{"id":779861,"date":"2026-07-23T13:03:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T13:03:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/779861\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T13:03:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T13:03:21","slug":"la-vaughn-belles-artwork-reminds-us-that-history-refuses-to-be-buried","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/779861\/","title":{"rendered":"La Vaughn Belle\u2019s artwork reminds us that history refuses to be buried\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"LaLa Vaughn Belle Credit: courtesy Powerhouse Arts<\/p>\n

From an island so small you might have to squint to spy it on world maps, artist La Vaughn Belle is sharing not only the stories of her life, but the stories of the place she grew up \u2014 and the people who helped to form it. The House That Freedoms Built is an installation work which reminds us that, in her words, \u201chistory refuses to be buried.\u201d And it will be on display at Rollins College for the rest of the year.<\/p>\n

Belle\u2019s artistic journey began as a child in the U.S. Virgin Islands, constantly drawing. After going to school for pre-med and eventually dropping out, Belle knew that her true path was art. She returned briefly before going to Cuba for more training. \u201cLiving in Cuba totally changed the way that I saw art. It expanded its view,\u201d Belle tells Orlando Weekly. \u201cI went there as a painter, primarily, and then came out being multimedia. I came out with this understanding that art could be anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Belle\u2019s artwork begins with the idea and is followed by the medium. Whether it\u2019s a film project, sculpture, painting or performance, it all begins with a concept. Belle\u2019s work is heavily inspired by the place she calls home, St. Croix. While St. Croix is the largest of the U.S. Virgin Islands, it\u2019s stories often go untold.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are a small island that was cut up into over 150 plantations,\u201d Belle explains. \u201cThat means that there is nowhere, not on the beach, not in the supermarket, not at the church, not in front of the Home Depot, where you do not see a remnant of the sugar plantation industry, of slavery. Plantations are a destination you go to. We live in them. We literally live in them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Belle found inspiration in the way the history of the island is built into its architecture, which is one of the inspirations behind her installation The House That Freedoms Built, on view outdoors at the Rollins College campus starting Friday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After purchasing two 300-square-foot properties to become her studios, Belle found a deeper history during the renovations. \u201cLearning about the history of the people who lived there before transformed the way I saw my buildings,\u201d Belle says. \u201cI had done a lot of the renovation work myself, and that relationship between narrative, the space, and labor, the care \u2014 that was really evident.\u201d<\/p>\n

Belle spoke with a historian and found out that the properties were first owned by Black women who had bought themselves out of slavery in the mid-1700s to 1800s, during the period of the Middle Passage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThese women were free. There are many people who were enslaved their whole lives, but then we realized there are people who were enslaved for a short amount of time and found a way out of the system, which is quite remarkable,\u201d Belle tells us. \u201cImmediately, it made my house look different. I looked at it different. I immediately wanted to share the story because I thought it was inspiring. I was very inspired to share it; I felt like I needed to be a witness to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought a lot about these communities because \u2026 the neighborhood that my studios are in historically were what you called \u2018free neighborhoods,\u2019 meaning that they were people during slavery who were not enslaved, found some way to get freedom,\u201d she adds. \u201cThey were highly controlled, and they were allowed to live in certain areas so that they could be watched because they were a threat to the society. These houses would have been their only free space.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Credit: courtesy RMA<\/p>\n

The three structures that make up the installation are each 9 feet tall, with intricate fretwork patterns carved into the roofs and walls. \u201cI was thinking a lot about an environment or people that were so under attack, that their home would have been a super-precious space,\u201d Belle says. \u201cIt was really trying to create a preciousness that was protected; it was for the insiders. So people looking on the outside may not understand, like, \u2018How do I get in?\u2019 It\u2019s not for you. You don\u2019t. It\u2019s more about, how do you construct it for yourself?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although the history behind the installation began hundreds of years ago, the themes of the work are still all too relevant today. \u201cAlthough the project comes of a particular history, I think we can look at what\u2019s happening today in terms of freedoms that we thought were stable that can shift, whether it be the right to our bodies or even our birthright citizenship,\u201d Belle says. \u201cThere are all these freedoms that we think are stable, and they\u2019re not stable. They\u2019re negotiated. The project is about negotiated freedoms in that way and how domestic space is maybe a threshold for that personal versus civic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Belle\u2019s intent for the installation \u2014 placed not within the Rollins Museum of Art but in the heart of the small Rollins campus \u2014 is for the work to find students (and the general public) where they are and inspire thought and introspection long after they leave the campus.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s my hope, that people, the art meets them where they\u2019re at, but then inspires them to go further,\u201d Belle says. \u201cThat\u2019s always my hope, that you find a point of entry that takes you a little further.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe House That Freedoms Built\u201d Friday, July 24-Jan. 3, 2027; Rollins College, 1000 Holt Ave., Winter Park; rollins.edu\/rma<\/a>; free.<\/p>\n

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\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"La Vaughn Belle Credit: courtesy Powerhouse Arts From an island so small you might have to squint to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":779862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88,332223,332224,64756,332225],"class_list":["post-779861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-la-vaughn-belle","tag-rollins-museum-of-art","tag-slavery","tag-things-to-do-in-orlando"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=779861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/779862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}