‘Creole’ culture is an evolutionary and dynamic phenomenon that occurs when two or more cultures collide. Through such interactions and performances an essence of the source may remain, however, by way of convergence, new hybrids and different constitutions are manifested within cultures and language. ‘Creolisation’ is culture in transition and is a powerful mechanism that embodies postcolonial ways of thinking (1). The writing of famed Martinique philosopher, Edouard Glissant, offers a valuable framework to better grapple with discussions of ‘creole’ and ‘creolisation’. Glissant’s theories may offer an extra layer of understanding when considering The Ghetto Biennale in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, which is a powerful and vivid imagination of a creole creative practice in action. The international biennale is both a product of creolisation as well as a kinetic space where creole relations continue to evolve. The works of collaborative artist duo Lafleur & Bogaert can also be considered as representations of creolisation. The artists, Michel Lafleur who is Haitian and Tom Bogaert who is Belgian, originally met at the 2nd Ghetto Biennale in 2011 and create works that explore contemporary identities and narratives of Haiti through various multi-disciplinary approaches. Their practice is indicative of both The Ghetto Biennale as a site for creolisation as well as the collaborative and fluid nature of the word creole. 

The origins of the word creole are complex, obscure and embrace a multitude of meanings and applications within many communities. Geographically, creole is commonly used in reference to communities within the American colonies, especially Central America and the Antilles. The earliest use of creole was circa 16th century, where the word was coined in Francophone to speak of a person born and naturalised in a country different to their indigenous origins. Since then, and perhaps by the very nature of the word, creole has adopted different uses, yet ofttimes expresses transnationality, namely Atlantic-crossings and colonisation within the Americas and Antilles. Pioneering creole theorists Jean Bernabé, Patrick Chamoiseau, and Raphaël Confiant explain the cultural and historical conditions of creole identity; 

“Our cultural character bears both the marks of this world and the elements of its negation. We conceived our cultural character as a function of acceptance and denial, therefore permanently questioning, always familiar with the most complex ambiguities, outside all forms of reduction, all forms of purity… our history is a braid of histories”

Jean Bernabé, Patrick Chamoiseau, Raphaël Confiant, and Mohamed B. Taleb Khyar, In Praise of Creoleness. Callaloo 13, no. 4, 1990: Pp. 886-909

When used in reference to language, creolisation is a process of mediation, where the dialect of both the colonisers and colonised is disassembled then restructured by the subjugated to allow for mutual communication. The emergence of creole hybrid languages is both aesthetically and socio-politically contemporaneous with the development of hybrid culture materiality. Creolisation is a systematic manifestation of resistance and activates criticality and post-colonialism, diminishing the dominant culture’s power relations and in doing so, reforming a sense of national identity after colonisation. An occurrence of creolisation is dialogic and protean by nature. The relationship between the participating parties is never static and adaptation is constant via every interaction with one another. The dialogue between the transient entity and outside influences never stops and each new encounter is met with an improvised reaction and further reformation. This constant state of flux values “ambiguous spaces where cultural boundaries blur and disappear as hierarchical categories collapse into each other” (2)  and consequently, there is a move away from the idea of centre and periphery that exists within colonial narratives. At these intersections culture can be reimagined and reorganised into a creole state. There are traces of obfuscation within creolisation that resist absolutism in favour of fluidity. 

Edouard Glissant was a French-Martinique writer and philosopher, who’s extensive academia often considered the concept of creolisation from a philosophical standpoint. Glissant traversed the ways in which creolisation was instilled with ideas of transnational spirit, intersection, improvisation and creativity.

Glissant’s theories were rooted in the history and landscape of the Antilles; more specifically within the narratives of the enslaved peoples that were violently displaced from West Africa to forcibly work on plantations within the Antilles from the 16th century by European colonists. Glissant also manifested early ideas of postcolonialism, proposing ways of thinking about national identity which were disparate from the dominating colonial agendas of the time. Hans Ulrich Obrist commemorated Glissant in his short publication for Documenta 13 noting how the late philosopher “called attention to means of global exchange that do not homogenise culture but produce a difference from which new things can emerge ”(3). In a 1998 interview with French magazine ‘Regards’, Glissant was asked to define the fundamental notion of his philosophy. The interviewer, Odette Casamayor, asked Glissant to stipulate what creolisation meant to him. Glissant responded; 

“I call creolisation, contacts of cultures in a given place in the world and which do not produce a simple interbreeding, but an unforeseeable result. It is very much linked with the notion of what I call the chaos-world. A chaos-world, characterised not by disorder but by the unpredictable... Creolisation, which is an unstoppable process, has no morals”

Original text translated from French. Odette Casamayor, Interview With Edouard Glissant, Web.Archive.Org

Glissant also appropriated the framework of a rhizome to represent how creolisation operates (4). Glissant borrowed and adapted the rhizome analogy from Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, who originally coined the term to illustrate horizontal, therefore, non-hierarchical data network representations and interpretations. "Rhizomatic thought...” is the “...principle behind what [Glissant] call[’s] the Poetics of Relation, in which each and every identity is extended through a relationship with the Other” (5). For Glissant, culture in the Antilles constituted roots from diverse African ethnic groups, European colonial groups as well as Indigenous American indigenous groups. Within The Antilles were a multitude of different historical landscapes, resulting in a multitude of rhizomatic formations and creole occurrences. Glissant was insistent on the plural nature of creolisation and his theorising of the different forms of creole culture often led him to other islands within the Antilles to observe the evolution of diverse créolité. 

Glissant had a fond relationship with Haiti, evidenced in many of his writings, such as Le Discours Antillais (1981) and Memoires des Esclavages (2007). For Glissant, Haiti symbolised a powerful postcolonial spirit, as enslaved peoples there were successful in revolt against the colonial rule and became the first country to be emancipated and become independent from the French during the 19th century (6). In 2017 Glissant’s playwrite Monsieur Toussaint (1961) was translated into Creole and presented at the 5th Ghetto Biennale by artists Louis Henderson and Olivier Marboeuf; a performance that played into the biennale’s overarching theme that year of the Haitian revolution (7). The ongoing relationship between Glissant and Haiti will be perpetuated throughout this essay with the use of Glissantian methodology to analyse The Ghetto Biennale and participating artists as a case study for the artistic representation of creolisation. 

The Ghetto Biennale is an artist-run international exhibition situated in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and is perhaps one of the most potent creative spaces of creolisation in the Antilles presently; this is due to its diverse group of participants and attendants as well as the community based curatorial techniques employed. The Ghetto Biennale was founded in 2009 through the collaboration of Haitian artist collective Atis Rezistans and British curator Leah Gordon. The dynamic community platform was founded in part due to Haiti’s constant exclusion from international art arenas and aims to reject typical standardised formats of exhibition making, preferencing inclusive artistic projects that are developed throughout the duration of the biennale and involve community engagement. The Ghetto Biennale destabilises the traditional biennale strictures through their “chaotic, amorphous and de-institutionalised space[s]” (8) and their efforts to foster dialogue with artists from diverse socio-economic conditions. Through the intermixing of Haitian and international artists, The Ghetto Biennale has become a meeting ground for discourse and artistic practices that challenge representations of Haiti in the international arena. Using the globalised exhibition format of a biennale, The Ghetto Biennale is able to interrogate existing homogenised frameworks in order to transform and “reclaim the mechanisms of exhibition practice on their own terms” (9). The large community forum demonstrates the ability for artists in Haiti to create spaces out of the conditions available to them and invites participants and onlookers to engage with issues surrounding cultural access, class, race and identity politics when it comes to international art platforms. From the outset, The Ghetto Biennale has performed as an exemplar of creolisation in action, through its transnational founders and participants, emphasis put on collaborative artworks and resistance to homogenisation through localisation of exhibition and display methods (10). 

The Ghetto Biennale can be seen through the lens of Glissant in its adaptation of the ‘rhizomatic’ approach regarding curating. The rhizome root system is complex, interconnected and sees itself in complete opposition to a linear system. Diversity and multiplicities of identity politics are evident in Glissant’s use of rhizomatic theories, where creole groups can exist in a constant flux of adaptation of both their future and past states of being. Similarly, Leah Gordon, Andre Eugene and David Frohnapfel adapted the rhizomatic approach in a curatorial vein when organising the 2nd Ghetto Biennale in 2011. For the curators rhizomatic exhibition making looked like a direct and indirect presentation of contemporary art, where oscillation occurred between artistic genres (11). Within the neighbourhoods of Lakou Cheri and Ghetto Leanne in Port-au-Prince, venues for the art and performances are diverse and often site-specific. The 2nd Ghetto Biennale included a site where Andre Eugene installed his exhibition space Badgi Pom Louko (Altar for Louko) (2011) (12). The installation included a hand painted camping tent set up as a multifunctional space for the duration of the biennial. The same year also saw Fungus Arts Collective create an installation titled Bermuda (2011) (13): a simple intervention on a building dilapidated from an earthquake, with minimal materials that profoundly altered the perception and experience of the building and surrounding space. Through the complex rhizome structure, The Ghetto Biennale is able to blur the lines between what may be considered ethnographic artefact, tourist-art and contemporary art object. Concurrently, a dismantling of foreknown Western biennale power structures occurs, and hierarchical systems are subverted in favour of non-bias spaces for intermixing to take place. 

Instances of creolisation in action at varying degrees and speeds are also visually represented within the artistic collaborations that are made possible within or as a result of The Ghetto Biennale. The collaborative art duo Lafleur & Bogaert have been working together since they met in 2011 at the 2nd Ghetto Biennale. Michel Lafleur is from Haiti and Tom Bogaert, Belgium, and the pair have since participated in the biennale multiple times. The most recent work for the 6th Ghetto Biennale by the duo, RPM (2019), is an Afrofuturistic (14) vision of Haitian resistance. RPM, meaning revolutions per minute, is a sculpture playing on the form of a tachometer measuring device commonly found in a car (15). Lafleur & Bogaert’s RPM however, was a tachometer crafted to measure the number of revolutions that have occurred in Haiti since the Slaves Revolt of 1791 to 1804. RPM is colourfully hand painted with symbols that narrate the stories of each revolution and visually amalgamates the intersectional histories of Haiti’s people. The sculpture manifests hope for the current people’s uprising movement in Haiti, through the visual representation of resilience and strength within the cryptic symbols of the tachometer. 

Another imagination of creolisation by Lafleur & Bogaert is a sculptural work titled Famasi Mobil Kongolè (2018) that is a playful interpretation of life in the Port-au-Prince slums (16). Famasi Mobil Kongolè are sculptural mobile pharmacies imbued with a sense of creole inventiveness and spontaneity. In Haiti, mobile pharmacies are a vital source of pharmaceuticals for locals. It is common there to see street vendors selling an array of medicines via makeshift display methods, often spires crafted out of cardboard with pills lining the outer circumferential surface. 

Lafleur & Bogaert’s Famasi Mobil Kongolè is an elevated and embellished mobile pharmacy which celebrates the unique and playful aesthetics of the substitute drugstores through their use of bright and colourful surface adornments. The sculptures are completely covered with rows of multi-coloured pills and LED lights that flash, and have a battery-operated motor that theatrically rotates, creating a sense of fun and enchantment within the mystical array of nondescript pills and lights. Glissant describes creative practices of Haiti in the chapter, Haitian Painting in his 1981 book Le Discours Antillais as being marvellous and an indicator of cross-cultural poetics “...a community endeavour, an entire people’s discourse” (17). Akin to Glissant’s ideas regarding Haitian expression, RPM and Famasi Mobil Kongolè are marvellous expressive representations of creole culture through the inherent pluralities that exist within the narratives and histories which they explore. 

Creolisation is an active term that captures the fluid and expressive effects of cultures encountering one another. Creolisation inherently embodies infinite multiplicities within a state of constant flux. Edouard Glissant’s theories coloured créolité as unpredictable, exciting, powerful, forces with agency and rich cultural histories.

Creolisation is resistance against standardisation and the homogenising influences of globalisation. The Ghetto Biennale embodies the same rhetoric, through its decentralisation of global power structures that dominate the international art scene. The Ghetto Biennale democratises the idea of an exhibition space and transforms it into a community forum where international and Haitian artists can come together and creolise their practices, create discourse and challenge what art making can mean and look like. Creolisation is a revolutionary force that challenges cultural dominance and transforms chaos into harmony. The works of Lafleur & Bogaert are creole to the core, both through the unification of two artists from different cultures, but also through the narratives they choose to engage with in their artworks, as well as the methods and materials they use for realising these ideas. Creolisation is a diverse, fluid and protean phenomenon, with endless possibilities and definitions. The essence of creole culture is thus hybridity and resistance to dominant centre-periphery politics. Diverse visual representations of creolisation therefore become historical objects of legacy within an epic postcolonial occurrence.