“Imperishable, Preserving Caribbean Language and History in the Digital Age"

Project Introduction

Through digital collage, the artist constructs layered visual systems that translate fragmented memory into networked, interactive forms. Drawing on archival images, Kwéyòl text, and audio traces, the work repositions personal and collective histories within a digital space where meaning is assembled, disrupted, and re-coded. Central to the practice is the metaphor of a sparse scrapbook—unmarked and incomplete—reflecting memory shaped by the colonial suppression and interruption of language transmission. By working across image, text, and sound, Casimir uses digital tools not simply to represent loss, but to actively reorganize and reactivate cultural memory, foregrounding the presence of Kwéyòl within contemporary, mediated forms.

Project proposal: Elesha Casimir’s proposed project, Imperishable - Preserving Caribbean Language and History in the Digital Age", explores the loss and potential recovery of Kwéyòl language and cultural memory within the Dominican diaspora. During the 1950s and 60s, many Kwéyòl-speaking Dominicans migrated to countries such as the United States, where, shaped by colonial legacies, assimilation pressures, and systemic discrimination, they often chose not to pass the language on to their children. In Casimir’s own family, this interruption severed a vital link to heritage, fragmenting identity and belonging across generations. This project responds to that rupture by investigating how digital technologies can act as tools of preservation, reparation, and reconnection.

Through digital collage

The artist draws from oral histories, archival family photographs, Kwéyòl texts, audio recordings, and personal memory to construct layered visual narratives that reflect both loss and continuity. Central to their work is the metaphor of a sparse scrapbook—photos unmarked and missing, representing memory shaped and eroded by the colonial suppression of native language and its interruption through intergenerational transmission. The work will evolve through an iterative process that includes dialogue with family members and the wider Caribbean diaspora, allowing the collages to function as living, participatory artifacts. Ultimately, Casimir’s project reclaims language not through conventional linguistic forms, but through a visual and digital medium, translating Kwéyòl into an abstract, expressive space that underscores its central role in shaping and sustaining cultural identity.

The artist’s work benefits from engagement with TCD’s Digital Humanities network

Through its interdisciplinary approach to digital storytelling and research. Access to scholars and practitioners across fields such as Caribbean studies, anthropology, history, and digital media would deepen the conceptual and technical development of the project, strengthening both its narrative accuracy and its digital form. Dialogue within the network would expand the artist’s access to dispersed archives, oral histories, and perspectives across the Caribbean diaspora, enriching the project’s exploration of memory, language, and identity. The residency also offers a critical space for experimentation with digital tools and methodologies, supporting new ways of representing fragmented memory. Equally important is the opportunity to connect with mentors and artists across the Caribbean and the United States, reflecting Casimir’s own diasporic background. In turn, the artist seeks to contribute to the network by producing work that participates in the preservation and reactivation of Caribbean languages and cultural memory within digital spaces.

Through this project

The artist positions digital practice as both a site of inquiry and intervention, where fragmented histories can be reassembled and reimagined. By translating Kwéyòl language and Caribbean memory into interactive, visual forms, the work challenges inherited silences while creating space for new narratives to emerge. Ultimately, the project seeks not only to preserve what has been lost, but to activate it—inviting audiences into an evolving dialogue around language, identity, and belonging in the digital age.