London-based artist Yasmin Nicholas is third generation Caribbean of Dominican descent . Her mixed-media collage , 2 Homes and Stories about Breadfruit , provocatively pairs the British passport of Matthew Nicholas , her Dominican-born grandfather , with the breadfruit . Beginning in the 18th century , the British Empire introduced breadfruit from Tahiti to the Caribbean as a way to provide a stable and cheap source of food for enslaved Africans . “ The breadfruit is not a food , it is a weapon ,” wrote Jamaica Kincaid as an indictment of British colonization and the aftermath of hardship and grief it left on the Caribbean . Nicholas selects the passport ’ s identity page , where clues of her grandfather ’ s time signal he was a man born into colonization , some forty years before the island would gain independence from the British . She renders a painted breadfruit , cut open , its heart exposed , as a hovering , unmistakable presence in the work . Additionally , the artist juxtaposes the deconstructed , torn-to-pieces cover of her grandfather ’ s British passport alongside his handwritten recollections of “ never short of food , never short of breadfruit .” Present in literary and visual forms , the passport and breadfruit in Nicholas ’ work reference the rupture and fragmentation British colonization has left on the Caribbean .
Food has the power to remind a person of a place . Breadfruit is evocative not only for Matthew , but for Yasmin as well . Yasmin , born in the United Kingdom , embraces her Dominican heritage in this collage . The term ‘ collage ’ comes from the French word “ collér ,” which means “ to glue .” As it was for her grandfather generations before her , the breadfruit acts as the glue that connects Yasmin to her ancestral roots . Separated by the blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean , the breadfruit connects the “ 2 homes ” and the “ 2 identities ” of the Nicholas family .
— Katelyn Donohue Museum and Cultural Heritage Studies , Art History
Yasmin Nicholas , 2 Homes and Stories about Breadfruit , 2018 , mixed media , 20 x 16 inches each . Courtesy of the artist . Photo credit : Ivan Peñafiel .
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