Mami Erzulie Dantò (Phara from Pharaohs Miramar)

The protective extant stiffly defends a verdant retablo installation beyond the sanctuary garden at Colonial Florida Cultural Heritage Museum within a solo show of Coralina Rodriguez Meyer's Mother Mold monuments installation for the AIM Biennial Miami 2023-24. A concrete lace cast figure composed of 4 years of collecting trash, intimate waste and environmental ephemera from our respective neighborhoods in Miramar and Miami Beach FL is bonded to a massive Flan Boyan (Royal Poinsettia) tree to welcome and warn visitors of the Catholic Archdioses' art collection in the historically redlined Alapattah Miami neighborhood. The fertility effigy restores dignity and divinity to the refuse materials formed in the shape of a pregnant body whose columnar pose is rooted on the tree trunk. The cement conjures the Virgen Gruta materials and texture found in beach side caves where syncretic deities such as Mama Dante Erzuli are encountered in their endemic context. Phara chose her pose as a combination between the mummy chest cross and embracing her fetus Jarell. She found the power of the "Wakanda Forever" pop culture reference a powerful memory of the Egyptian death rituals and Haitian Mambo to be the ultimate manifestation of her name Pharah "from Pharaohs".

Mother Mold monument fertility effigy cast of Pharah from Miramar Miami FL on September 29, 2021 in her mother's backyard during a Mama Spa Botanica workshop. The mummy is a monument to survivors of conflicting climate and reproductive health crisis in America made in collaboration with procreative neighbors. Intimate ephemera, environmental waste are cast in domestic construction materials to reconstruct the identity of a Haitian American mother and her reproductive health allies including her family narrative. Hailing from La Gonave Haiti, where her mother birthed 11 children, the small fishing village has a matriarchal tradition where birthworkers including doulas, midwives would make home visits for labor using rituals including the Cuarentena and the 3 baths postpartum including special leaves boiled in teas with papaya, sour orange, corossol, mint, anise, bugleweed and eucalytus. The teas relax and tranquilize the mother, cause muscles to tighten and loosen bones back into place after birth.

Erzulie Dantò is the main loa in Haitian Vodou. Ezili Dantò, is the manifestation of love. Created during Haiti's colonial period, this deity has a dark complexion and is maternal in nature. The Ezili are feminine spirits in Haitian vodou culture that personify womanhood with several manifestations or incarnations such as Lasirenn (the mermaid) is a protector of the youth and the marginalized. In altars, sacrifices consist of créme de cacáo, jewels, golden rings and Agua de Florida. In slave revolt of 1791, a pact with Polish soldiers from Napolean's army and the Haitian revolutionaries began with a feast in honour to Ezili Dantor whose syncretic depictions appear as the Black Madonna of Częstochowa.

Medium
intimate waste, environmental ephemera cast in domestic construction materials including: human hair, synthetic weave, disposable vacuum spine, neon lace window curtain, plastic wrap, plastic jug, sand from Surfside, dirt from Miramar, nail salon glitter, spray paint bottle, building insulation foam, gypsum plaster, metal lathe, exterior house paint, cement, industrial floor resin

Mami Erzulie Dantò (Phara from Pharaohs Miramar) has been included in solo exhibitions in NYC & Miami including The Immigrant Artist Biennial 2023 and the AIM Biennial Miami 2023-24.