Exhibition Overview and Scope
Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African & African American Research has announced "An Introduction to Van Lévé: Sovereign Visions from the Creole and Maroon Caribbean and Amazonia: Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyane and Haiti: 2001-Now." The exhibition is currently on view at the Alain Locke Gallery of African & African American Art in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The show runs from September 28, 2026, to June 5, 2027. It was curated by Claire Tancons, a curator, scholar, and founding director of EXTEMPORA. The exhibition was organized at the invitation of Cécile Fromont, Professor of History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University and Faculty Director of the Alain Locke Gallery.
According to the Hutchins Center, Van Lévé brings together a transhistorical and transgenerational perspective on artistic production from Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyane, and Haiti. The timeline spans from France’s landmark recognition of slavery as a crime against humanity in 2001 to the present day.
Curatorial Vision and Thematic Focus
Tancons conceives the exhibition as an introduction to a wider curatorial and editorial project supported by the Ford Foundation. The show asks how contemporary Caribbean—and Amazonian-French artists manage the strictures of French national identity while bringing agency to intellectual, historical, and artistic legacies.
It further examines what these visions tell us about political sovereignty and artistic autonomy amid upended Caribbean geopolitics. Tancons poses the question of whether the sovereign visions projected by the artists can delineate the contours of Caribbean futurity amidst tensions between trade winds and hurricanes, postcard beauty, natural catastrophe, and political agony.
Artist Roster and Historical Context
The exhibition features work by contemporary artists Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc, Franky Amété, Raphaël Barontini, Minia Biabiany, Jean-Marc Bullet, Ernest Breleur, Gaëlle Choisne, Ronald Cyrille, Kenny Dunkan, Arthur Francietta, Gwladys Gambie, David Gumbs, Clémence Lollia Hilaire, Fabiola Jean-Louis, Louisa Marajo, Tessa Mars, Manuel Mathieu, Jimmy Robert, Cédric Scheidig, and Hervé Télémaque.
To provide historical depth, the exhibition includes rarely seen historical Caribbean- and Amazonian-French objects borrowed from Harvard Art Museums, the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, and Hamilton College.
Installation Design and Sonic Elements
The exhibition design is by Gia Wolff Studio. It marks the premiere of a sonic meditation on Caribbean futurity by Michael Roch and Jordan Beal, adding an auditory layer to the visual survey of sovereign visions.
Academic Programming and Support
On September 29, at the Hutchins Center, Professor Fromont will moderate a panel featuring Tancons in conversation with Professor Tao Leigh Goffe of Hunter College of the City University of New York and Professor Oliver Wunsch of Boston College.
Tancons has curated contemporary art biennials and festivals including Prospect.1 New Orleans, Gwangju Biennale 08, Sharjah Biennial 14, and Nuit Blanche (2024). Her focus on civic rituals, public ceremonial culture, and carnival was recently anthologized in the Routledge Companion to Performance Art (2026).
The exhibition is supported by the Alain Locke Gallery; EXTEMPORA; Villa Albertine; the Trampoline Association; Direction des Affaires Culturelles, Région Martinique; and Direction des Affaires Culturelles, Région Guadeloupe.