Between Rivers and Revolutions
The river remembers—carrying the echoes of those who fought for liberation. Vanessa Charlot’s lens moves between the waters of the Mississippi Delta, the tides of Haiti, and the currents off Florida’s coast. She traces the spiritual, cultural, and revolutionary ties that bind these landscapes—a journey shaped by her own lived experience as a Miami-born Haitian American, now rooted in Mississippi.
With a visual aesthetic both documentary and poetic, Charlot juxtaposes the Mississippi Delta—shaped by the labor of the enslaved—with Haiti, the first free Black republic, forged in revolution. Between them, Florida’s waters serve as both passage and threshold—for migrants, refugees, and dreamers.
Spiritual traditions of Vodou, Candomblé, and Catholicism form an unbroken current of reverence, resistance, and survival. A devotee offers prayers to
Oshun; a Candomblé priestess kneels before Yemaya’s waves; a woman bows in Good Friday prayer, her faith intertwined with generations before her.
Charlot’s images also capture the sacred pause between past and future, stillness and movement. In Morgan City, Mississippi, an elderly man gazes over land that once enslaved his ancestors but now belongs to his family. In Cap-Haïtien, Haiti, a man watches resistance unfold, his steady eyes reflecting a nation gripped in protest and mourning.
Each frame collapses distance, showing how these spaces—and the waters that connect them—speak to one another. In Between Rivers and Revolutions, Charlot reminds us that these places are bound not only by struggle, but by the enduring spirit of those who move through to reclaim them.
Engine for Art, Democracy & Justice Vanderbilt University Nashville, Tennessee March 28, 2025–June 12, 2025
The exhibition is part of Somewhere We Are Human, the 2024-2025 Public Programs and Engagement Series of the Engine for Art, Democracy & Justice (EADJ) at Vanderbilt University, curated by Grace Aneiza Ali. It is organized around the thematic north star—Somewhere We Are Human—a collective vision for a time and space where no one’s humanity is ever in question. The year-long series looks at the city of Nashville and the American South through a lens of migration, exploring the ways immigrant communities have shaped the region’s history and are envisioning its future through art and activism.
