My current research focuses on the cultural linkages between Poland and Haiti. It’s part of a larger body of work called the Creole Archive Project, which I’ve been working on since 2015. Overall, the relevance of this study resides in bringing to light the Polish-Haitian entanglements that have been largely ignored in modern Polish identity narratives.

The historical background that underpins this investigation begins with Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802. From 1802 to 1805, Napoleon dispatched about five thousand Polish legionnaires to Saint-Domingue, modern-day Haiti, as part of his massive effort to contain the slave rebellion that had arisen in 1791. However, a group of Polish soldiers opposed Napoleon’s efforts to subjugate the rebels. Consequently, these soldiers unwittingly took part in the creation of the world’s first black-led republic and first independent Caribbean state when Saint-Domingue cast off French colonial control and slavery in the early nineteenth century.

My Creole Archive Project acts as a guide to visual culture, introducing viewers to the complicated history of the Polish-Antillean context. Nevertheless, the project must not be perceived as an objective reflection of historical accounts. Thus, it primarily serves as an art laboratory that delves deep into contemporary identity and the notion of my cultural displacement. As the French poststructuralist Jacques Derrida suggests, archives cannot be objective and are molded by our own culture, history, and biology.