Abstract
This article explores the tension between the senses and the immaterial in Barbadian artist’s Joscelyn Gardner’s multimedia installation White Skin, Black Kin: A Creole Conversation Piece (2003), and Omi Ebora (2014) and in the poem Zong! by Trinidadian poet M. NourbeSe Philip (2014). By the immaterial I refer to the traces in contemporary art of the slavery trade and plantation culture. I analyze three aspects: how sensorial art functions, what is the spectral in sensorial art, and what does the specter (based on Derrida’s hauntology) do for the Caribbean in the present. I suggest that the spectral in Caribbean art functions as an injunction to deal with our inherited identities, which I defined elsewhere as membership beyond consent, in such a way that we can still live with moral freedom, defined perhaps as our right and our obligation to act differently. This is what the ghostly does for both Derrida and Gardner: in the intersection between past and present narratives, there is a responsibility; the ghostly is about the obligation to choose from one's inheritance.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
