A powerful photography exhibition titled "Not So Bad, Is She, Our Little Creole?" by artist Adeline Rapon is currently challenging visitors at the Atrium gallery to confront the colonial heritage embedded in historical representations of Caribbean women. The exhibition features vintage postcards and self-portraits created during the first COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, offering a critical examination of how Caribbean women have been depicted and objectified throughout history.
The centerpiece of the exhibition includes a striking 19th-century photograph of a Black woman wearing a dress slightly open at the chest, her gaze appearing distant and vacant. This well-known historical image has been modified over time - the original version labeled the subject as "type de négresse" (type of Black woman), while a later modified version changed the description to "type de mulâtresse" (type of mixed-race woman), demonstrating the racialized categorization system used during the colonial period.
Adeline Rapon, a 35-year-old mixed-race photographer who describes herself as Franco-Martinican, has been living in Martinique since 2023 and embraces both of her cultural heritages despite their radically different backgrounds. In her exhibition, she presents approximately twenty vintage postcards alongside her own self-portraits, where she carefully recreates the poses, clothing choices, and compositions of the historical images she has meticulously collected for this project.
The artist's technique is deliberately refined, focusing on contrasts, colors, costume selection, and particularly the poses themselves. Rapon positions herself exactly as the women appear in the vintage black-and-white postcards she purchased specifically for this artistic endeavor. These historical postcards predominantly feature women and serve as the foundation for her contemporary reinterpretation.
Rapon explained her artistic motivation: "During the 2020 lockdown, I needed to understand where I came from, to reflect on my identity, particularly my Martinican side, because the transmission of that heritage had been quite limited, unlike my other 'side' from Corrèze. I'm passionate about history and archival research, especially in archaeology. The problem is that when you search for Caribbean or Martinican archives, you mainly find postcards. And that's exactly what becomes part of this exhibition - the postcard subject becomes a subject in itself, but there's also the archive subject and why it has such impact."
The historical context reveals that postcards became extremely popular communication tools in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, coinciding with the period when racial classification systems became widely known and accepted. These images predominantly featured Black women, mostly from Martinique, and systematically essentialized these women through their positions, clothing, and racial denominations including "négresse," "câpresse," "mulâtresse," and "chabine."
These photographs created what Rapon describes as a "doudouist" image - a stereotypical, exoticized portrayal of Caribbean women. "Through the proliferation of these images and this way of discovering what a Black woman is, we get this image extremely anchored in imaginations both here and in mainland France - essentializing and purely doudouist images," Rapon explained.
The artist emphasized the importance of acquiring these historical materials: "What was important for me was to go find them, buy them, so I could continue working with them and present them, because they were produced by explorers, colonists, dominant people. Today, they belong to private collections that make them inaccessible. So buying these cards, being able to exhibit and show them, seeing the originals and the words written on them, gives us a real perspective on these images."
Rapon stressed that "this image from the past is a constructed gaze that is also violent." Throughout the exhibition, she also highlights iconic figures including singers, opera performers, writers, and artists who are dear to her, providing a counternarrative to the colonial stereotypes.
A unique section of the exhibition features a deliberately kitsch souvenir shop called "Kimafoutiesa," with Rapon noting the ironic nature of the name. This installation examines contemporary tourist souvenirs and their connection to historical colonial imagery. "What do we always produce as souvenirs? What do we send? What do we bring back in our suitcase? It's these kinds of objects. It's a continuation of what was already being done in the 19th century," she observed.
Rapon argues that modern souvenir production maintains the same problematic approach as historical postcards: "These images, these objects have exactly the same purpose as all the postcards, all the completely exoticizing, racist and essentializing images we've seen in this exhibition, except for the images of the icons. For me, it was important to have this space. It's important to look at everything in detail. All these objects are still sold in souvenir shops and spaces."
The artist describes contemporary production as "staggering and frightening," noting that "these postcards remind us of what was done in the 19th century, and we go so far with these ideas that we remake the same postcards. Clearly, nothing has changed. It's still the same." She questions current practices: "What are we doing today? Little cups with breasts, tablecloths with madras patterns? Seeing little girls and boys on postcards in traditional dress? Seeing women in traditional outfits on placemats we eat from? What are we doing? Who are we and where are we going? Isn't it time to change dynamics?"
The exhibition "Not So Bad, Is She, Our Little Creole?" remains on display at the Atrium through December 13, continuing to provoke important conversations about colonial legacy, representation, and the ongoing impact of historical stereotypes on contemporary Caribbean identity.
