Black Freedom, Black Madonna & the Black Child of Hope explores the Haitian influence on Black liberation and its revitalization of the Juneteenth message for Black people in the Americas and in the world.
A revered Vodou figure, Ezulie Dantor, is portrayed as a Black Madonna holding a child as a symbol of maternal love, interconnectedness, and transformation. The image of Ezulie Dantor references the association between Vodou and Haiti’s historic victory for independence from France in 1804. In the spirit of Burlington’s Juneteenth theme “A Love Story,” the image also represents the artist’s own identity as both child and caretaker, and the universal bonds between the young and the old. Juxtaposing the physical and metaphysical and the scientific and spiritual, Black Freedom, Black Madonna & the Black Child of Hope ties the human experience together and offers an optimistic view of the future.
This mural is a collaboration between Brice and artist Josephine Bunnell and was produced at Generator, Burlington’s community makerspace.
Commissioned by Burlington City Arts and the Office of Racial Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Juneteenth 2022
