now included in the collective exhibition in “Martinique, Cartographies intimes” [Martinique, Intimate Cartographies] through August 1, 2026, at the Wall House Museum (located at 2 rue de Pitea, La Pointe, Gustavia, St. Barth, French Antilles). [Also see our previous post Exhibition: Martinique, Cartographies intimes.]
For over a decade, Nicolas Derné has been developing the Parades project, a long-term exploration of the carnivals of the Caribbean—Martinique, Guadeloupe, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Trinidad & Tobago—considered as territories of living memory, linked by a shared history and a common African heritage. Martinique serves as the starting point for this research.
Carnival then becomes a bridge between the Caribbean islands, a space where one may read the layers of a history fragmented by the crossing of the Atlantic. The work And Still I Rise, which borrows its title from Maya Angelou’s poem, depicts a child embodying a Tiznao, an emblematic figure of the Dominican Republic’s carnival. The body is covered in a mixture of oil and charcoal, recalling a central figure of the Martinican carnival: the “gros sirop” black man, coated in molasses, a dark and sticky residue from sugarcane production.
By juxtaposing this ancestral figure with modern sunglasses, Nicolas Derné creates a tension between two temporalities to show how a culture remains alive, dynamic, and capable of absorbing the present without losing its memorial charge. His work deliberately breaks with stereotypical visions of the Caribbean carnival, often reduced to an exotic spectacle.
Excerpt from the poem by Maya Angelou “And Still I Rise”
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
Excerpts translated by Ivette Romero. For the original text (in French), see https://www.instagram.com/p/DZH6WWNDU-k/
See more about the artist at https://nicolasderne.com/about and https://nicolasderne.com/
#histoiredelart #artcaribéen #caribbeanart #decolonial #archivesvivantes #artcontemporain #artcontemporaindelacaraibe #fairemondesart
Faire Monde(s) reviews the work of Nicolas Derné, now included in the collective exhibition in “Martinique, Cartographies intimes” [Martinique, Intimate Cartographies] through August 1, 2026, at the Wall House Museum (located at 2 rue de Pitea, La Pointe, Gustavia, St. Barth, French Antilles). [Also see our previous post Exhibition: Martinique, Cartographies intimes.] For over a
