Krista Thompson
Postdoctoral Fellow, 2003-2004

Krista Thompson (PhD, Art History, Emory University, 2002) is an Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Illinois at Chicago, specializing in the arts of the African Diaspora. She is currently writing a book entitled The Tropicalization of the Anglophone Caribbean: The Aesthetics and Politics of Space in Jamaica and the Bahamas and co-editing the collection, Imagining the Caribbean: New Approaches in Art History and Visual Culture in the Anglophone Caribbean. Her research focuses on the influence of travel, tourism, and migration on visual representation and social space.

Fellow's Project Description
The Tropicalization of the Anglophone Caribbean: The Politics and Aesthetics of Space in Jamaica and the Bahamas

During the Driskell Center fellowship, I will be working on a forthcoming book, The Tropicalization of the Anglophone Caribbean: The Politics and Aesthetics of Space in Jamaica and the Bahamas. The book examines the complex visual systems through which the islands were imaged as picturesque tropical paradises for touristic consumption and the social and political implications of these images on the physical space on the islands and their inhabitants at the turn of the 20th century, a time when the tourism trade was beginning in the region. I focus on the photographs, international lantern lectures, and postcards the British colonial government and British and American corporations in Jamaica and the Bahamas used to refashion the islands at this time, tracing which aspects of the landscape or local inhabitants they seized upon as visual icons to promote the islands and how these key motifs changed at different historical moments.

I also explore how some parts of the islands were actually recreated or “tropicalized” precisely in the image of these representations. Botanical gardens, hotel landscapes, and tourist-frequented ports, in particular, became spaces where ideals of the picturesque tropical landscape were recreated in miniature. I also investigate how several locations which were frequently pictured in photographs, particularly hotel landscapes, swimming pools, and beach spaces, became segregated enclaves from which the islands’ black populations were restricted or barred. In sum, I investigate colonial representations as they related to and materially shaped the geographical spaces they pictured and practices of racial segregation. Additionally, I explore how sites popularized in colonial representations became contested spaces of anti-colonial protest for the islands’ black populations.