Weekends are for Adventures

On Saturday I drug myself out of bed early and defeated a sequence of bus-related inconveniences with one goal in mind: see the Église de Balata, which is a 1/5 replica of the Sacré Coeur of Paris.
It is, indeed, quite small.

Í didn't even meet any ghosts.

I was quite afraid that I was going to have to mentally blow-up the accomplishment of visiting the very last place of cultural or touristic interest in Fort-de-France into a more exciting adventure than it really was for the sake of my sanity.

Fortunately, my tutrice called me the next day to invite me somewhere much more interesting, the Habitation Clément.

A Habitation is a plantation, most of which here are either still operating as banana farms or have been converted into banana museums / rum museums / slavery museums / tourist traps. Habitation Clément holds the distinction of gaining significance post-slavery, when M. Clément bought it and developed a top-notch distillery. The rum he produced went on to win an absurd number of French awards and become relatively world-renown, considering how tiny and generally insignificant this island is to the world. More important to me, at least, the descendants of M. Clément are, unlike most of the békés, quite engaged on a local level. One of them founded Tous créoles, an organization for connecting, preserving, and unifying creole communities (in all their racial aspects). The grounds themselves are still used as a distillery, a garden, a rum museum, and, of all things, an excellent art gallery.
The title of the current exhibition is just Africa, and, to be honest, since I first saw the posters, I was really afraid it would be another Musée Quai-Branly-esque amalgamation of a show conflating all African eras, regions, and cultures. I am pleased to report that my apprehensions did not unfold into reality. The exhibition divides the works into three rooms. The first two present art from cultures from roughly east and western pre-colonial Africa. The pieces are well supported with informational plaques, comparative descriptions, and downright gorgeous lighting. Visitors leave with an appreciation for the differences and exchanges between pre-colonial cultures, rather than a confusing mish-mash of masks and artifacts in their head. Finally, the third room showcases pieces by artists of African descent that reflect on their interpretations of Africa and colonial representations of Africa.  There's a healthy mix of arts, and no boundaries between the political, the sentimental, and the tongue-in-cheek.

Diaspora by Omar Victor Diop (note the anachronistic soccer gear)

Of course, no place is perfect. The history of rum video is rosy and clearly designed to lull tourists from reflecting on why all the farmers are black or Indian and all the owners are white. It even features a clip from a music video, filmed on the premises, with two pre-1848 clad white people singing about how they're "free to live their lives" with LITERAL SLAVES WORKING IN THE BACKGROUND. The historical plaques in the barn refer to a contract between the former slave master and the former slaves "to maintain the plantation operations and ensure the next harvest", without reference to assuring protections for workers or the atrocities of slavery in general. And of course  I don't think anything should be absolved or forgotten because of one nice art gallery.
That being said, Habitation Clément was a pleasant surprise, both because the owners are working to re-integrate into Martinican society, and because it exhibits the kind of quality I have been missing since I got here.