1The subject of colonial history and heritage has received increased attention across Europe in recent years. In Denmark, the 2017 centenary of the transfer of the so-called “Danish West Indies” to the United States, now known as the “US Virgin Islands”, sparked renewed interest in its colonial history (Andersen 2020) and laid bare important “blind spots” (Meyer, Giersing & Danbolt 2017) by revealing Denmark’s “veiled role” (Stawski 2018) in the transatlantic slave trade. Indeed, the centennial commemoration “constituted a key moment for commemorative activities across Denmark” (Clopot, Andersen & Oldfield 2022). Beyond exhibitions and talks, it also clearly led to a boom in publications, mostly between 2017-2020, reflecting much-needed critical attention on Danish colonialism and slaveholding. This critical attention took many forms. It ranged from the uncovering of important aspects of exoticism (2019) and the role of “racial slavery” (Simonsen 2023) and “colonial aphasia” (Bojsen, Ladefoged Birk & Greve Lysgaard 2020), to legal and gendered narratives of slavery (Simonsen 2017), “colonial toponomastics” (Jakobsen & Lidsmoes 2020), and the precarious worlds of Danish colonialism in world literature (Baggesgaard 2016). It also covered the afterlives of the colony and slavery. For example, it examined narratives of slavery in post-slavery contexts (Baggesgaard & Pelckmans 2021) and “postcolonial dilemma tales” (Brichet 2019).
2Jeannette Ehlers, an internationally acclaimed Danish-Trinidadian visual artist based in Denmark, started working on these issues long before this new wave of centennial attention. Importantly, she did not stop when the spotlight faded but continues to this day to draw attention to power structures in Denmark’s past, present, and beyond. Ehlers’s work recounts colonial and postcolonial narratives of race, resistance, and diaspora, infusing Denmark’s history with her Trinidadian and Tobagonian heritage. Her art addresses different aspects of the collective memory of slavery and colonialism in the Caribbean, including its visibility, disappearance, fragmentation, and reconstitution.
- 1 To fit into this format, the editors have translated, shortened and edited the interview, with Jean (...)
3The editors of this text, Zabunyan and Pelckmans, have been following Ehlers’s work for the past decade from rather different positions and contexts. Zabunyan is an art historian based in Paris who works on slavery and decolonising artworks, while Pelckmans is a Belgian anthropologist who has been living in Denmark since 2016 and works on contemporary legacies of slavery. Drawing on these backgrounds, we interviewed Jeannette Ehlers about what we deem to be highly innovative ways of engaging with the past in the present, which we refer to as “contemporary holistic connectivity” in this article. Parts of the interview took place on May 29, 2024 at Le Bicolore – Maison du Danemark in Paris during Jeannette Ehlers’s exhibition “Crossing Waters: Ripples of Tomorrow” curated by Anna Krogh and Elisa Leïla Durand. The text below is an edited version of the interview to which some new questions and elements have been added.1
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Lotte Pelckmans [LP]: In the many global settings in which you have (re-)presented your work, your goal has been to actively engage people, to have them reflect on both past and present forms of (post-)colonial power structures, including race and racism. You demonstrate how these power structures often adapt over time and explain that we need to unveil them in order to de-link, to disconnect from them. In the Louisiana Channel video presentation, you talk about your struggle to find your place in an overwhelmingly “white” Danish society, often being the only “black” person in the room. Could you say something more about how racism as a colonial structure is still ongoing in postcolonial settings, drawing on your own experiences from your home country Denmark?
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Jeannette Ehlers [JE]: I don’t really operate with the concept of “post-colonialism” since colonial structures are deeply embedded in Western societies, shaping our lives and opportunities today. Instead, I use the term “coloniality”—the persistent ways colonial power dynamics continue to affect us. In fact, these structures are very much alive today, amplified by the rise of right-wing, racist policies not just in the US, but globally, including in Denmark. We need to understand this as a larger, ongoing colonial project that has defined the world for the last 500 years.
However, the impact of these structures varies depending on where we live, which culture we belong to, and the body we are born into. Black and Brown people face racism and white supremacy everywhere, but the way we experience it differs. Denmark, like many Nordic countries, doesn’t consider itself racist. Yet racism is a daily reality here, albeit often less overt than the more explicit forms seen in the US. Just because it’s less visible doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Denmark’s immigration policies are deeply racist, reflecting a deep-rooted fear of the racialized “Other” and a political climate that increasingly legitimizes exclusion and discrimination.
For me, it’s crucial not to view racism as a singular or isolated experience. Instead, we should frame it as a structural problem- one that is systemic, ongoing, and deeply ingrained in our institutions.
Elvan Zabunyan [EZ]: Let’s start with your piece Black Bullets (video 2012),which I saw in Boston in January 2025 at the « Art in the Caribbean diaspora 1990s-Today » exhibition. I particularly liked this piece; it is a looping video, and I felt hypnotized by it. You present these bodies moving slowly forward together, and then the bodies disappear into the water. This creates the impression that these bodies are entering an unknown space and that they might drown. Then, suddenly, (thanks to the loop) the bodies reappear and this makes you feel better because you know they are safe. At the same time, the bodies are completely fragmented, literally disappearing and resurfacing from the water. How do you link these fragmented bodies to the fragmented history of slavery? I know this piece is specifically linked to the Haitian Revolution. How does your historical research inform your artistic practice?
JE: Yes, this piece is about the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804), which is a historical event inspired by a Vodou ceremony and by the French Revolution. Haiti was a French colony. The video illustrates how fragmented bodies – both physically and historically – can come together to symbolize the gaining of strength, resistance, and empowerment. The Vodou ceremony at Bois Caiman in the northern part of Haiti is a pivotal reference in this piece. It wasn’t just a religious ritual; it was a strategic gathering, a moment where enslaved Africans united, planned, and drew from the power of Vodou to resist and ultimately overthrow colonial oppression. That’s why it’s so mesmerizing, you know. I think you must be in some sort of trance to be able to fight and overcome the colonizers. The enslaved Africans drew inspiration from the French Revolutionaries and their call for “Liberté, égalité, fraternité”, which of course, was only meant for the white man. Nevertheless, the Haitian revolution managed to overthrow the powerholders in 1804, initially led by Toussaint Louverture. This made it a powerful historical event. Most people, especially in the West, only know about the French Revolution. But both events are closely linked, and the Haitian Revolution was just as big an endeavour as the French Revolution.
EZ: A critical approach to colonial history is at the base of your artistic research. You live in Denmark, and you produced an important piece titled I Am Queen Mary in 2018, a statue which is installed in a public space. You collaborated with La Vaughn Belle, an artist from the U.S. Virgin Islands, which were formerly part of Danish colonial territories, to produce this piece. The statue represents one of the four queens who led the 1878 labor revolt in Saint Croix, a former Danish colony. In 2020, the Danish Minister of Culture granted permission to permanently install I Am Queen Mary in front of a former national warehouse in Copenhagen, which raised significant media attention.
JE: I Am Queen Mary is a public art project in Copenhagen and it’s the first of its kind. The unique thing about this monumental project is that it’s the first to represent a black female body and resistance towards the colonial power within public space, but also that it’s completely artist-driven and was not commissioned. And it still has not been installed as a permanent sculpture, even though we have permanent permission.
LP: The statue was stunningly visible in the very maritime heart of the city of Copenhagen. It is huge, and its black overtones contrast sharply with the white plaster collections of the building right behind it. It was the first artwork to so openly address revolt against Denmark’s colonial history and its intersections with race and gender. Despite major media attention public debate, and governmental permission, the statue of the queen no longer exists; only its pedestal remains. Could you elaborate on the trajectory of this statue in relation to fragmentation and power structures?
- 2 Editor’s note: a female artist from Virgin Islands.
JE: The statue was not commissioned by any institution. I and La Vaughn Belle2 initiated it, encouraged by Danish researcher Helle Stenum. We have been fighting to make it a permanent monument in the city of Copenhagen. Despite receiving government approval in 2020, we still haven’t secured full funding for the project. As two Black female artists, our struggle against colonial power structures mirrors that of the Fireburn Queens - however, the context and form have transformed over time. Of course, their struggle was unparalleled in its brutality and immediacy; yet the underlying power structures are strikingly similar to those we continue to resist today. I believe that critical memorials that address colonial history and slavery are essential for confronting the past, understanding it, and creating change in the present. However, engaging with these issues in a Danish context remains difficult. Denmark still has a long way to go, though small steps are being taken, especially recently, as the country has been forced to confront its colonial relationship with Greenland.
EZ: When I saw this work (I am Queen Mary) for the first time in 2018, there were protest movements against statues in public spaces in different places around the world, such as the “Rhodes Must Fall” movement in Cape Town in 2015. As you said, it was a way to confront colonial heritage and the history of slavery through both artistic performances and social protests led by both artists and citizens. You initiated your project as artists. This can be very challenging in todays’ political context, where artists who criticize colonial history and the violence of power have their work considered as “disturbing” by the establishment. At the same time, it becomes a powerful political tool.
JE: We’ve received a lot of global support and many people wanted the statue there, but we also faced pushback and criticism. One critique was that the work is figurative, which is almost considered “inconceivable” in modern art at this moment in time. There are always sculptures in public space that represent someone and for us it was a very important statement to make the monument figurative precisely because it’s about representation. Since there was no representation of black bodies in public spaces, if we had made an abstract sculpture, it wouldn’t have made the same impact.
EZ: In the exhibition you had in Paris in May 2024 at Bicolore – Maison du Danemark, titled “Crossing Waters Ripples of Tomorrow” and curated by Elisa Leïla Durand, many questions linked to the history of violence, slavery, and colonial heritage were addressed through mixed-media works intertwining the past and the present. You have a unique approach to working with time and history. Could you tell us a little more about your creative process?
- 3 Editor’s note: although Mary Thomas was not officially enslaved, she was forced to work as an under (...)
JE: I work across time, across waters. For example, with I Am Queen Mary, the structures that we as artists are dealing with and challenging are the same structures that Queen Mary and her peers were fighting, albeit in a different way. Queen Mary’s full name was Mary Thomas. She lived in the Virgin Islands in St. Croix.3 The pedestal of the Queen Mary statue is made of coral stones, which are symbolic, because enslaved Africans were forced to cut them out of the ocean. They were used as building material for colonial houses, carrying with them a history of slavery. The pedestal itself symbolizes slavery, anchoring the statue in that historical context. The posture and the way in which the figure of Queen Mary is sitting in a wicker chair was inspired by Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, who posed similarly with a rifle and a spear in a peacock chair. This choice was a deliberate reference to the power dynamics of resistance, pointing to broader histories of struggle. The statue is not just about Queen Mary; she is a symbol of a much larger narrative that reaches out to the entire diaspora, to the ongoing struggle within it, across time and space.
In Paris the installation Coil – The Sensuous Ways Of Knowing – consists of snippets of demonstrations from the 60s until today. These riots, protests, and uprisings all stem from the same anger, the same core injustices reverberating through time. The video piece on the screen at the end of the installation delves into the idea of resistance in more subtle, hidden ways - specifically, through hair and hairdos as survival strategies. These hairstyles carry hidden messages and act as a form of resistance against colonial systems. It’s a quiet form of rebellion, a way to assert identity and power in a world that seeks to erase both.
My work revolves around these same core questions, but I explore them in different ways across histories and across continents. The colonial system is the heart of this matter, and the diaspora’s positionality is the kaleidoscope constantly shifting and refracting, offering multiple perspectives on history, identity, and resistance. This challenges the Western approach to history which is often very “timeline-based”, thinking in a straight line, whereas in the African and indigenous cosmologies, the approach is more cyclic, a continuous and interconnected process. In this piece, ancestral connectivity, inspired by the Maafa (The African Holocaust) ceremony, honors the ancestors and reinforces this cyclical view of time and struggle.
EZ: As an art historian, I defend the choice of circling around issues and topics instead of approaching them linearly When working on the history of slavery, many traces have disappeared, and searches for archives that often no longer exist. Archives can help to reveal facts, but their absence does not negate the reality of slavery, its violence, sufferings, and revolts. Facts are not the only form of proof. History was not written from the point of view of the enslaved, but from the point of view of the enslavers. To me, artists are the ones writing history that lacks factual proof to uncover those parts of history that are unknown. As an art historian, I write history through the work of artists who reveal hidden parts of history. That’s why works like yours are so precious; they help us understand this history by reconnecting us with it through our imagination. It is not just an aesthetic experience, it is also an opportunity to create new narratives based on the aesthetic experience. These two experiences are intertwined and entangled.
JE: Indeed, written histories, particularly the one accepted and acknowledged in the West, often contrast sharply with unwritten histories - oral histories, trauma, and bodily histories. These are experiences passed down from generation to generation across time and continents.
As someone from the African and Afro-Caribbean diaspora, even though I might not have experienced the same things as my ancestors, I still carry a way of knowing. I can feel the repercussions, both spiritually and factually, of the colonial project I mentioned earlier.
This notion is so important, especially when talking about archives. In the Royal Danish Archive, for instance, they have an extensive collection of material from the colonies which is regarded as legitimate history – “real history” – if you like, but oral histories from the Virgin Islands, for instance, are not accepted in the same way because they’re not written down and do not have the same “quality”. This reflects a broader systemic issue: how historical narratives are shaped and controlled by those in power, who often privilege written accounts and dismiss other ways of knowing and remembering. At the core of this is dehumanization - enslaved Africans were prohibited from reading and writing; So, how could our histories survive if not through oral traditions, music, dance and rituals? These practices became vital for preserving our stories.
This is all about power structures. To turn the tables and humanize our history, one powerful way to do so is by channelling it through art. Critical fabulation, a concept coined by Saidiya Hartman, is an essential tool in this process.
EZ: Yes, thanks to artists, we have gained an alternative type of knowledge about this history. Could you tell me more about your piece on Anastacia, this enslaved woman born in 1740 who became a powerful icon in Brazil? What intellectual, poetic, and political approaches informed the creative process behind your drawing of her?
- 4 Editor’s note: she is called “escrava Anastacia.”
JE: The name of the piece is Anastacia Ever-Changing as the Ocean (2024). It is a laser-cut etching copy that I made in 2015 of the image of Anastacia, who became famous for the image of her wearing a mouth mask, which she was forced to wear for resisting in some way. It is both a very brutal and very iconic image. I wanted to remake this image, because it has been shown, used, and misused in many ways. For example, during COVID, white feminists used her image to protest mask-wearing and a few years ago, some fashion brand had her printed on their fabrics for a fashion show. In Brazil she has become a saint4.
For the show “Crossing Waters Ripples of Tomorrow”, I drew her in charcoal to represent her status as a saint but also to hint at the representation of resistance against the colonial system. Charcoal symbolizes the cyclical movement of revolt and rebellion, which is often accompanied by fire. To me, the charcoal symbolizes the remnants of that fire, the lasting traces of the revolts that you see on the iPhones in the piece Coil: The Sensuous Ways of Knowing, which is installed next to Anastacia. The charcoal itself “creates” the image of Anastacia, who, like many others, was a fighter. She resisted, even as she was violently suppressed by the colonial system. By using charcoal to create a giant portrait of her on the floor, I highlight both her struggle and the enduring impact of her resistance, echoing the constant cycles of fighting and suppression that define colonial histories.
EZ: Your work portrays strong historical female figures and creates portraits that dignify their accomplishments. This links to black feminism and sisterhood, as seen in your video for the Diasporic Frequencies exhibition in Paris, for example. In this piece, you perform a choreography created with your sister in homage to Pearl Primus (1919-1994), a Trinidadian-American dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist. You’re wearing brown clothes while dancing, and the walls are brown. This tone-on-tone effect creates a sense of disappearance. You are grounded by your dancing body, but at the same time your body seems to blend into the color, and this softens the radicality of the choreography. Could you tell us more about how this beautiful piece refers to the Middle Passage and to the loss of family bonds?
JE: In several of my recent works I have been working with other black female artists or female writers. However, this piece is especially significant as it was created in collaboration with my half-sister whom I never met in real life. We share the same Trinidadian father, and we only connected online. She’s a dance and choreography professor and she lives on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. She found me through my art online and we started talking from there. When I was invited to do a project in Copenhagen in collaboration with a dance and visual arts institution, I decided to involve her, not only to get to know each other, but also as an act of solidarity through African diasporic female body politics. Despite having known each other for only about a few months, she agreed to collaborate with me. She loved the idea and immediately resonated with the notion of fragmentation; how families were torn apart and lives scattered due to the Middle Passage. The Middle Passage refers to the second leg of the transatlantic triangular trade. The term refers to the European maritime transport that forcibly carried around 12 million enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean, from West Africa to the Americas. Working together has been a wonderful experience, we’ve both grown deep love and respect for each other, but beyond the personal connection, doing this was also a political act. We share a creative mindset as well as an understanding of how art can reflect and engage with our shared history, particularly the politics of African diasporic identity. It was a way of addressing that deep-rooted fragmentation, reclaiming the bonds that were forcibly broken, and forging new ones through our collaboration.
EZ: Your sister does not live in Denmark, so how exactly did you collaborate with her on this video piece?
JE: We collaborated via Zoom. I asked her to create a choreography, and she shared it with me by dancing in her bedroom, live over Zoom. I then mirrored her movements online, interpreting them in my own way. I used to dance when I was younger, but trying to follow a choreography online over a screen made it quite difficult to get the moves right. But at the same time it was a great challenge.
LP: It’s inspiring to see how you establish connections and foster a sense of belonging through your work. You bring people together, and I know you have also inspired and involved many “non-white” Danes who recognize their stories in your work and your approach. In the title to this interview, we proposed calling your approach “contemporary holistic connectivity”. Do you think that covers what you do?
JE: I’m not so keen on using both “holistic” and “connectivity” – to me it sounds a bit too New Age. But I absolutely have a strong sense of connectivity and ancestral belonging within the African diaspora. For example, while working on the piece with my sister, it turns out that she had been dancing with Pearl Primus’s husband! And during the creation of I Am Queen Mary, we coincidentally met Huey P: Newton’s wife, through a long-lost friend of mine, which led to a collaboration. And these are only a few examples. Moments like these aren’t just coincidences to me. I see all my processes and my work as spiritual encounters, where things reveal themselves as deeply interconnected. The notion of connectivity appears in many ways throughout my practice. For instance, the use of hair and braids that I use in some of my works reflects the physical and cultural connections among people from the African diaspora. At the same time, these elements also carry the weight of colonial history and violent power structures. So, it’s always a multilayered process and way of thinking. It’s never just one thing, but many things happening at the same time across time, space, memory, and resistance.