Gina Athena Ulysse is an artist and scholar concerned with the visceral in the structural. Her research questions engage geopolitics, historical representations, aesthetics, and the spiritual in the dailiness of Black Diasporic conditions. In the last two decades, her rasanblaj (gathering of ideas, things, people and spirits) approach to her multidisciplinary art and writing practice entails ongoing crossings and dialogues in the arts, humanities and social sciences.
Her major publications include Why Haiti Needs New Narratives (2015), Because When God is Too Busy (2017), and most recently, A Call to Rasanblaj: Black Feminist Futures and Ethnographic Aesthetics (2023). Other writing and visual art have also appeared in e-misferica, InterimPoetics, Feminist Formations, Feminist Studies, Meridians, Third Text, and Transition. She has performed at The British Museum, Cabaret Voltaire, Gorki Theatre, House of World Cultures, LaMama, Marcus Garvey Liberty Hall, MoMA Salon, and other venues.
In 2020, she was an invited to the Biennale of Sydney in Australia. Her most recent work, For Those Among Us Who Inherited Sacrifice, Rasanblaj! was presented at the Biennale of Dakar in Senegal in 2024. She is professor of humanities and Founding Director of the RasanblajLab at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
At MacDowell, Ulysse spent considerable time familiarizing herself with the Abenaki. The process led to an attachment that supported the co-creation of new work - prototypes for an upcoming project in 2025. She developed components of a large-scale multimedia project. The techniques developed and a work completed in residence will be included in a group show Summer 2025.
Portrait by L Guiliano
