Atlantic Arthouse: The Open Boat

Overview

This first iteration of ATLANTIC ARTHOUSE will expand on a perspective of the Middle Passage by Martinican philosopher and poet Édouard Glissant, articulated in a text called “The Open Boat”, published in his essay Poetics of Relation in 1997.

This narrative of a slave boat navigating through sufferings towards the unknown, losing humanity and cultures with balls and chains into the abyss of the ocean, leads to an experience of oneness and of exchange that will serve as an invitation for partners and artists from the Caribbean Mid-Atlantic to embark with ATLANTIC ARTHOUSE on a new “Open Boat”.

In fact, the transatlantic journey on the ocean, through the door of no return, ends not in an abyss of totality; rather, this open sea beckons our freedom in our contemporary moment, calling on us to be courageous, to express, to create. Because we can. Because we must. Glissant demands this courage. His understanding of the human condition is timeless.