Author: nathaliejolivert

Oath of the Ancestors | Serment des Ancêtres

Exhibition design around a painting which mobility through time and space constantly challenges our notion of freedom and cultural ownership. Le Serment des Ancetres by Guillaume Guillon Lethiere revealed the prominent French painter’s identity as a Mixed-race child of a French father and Guadeloupean mother. By sending the painting to Haiti in 1822, he showed his solidarity to the newly emancipated Black Nation, yet he rendered a white God sanctifying the Oath between Dessalines and Pétion, expressing personal struggle in looking for his French father’s recognition. This painting conveys many complex social layers also found in the Manoir Alexandra.

Below, schematic ideas as to how to interpret such exhibitions in the Manoir Alexandra

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Serment des Ancêtres, damaged during the earthquake and retrieved from the Haitian Presidential Palace. Today, the Serment des Ancêtres is exhibited at the Louvre Museum under a show titled “Les Musées sont des Mondes” … http://mini-site.louvre.fr/trimestriel/2011/3/index.html#/28

Black Content in a White Cube 

When the Modern confronts the Old … and when the governing voice…. is still the same

More Coming Soon 

Knocking on Heaven’s Door | La Mariée Oubliée


In the midst of the affectionate chatter of my maids of honor at the foot of the stairs, I proclaimed my thirst aloud. I would really like a glass of ice water.” […] Had someone foreseen my last-minute thirst?

Hadriana in All my Dreams | René Dépestre

When Hadriana wakes up from her state of coma, she knocks at all doors surrounding the Central Plaza. The night is torrential and her followers are getting closer to her. The city mourns her death but has now shut its doors.

But is the city solely comprised of her family the Siloés, the Krafts and the Catholic sisters who now ignore her? Hadriana’s image of purity was gone as soon as her body came out of the Church. People dancing the Rabòday around her to bring her back to life, have forever affected her innocence. Nobody around the plaza will answer to her calls because she is now no longer worth their recognition.

Early sketch

Below is a sketch illustrating how I wished to tackle issues of transparency with the Manoir Alexandra. When I started research for my thesis during the Summer of 2011, I was interested in using the Manoir as an accessible and progressive Town Hall.   I had begun altering the architecture of the mansion to provide more porches and public viewing access to the bay. Now, I am more inclined to keeping the aspect of the house in ruins, conserving memories of the aftermath of a catastrophe and its impact on the architecture of a place.

As I have learned in November 2011, that the Manoir Alexandra is becoming a cultural center and museum space, the goal is now to occupy its interiors, and most importantly its gardens, while perpetuating the narratives I wish to preserve in my thesis. 

During my happy life as a girl, there had always been three spaces- the inward garden, the exterior courtyard, and the Caribbean side. It was very warm in all of them.

Hadriana in All my Dreams | René Depestre

Lower Level Performance Space & Garden

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The first image of this slideshow is a modified Times Magazine photo of the interior of Haitian dancer Viviane Gauthier’s Gingerbread house in Turgeau, Port-au-Prince. The photo illustrated an atmosphere I wish to convey in the lower rooms of the Manoir Alexandra. This performance space would spill out to the garden.

Times Magazine Photo Essay: Haïti’s Gingerbread Houses

Granchiré | La Mariée Souillée

Les Papillons ne sont que des fleurs envolées un jour de fête où la nature était en veine d’invention et de fécondité. “Butterflies are but flowers that blew away one sunny day when Nature was feeling at her most inventive and fertile.” George Sand

“Go Hadriana!” said a voice inside on the Caribbean side

Hadriana In All my Dreams- René Dépestre 

In Hadriana in All my Dreams, Granchiré is a Man-Butterfly who terrorizes Jacmelian families by luring their young women. On the day of her wedding, Hadriana dies at the altar of the Cathedral St Phillipe & St Jacques. Although some believe that her passion to marry has caused her death, the following day her corpse disappears from the cemetery. Those who had tried fervently to bring her back to life with Vaudou processions on the Place d’Armes, are finally convinced that Granchiré had not been satisfied yet. For a very last time, he takes away the life and purity of a young girl.

‘Kote yo fè zafè yo’ shining light on the obscure

It is a common belief (and often times true occurence) in Haiti for families that practice Vaudou and deem themselves Christian, to hide their rituals in a room reserved for services to their governing Loas. When I visited the Manoir Alexandra in November, the Géran or gardener led me and my cousin to a dark lower room where he believed (with no hesitation) that the past owners of the house used to practice Vaudou. Sa se kote yo fè zafè yo “that is where they did their things” he said as he pointed towards stairs leading to the dark room. An old bell placed on a rocking chair, and racks of empty wine bottle were the indications that the owners practiced Vaudou.

The Manoir Alexandra was a hotel and all the wine bottles where neatly locked away in cages. The room was a wine depot, however, the Géran was sure the owners also practiced Vaudou there. Whether it was true or not, one cannot dismiss that in Haiti, the belief system is such that Vaudou is always on people’s minds, especially when things are difficult to explain… and this at both ends of the spectrum.

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Photography: Catherine Buteau, during our trip to Jacmel in November 2011

Garden on the Caribbean Side

Alors l’enchantement commençait pour moi au jardin. Pour notre plaisir, mon père, en botaniste amateur, avait voulu y faire épanouir, outre la flore spécifiquement haïtienne et dominicaine, le paysage de toute la Caraïbe, de Cuba à Trinidad, en passant par Porto-Rico, la Jamaïque, la Martinique, la Guadeloupe et l’ensemble insulaire des Petites Antilles. Ainsi prospérait autour de la maison un échantillon de chaque espèce de plantes à fleurs, des plus humbles aux plus spectaculaires […]

Depestre, René. Hadriana Dans Tous Mes Rêves: Roman. Paris: Gallimard, 1988. Print. 190.

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Photography: Catherine Buteau, during our trip to Jacmel in November 2011