{"id":2754,"date":"2025-07-11T19:27:25","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T18:27:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/scs\/?page_id=2754"},"modified":"2025-07-11T19:27:25","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T18:27:25","slug":"bridget-jones-award-2025-la-vaughan-belle","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/scs\/bursaries-and-prizes\/bridget-jones-award\/bridget-jones-award-2025-la-vaughan-belle\/","title":{"rendered":"Bridget Jones Award 2025: La Vaughan Belle"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Bridget Jones Award 2025: La Vaughan Belle<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lavaughnbelle.com\/\">La Vaughn Belle<\/a> is a visual artist based in the US Virgin Islands, a place that has changed hands seven times- the longest being Denmark (250 years) and the last the United States (since 1917). Her work uses counter archival practices as a decolonial tool. She employs the silences and fragments of the material culture and archives to create layered narratives that challenge colonial hierarchies and nostalgia.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>We were delighted to welcome La Vaughan Belle to the 48th Annual Society for Caribbean Studies Conference where she gave a presentation entitled &#8216;How to Survive Colonial Nostalgia&#8217;.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2755\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2755\" style=\"width: 700px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-2755\" src=\"https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/scs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/IMG-20250704-WA0015-700x525.jpg\" alt=\"La Vaughan Belle standing at a podium speaking. Behind her is an image of her sculpture &quot;Sovereign&quot;\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" srcset=\"https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/scs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/IMG-20250704-WA0015-700x525.jpg 700w, https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/scs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/IMG-20250704-WA0015-450x338.jpg 450w, https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/scs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/IMG-20250704-WA0015-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/scs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/IMG-20250704-WA0015-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/scs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/IMG-20250704-WA0015-440x330.jpg 440w, https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/scs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/IMG-20250704-WA0015-920x690.jpg 920w, https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/scs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/IMG-20250704-WA0015.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2755\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">2025 Bridget Jones Award Winner La Vaughan Belle delivering her presentation &#8216;How to Survive Colonial Nostalgia&#8217;<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Working in a variety of disciplines her practice includes: painting, installation, photography, writing, video and public interventions. Her work with colonial era pottery led to a commission with the renowned brand of porcelain products, the Royal Copenhagen. She has exhibited her work in the Caribbean, the USA and Europe in institutions such as the Museo del Barrio (NY), Casa de las Americas (Cuba), the Museum of the African Diaspora (CA) and Kunsthal Charlottenborg (DK) with large solo exhibitions at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art (SC) and the National Nordic Museum (WA). Her art is in the collections of the National Photography Museum and the Vestsj\u00e6lland Museum in Denmark and the National Gallery of Art and the Virgina Fine Art Museum in the U.S. She is the co-creator of I Am Queen Mary, the artist-led groundbreaking monument that confronted the Danish colonial amnesia while commemorating the legacies of resistance of the African people who were brought to the former Danish West Indies. The project was featured in over 100 media outlets around the world including the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">NY Times<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Politiken<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">VICE,<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">BBC <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Le Monde<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Her work has also been written about in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hyperallergic<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Artforum<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Small Axe <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and numerous journals and books.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>To find out more about La Vaughan&#8217;s work, please visit her website: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lavaughnbelle.com\/\">https:\/\/www.lavaughnbelle.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bridget Jones Award 2025: La Vaughan Belle La Vaughn Belle is a visual artist based in the US Virgin Islands,<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/scs\/bursaries-and-prizes\/bridget-jones-award\/bridget-jones-award-2025-la-vaughan-belle\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Bridget Jones Award 2025: La Vaughan Belle<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":40,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2754","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/scs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/scs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/scs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/scs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/scs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2754"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/scs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2756,"href":"https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/scs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2754\/revisions\/2756"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/scs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/40"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/scs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}