Sodo, traicing my steps back through braiding

Agatha Prieto Jeanty’s self-decolonizing research into her Haitian heritage led her to an appreciation of vodou as a practice that honours the relationship between humans and nature as divine. Drawing inspiration from the belief that maroons escaped slavery in Haiti by weaving themselves into the landscape, Jeanty presents a multimedia installation that uses braiding and sound to intertwine herself to Agwe Ta Royo — a vodou ancestor that animates the renowned Saut D’Eau waterfall in Haiti. The seemingly ordinary act of braiding is shown to be a form of self-care and community bonding that empowers Jeanty to reconnect with the divinity of ancestral knowledge and refuse colonial stigmatization.