“Take 5 in St Croix” presents Touch Has A Memory, an exhibition of paintings and performances by local artist Kharis Kennedy, curated by Monica Marin and Carla Acevedo-Yates and produced by Alaina Simone Enterprises.

“Take Five” is a performance and exhibition series dedicated to examining the shared histories of territories within the African diaspora through the lens of personal narratives of “otherness” at the intersection of race, gender, and sexuality. The project takes its title from five important issues within the African diaspora whose interconnectedness has been marginalized from the Western historical narrative—race, gender, identity, power, and the environment.

Touch Has A Memory, features large-scale images of strong and self-possessed women paired alongside their spirit animals. Following Kennedy’s relocation to the Virgin Islands in 2011, faint echoes of voodoo culture began to seep into her work. Like the Haitians who participate in Jacmel’s annual Kanaval, she instinctively does not resort to the typically celebratory visions of these events, but reflects the region’s long history in bucking authority and exorcising painful histories.

It is and has been the Caribbean Museum Center for the Arts’ hope to introduce art and self-expression as a catalyst for dialogue, and continue to support art as a place for advocacy. We believe that it is essential for our society to allow museums to be a place where we can have these conversations.