• A Failure's Guide to Success

• The Deepest Question Answered

• Love Letter to Leo

• Into the Grayness

• Cock-a-doodle-doo

• Dear All Men

• Passing Thoughts

• MA Dissertation: Are Museums Obsolete? Decolonizing the “Museum Industrial Complex” in Ghana

Abstract: This thesis centers the work of Nana Oforiatta Ayim, her organization ANO Ghana, and the President’s Committee she formed to decolonize the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board (GMMB) that currently presides over all cultural sites in Ghana. This thesis explores the development of national museums in the nineteenth century as a purposefully colonial project that laundered imperial loot, civilized citizenry, and justified perpetuating colonialism, to address the colonial underpinnings of the GMMB. These formed the foundation of Ghana’s National Museum in 1957 as the country decolonized itself and became a nation state. This thesis examines ANO Ghana’s Mobile Museum as a decolonial project that confronts the colonial nature of museums. Furthermore, this essay reveals how the colonial museum was developed alongside modern prison systems as a tool to reform citizens of the nation state through persuasion and coercion. This thesis then utilizes current language within the discourse of prison activist circles and extends the binary of reform/abolish methods present in that sphere to the work of decolonizing the “Museum Industrial Complex,” with a focus on the findings of the President’s Committee as published in the Ghana Report. Ultimately this thesis locates the Ghana Report in the broader conversation of reformist and abolitionist perspectives on decolonizing the museum.

• From Textual to Visual: Aponte’s New World, (re)Imagined

This essay considers how the contemporary artists of Visionary Aponte have become the modern desciples of Jose Aponte, a Cuban antislavery revolutionary, ready to continue his decolonizing endeavors of radically rewriting colonial texts into revolutionary imagery.

• Phantasmagoria and the Haitian Zonbi: Transforming Trauma and Representing Ritual in the Age of Revolution and Beyond

Comparing written accounts of phantasmagoria in France with testimony of the Haitian Revolution-eve ritual that took place in Bois Caïman, this essay situates Vodou ceremonies in the phantasmagoria tradition.

• Edouard Duval-Carrié and Tidalectic Decolonization: Imaging Haiti’s History Through Vodou and Metaphor

Haitian-born artist Edouard Duval-Carrié tidalectically explores Haiti’s revolutionary moments, in both the uprising and repetitive sense. I focus specifically on works in which Duval-Carrié illustrates the decolonial moments that shaped Haiti.

• From Exile to the Cosmos: Unraveling Colonial Ties to Khipu

Comparing colonial and current interactions with khipu, an Inca device for storing memory, I highlight and critique the neo-colonial problems inherent in modern research of the subject, and subsequently center the art of Cecilia Vicuña, who produces an alternative and decolonial approach to khipu.

• On the Intersectionality of Blackness and Womanhood: Evidence of Misogynoir in Portrait d'une Négresse

In this essay, I argue that multiple forms of misogynoir are visually evident in Portrait d'une Négresse and are also prominent in both past and present responses to the painting.

• Decolonizing the Museum: The Unsettling Paths Ahead

This paper was written for my MA Core Course and explores the debate surrounding whether it is possible to decolonize the art museum.

• Time Traveling at the Louvre with Beyoncé Knowles and Jacques-Louis David: Connecting the Past and Present Through Art and Politics

This research paper explores the artistic elements of Beyonce's APESHIT music video, particularly in how and why she showcases the art of French Revolution artist, Jacques-Louis David.

• The Intrigue and Significance of Dark Tourism Around the World - Focus on Cambodia, Poland, Israel, and the United States

This research paper explores the concept of Dark Tourism and its business and ethical implications around the world. I presented this paper at conferences at Harvard and Cambridge University

• The Decline of Art Education and What That Means for America

• #art

• Is Imitation the Sincerest Form of Flattery.... or is it Just Plain Stealing?

• Graffiti: Art or Crime?