Hailing from the French West Indies in the Caribbean—specifically the island of Guadeloupe—and currently based in Montréal, multi-disciplinary artist Eddy Firmin is deeply interested in the history and politics of colonization and identity. His home region’s inextricable ties to the dark legacy of slavery informs a practice that interrogates how knowledge is shared and passed down through generations.
Throughout more than three centuries, upwards of 20 million or more people were transported to the Western Hemisphere to be sold as slaves in what is now viewed as one of the most atrocious crimes against humanity ever perpetrated. Millions died due to exhaustion, disease, and brutal transport and living conditions.
Chattel slavery was particularly extreme in the Caribbean, where roughly 40 percent of those taken from Africa were put to work on sugar cane plantations owned by European capitalists. Myriad African traditions crossed the Atlantic with members of their displaced communities, taking on new forms and evolving into tools for resistance.
One of these traditions is known as Gwoka, an Afro-Caribbean custom that involves music, dance, and storytelling. It continues today in contemporary form, taking place during festivals and other events, furthering a legacy of resilience that enslaved people drew on for mutual support and perseverance.
In Gwoka and similar artistic endeavors, technical ability and aesthetics “aim to seduce and mesmerize, while the hidden message fosters resistance to dominant discourse in the arts as in the social space,” Firmin says in a statement. Music and the way it’s broadcasted continues thematically in a large-scale collaborative work made with Afro-Caribbean and Franco-Canadian artist Géraldine Entiope titled “Pa ka tann ?!” A vibrant, elaborately patterned DJ booth with monumental speakers is set on top of a small car, from which Caribbean music can be played and celebrated.
The artist often works with ceramics, recontextualizing symbolic motifs and patterns and testing our associations with materials and their applications. Punching bags and tools are made of porcelain, while sculptures drawing on the African masking traditions are paired with glossy corporate branding.
Busts of Black men, often depicting Firmin himself, mirror the types of marble and alabaster sculptures that historically honored affluent or influential European figures. In the artist’s reimagining, we are confronted by uneasy, contemporary relationships. The self-portrait titled “Sans Signe” (“Without Sign”), for instance, portrays a man with a metal collar around his neck and the seemingly incongruent monogram pattern of Louis Vuitton emblazoned across his face. Eyes closed, he may even be blinded.
The public occasionally scrutinizes fashion brands’ ethics, such as the enormous backlash Nike faced in the 1990s due to its reliance on overseas sweatshops. But most people never see or even think about how the products they purchase are made. Just because it’s not immediately apparent doesn’t mean that the corporate messaging and reliance on material possessions isn’t altering the very fabric of global society. Firmin prompts us to consider how much agency anyone has in a capitalist system where enormous wealth increasingly concentrates for a slim few while most people struggle to get by.
The artist also interprets consumerism as yet another colonizing force: when corporate interests and the demand for manufactured goods increasingly influence daily life, what happens to local and Indigenous customs, value systems, creativity, and autonomy? Here, shackles serve as a stark reminder of both a grim past and a present peril.
If you’re in Toronto, a few of Firmin’s works will go on view starting October 9 in the exhibition After the Island: Caribbean Canadian Ceramics at the Gardiner Museum. See more and follow updates on the artist’s Instagram.
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