My current research focuses on the cultural linkages between Poland and Haiti. It’s part of a larger body of work called the Creole Archive Project, which I’ve been working on since 2015. Overall, the relevance of this study resides in bringing to light the Polish-Haitian entanglements that have been largely ignored in modern Polish identity narratives. This project uses a transnational perspective to destabilize established concepts of identity by investigating a sense of national belonging and putting current Polish sentiments toward race and ethnicity to the test. In the United States and internationally, I have presented findings from my research at conferences, talks, solo and group exhibitions, and site-specific installations.

The historical background that underpins this investigation begins with Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802. From 1802 to 1805, Napoleon dispatched about five thousand Polish legionnaires to Saint-Domingue, modern-day Haiti, as part of his massive effort to contain the slave rebellion that had arisen in 1791. However, a group of Polish soldiers opposed Napoleon’s efforts to subjugate the rebels. Consequently, these soldiers unwittingly took part in the creation of the world’s first black-led republic and first independent Caribbean state when Saint-Domingue cast off French colonial control and slavery in the early nineteenth century. 

My Creole Archive Project acts as a guide to visual culture, introducing viewers to the complicated history of the Polish-Antillean context. Nevertheless, the project must not be perceived as an objective reflection of historical accounts. Thus, it primarily serves as an art laboratory that delves deep into contemporary identity and the notion of my cultural displacement. As the French poststructuralist Jacques Derrida suggests, archives cannot be objective and are molded by our own culture, history, and biology. 

I situate my project in the context of creolization, especially within the context of Martinican author Édouard Glissant’s writings on the subject. “Creolization” refers to the process by which components of diverse cultures are amalgamated to construct a new culture. Creolization is inseparably connected with the traumatic experiences of moving from the original homeland to a new geographical and cultural habitat. This process focuses on the concept of mixing different cultures, as a result of which the formation of a new identity takes place. According to Glissant, creolization almost always leads to unknown and unpredictable consequences. His vision of creolization emphasizes mobility and fluidity, at the same time undermining the established and normative patterns of identity formation. This project is a personal attempt to answer questions regarding the fundamental issue of identity or, as I should perhaps articulate more strictly, my own identity.

I have started with investigating the Black Madonna of Częstochowa, which has been inextricably intertwined with both Polish and Haitian cultural identities. My mode of investigation has involved the creation of an “archive” via 3-D scanning, 3-D printing, collage work, and collaboration with family members who trace their genealogy to Haiti. In 2017, I presented a paper on this project, titled “Exploring Polish and Haitian Art Histories as Entangled via a Studio-Based Investigation of the Deity Elizi Dantò,” at the international, peer-reviewed annual conference of the Association for Art Historians (AAH), held in the UK. Although the AAH conference attracts primarily art history scholars and theorists, not studio artists, I believe my participation in academic events heightens my research-based studio practice and impacts the field of visual arts and curatorial practices.