The Upkeepers, by Afro-Dominican artist Joiri Minaya, is an ironic engagement with histories of Black labor and visual imaginations of the Caribbean as touristic paradise. This collage showcases a silhouette of a smiling woman adorned with a gold chain, earring, and a cut up bikini top. The ocean looms in the background of the portrait and is adorned with bright red and pink hibiscus flowers, a cocktail, and other tropes of tropicality. The woman’s silhouette and face are fleshed out with an afterimage of slavery: an 1891 photograph titled Santa Cruz — It is sugar everywhere: the grown people are cutting in the fields by Susan De Forrest Day.

The photograph shows Black cane cutters and workers in the field posing for the camera. Some stand with arms folded while others chew the cane. The gold chain of the protagonist of Minaya’s collage seems to wrap around one of the worker’s wrists. In displaying Day’s image, the protagonist of Minaya’s collage reembodies the afterimage of slavery referencing the relationship between Black labor, captivity, and land in the Caribbean. Day’s photograph itself already is an afterlife of slavery, a visual reactivation of images such as William Clark’s Cutting the Sugar Cane (Antigua) of 1823.

Here enslaved Black people harvest crop, cut cane, and load horse carriages, while a well-dressed white man sits casually on his horse beneath a palm tree talking to a Black figure who, judging from his attire and the rod in his right hand, may be an overseer. The violence of African enslavement is almost naturalized in this picturesque Caribbean landscape.

But Minaya’s collage both invokes and refuses the visual genealogies that link Black labor to land and to paradise. The image of the smiling woman of the collage is disrupted by the dual signification of her gold chain, deployed as a subtle reference to Black captivity. Moreover, the surrogation of the woman’s face with the image of Black laborers invokes histories of Black exploitation. Here she wields Day’s photograph to invert the dynamics of the gaze, the Black laborers looking back at the camera almost defiantly, consuming the product of their own labor. In its fragmentation the collage forces the viewer to reckon with a Black gaze and to face the violent processes through which the Caribbean comes to be imagined as paradise.

The title Upkeepers refers to those who see to the maintenance of the land, production of sugar, economies of enslavement, system of racial capitalism, and tourist industries built on the centuries-long instrumentalization of Black people. It invokes a sense of continuity of the presence of the Black body in material and visual economies that keep imaginations of the Caribbean as paradise intact. It refers to the work of the visual in naturalizing and rendering invisible the violence of this past. ■

“The Upkeepers,” by Afro-Dominican artist Joiri Minaya, is an ironic engagement with histories of black labor and visual imaginations of the Caribbean as touristic paradise. This collage showcases a silhouette of a smiling woman adorned with a gold chain, earring, and a cut up bikini top. The ocean looms in the background of the portrait and is adorned with bright red and pink hibiscus flowers, a cocktail, and other tropes of tropicality. The woman’s silhouette and face are fleshed out with an afterimage of slavery: an 1891 photograph titled “Santa Cruz—It is sugar everywhere: the grown people are cutting in the fields” by Susan De Forrest Day.

The photograph shows black cane cutters and workers in the field posing for the camera. Some stand with arms folded while others chew the cane. The gold chain of the protagonist of Minaya’s collage seems to wrap around one of the worker’s wrists. In using Day’s image, the protagonist of Minaya’s collage reembodies the afterimage of slavery referencing the relationship between black labor, captivity, and land in the Caribbean.

Day’s photograph itself already is an afterlife of slavery, a visual reactivation of images such as William Clark’s “Cutting the Sugar Cane (Antigua) of 1823.” Here enslaved black people harvest crop, cut cane, load horse carriages, while a well-dressed white man sits casually on his horse beneath a palm tree talking to a black figure that, judging from his attire and the rod in his right hand, may be an overseer. The violence of African enslavement is almost naturalized in this picturesque Caribbean landscape.

But Minaya’s collage both invokes and refuses the visual genealogies that link black labor to land and to paradise. The image of the smiling native of the collage is disrupted by the dual signification of her gold chain, deployed as a subtle reference to black captivity and the surrogation of the woman’s face with the image of black laborers invokes histories of black exploitation.

Here she wields Day’s photograph to invert the dynamics of the gaze, the black laborers looking back at the camera almost defiantly, consuming the product of their own labor. In its fragmentation the collage forces the viewer to reckon with a black gaze and to face the violent processes through which the Caribbean comes to be imagined as paradise.

The title “Upkeepers” refers to those who see to the maintenance of the land, production of sugar, economies of enslavement, system of racial capitalism, and tourist industries built on the centuries-long instrumentalization of the black people. It invokes a sense of continuity of the presence of the black body in material and visual economies that keep imaginations of the Caribbean as paradise intact. It refers to the work of the visual in naturalizing and rendering invisible the violence of this past. ■