Residence Time / The Sea Is History

Residence Time / The Sea Is History | Mixed-media installation | 2025

Residence Time / The Sea Is History | BTS | 2025

Residence Time / The Sea Is History | Detail Shots of Altars | 2025

Residence Time / The Sea Is History

During the transatlantic slave trade, Africans trafficked by European enslavers were taken from their continent by way of notorious coastal forts in West Africa, including Elmina Castle in Ghana. Collectively, the doors that led to the ships came to be known as the Door of No Return. Yelaine Rodriguez and Luis Vasquez La Roche reimagine this portal as an architectural ruin made of materials harvested by enslaved Africans in the Americas, including sugar, cotton, and coffee. The sculpture serves as a memorial, encouraging viewers to reflect on the countless Black narratives buried within colonial archives. Its surfaces bear distressed patterns that spell out names, each one a poignant ghost resurrected from slave registries in the Caribbean and the United States. These names, refusing to stay buried, testify to our unsettled past. For the artists, the installation makes an offering to Yemayá, the orisha of sea waters in Yoruba and religions of the African diaspora. By employing this historical site as a departure point for their installation, Rodriguez and Vasquez La Roche open a space for reevaluating history and the interconnectedness of Afro-diasporic communities.

Yelaine Rodriguez b. 1990, The Bronx, New York
Luis Vasquez La Roche b. 1983, Caracas, Venezuela
Mixed-media installation (sugar, coffee, tobacco on drywall, sand, candles, seashells, cowries, quotidian custom-made sculptures)
Commissioned by The Shed