Tasha Dougé is a Bronx-based, Haitian-infused artist, artivist & cultural vigilante. Her body of work activates conversations around women, advocacy, sex, education, societal “norms,” identity and Black pride. Through conceptual art, teaching, and performance, Dougé devotedly strives to evoke empowerment for women and illuminate the contributions of Black people, declaring that her “voice is the first tool within my art arsenal.”

She has been featured in The New York Times, Essence and Sugarcane Magazine. She has shown nationally at RISD Museum, The Apollo Theater & Rush Arts Gallery. Internationally, Dougé has shown at the Hygiene Museum in Germany. She is an alum of the Laundromat Project’s Create Change Fellowship, The Studio Museum of Harlem’s Museum Education Program, Haiti Cultural Exchange’s Lakou Nou residency, the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute’s Innovative Cultural Advocacy Program and their inaugural Digital Emerging Artist Retreat.

 

Tasha Dougé’s Ode to an Icon is a photographic poem created within the four walls of a cherished icon’s childhood home.  

 

Vernacular is more than the language and casual tongue of the masses.  Each photo in this series illuminates how vernacular can speak to the architecture of the domestic and functional rather than the public or monumental.  

 

This icon understood the power of her voice and used “keys” to give insight and speak out against the conditions of the times.  Though in the public eye, what remains true, for her and us,are the internal frameworks that shape how we engage existence: rest, sacrifice, activism, family, community, culture and more.