From Howard Halls to VOLTA Walls: Quilting Diaspora, Painting Legacy

Charles-Philippe Jean-Pierre brings memory, soft power, and presence to Basel

Captured Zeitgeist by Tallulah Patricia Bär

What makes one booth at an art fair stand out from the rest?

Is it the artist’s CV? The lighting? The collector buzz? Or is it something harder to name—something you feel the moment you step in?

At The Bishop Gallery booth at VOLTA Basel 2025

At VOLTA Basel 2025, that feeling was alive and well at The Bishop Gallery’s booth. It wasn’t just the art—it was the atmosphere. Laughter, curiosity, real conversations. Someone’s aunt FaceTiming in from Brooklyn. A spontaneous mini dance break between collectors and creatives. The kind of space that felt less like a commercial setup and more like a cultural living room.

And at the heart of it stood Charles-Philippe Jean-Pierre, quietly holding court.

When I first heard he was a professor at Howard University, I’ll admit—I blinked.

“Wait… a Howard professor? The Artist?”

But the more we spoke, the more it all clicked. Jean-Pierre wasn’t here just to show work. He was there to connect—to bring Dakar into dialogue with the Caribbean, to fold memory into collage, and to remind all of us that legacy doesn’t always arrive loudly. Sometimes it just shows up—layered, textured, and ready to speak.

Mountains, Memory, and Movement

Jean-Pierre’s exhibition, Drifting Once Again, feels both intimate and expansive. The anchor works—Moving Mountains Left and Moving Mountains Right—frame the booth like two sides of a transatlantic memory. On one side: a French Caribbean woman, gazing across the ocean. On the other: a Senegalese brother, meeting her gaze.

“It’s about interconnectedness,” he tells me.

“The Atlantic isn’t just separation—it’s reflection.”

At the center of the show is a Haitian proverb:

“Behind every mountain is another mountain.”

Not just a title. A worldview. One that recognizes difficulty as a constant companion—not to be feared, but understood. “Life isn’t perfect,” he says. “It’s layered. And that’s what makes it beautiful.”

That layering shows up not just in meaning, but in form. Jean-Pierre’s works are collaged like quilts—built from fragments, stories, paper, and pigment. “We’re not monolithic,” he adds. “And neither is the diaspora. So my work can’t be either.”

A book I have yet to behold

From Embassy Walls to Art Fair Halls

Jean-Pierre’s art travels widely. Two of his large-scale pieces hang permanently in the U.S. Embassy in Niamey, Niger, commissioned in 2019. Others can be found in embassies in Benin, Malawi, and the Haitian Embassy in Washington D.C. His catalog from Niger sits on the table, quietly radiating its own diplomatic presence.

“It’s great to be here in Switzerland,” he says, “but I also want to bring Brooklyn and Chicago into the room. We all belong in these spaces.”

Soft power, in his view, isn’t just about being visible—it’s about being present. “Art gives us a place to rest our eyes,” he says, “but also a way to stay alert. To stay connected. To imagine better.”

The Classroom Is a Canvas

When he’s not showing internationally, Jean-Pierre teaches in the Fine Arts Department at Howard University. “This fall will be my third year,” he shares. “It’s a huge honor. Sometimes I think of it as community service—the time, the energy—but the return is exponential.”

His students come from across the Black world: Ghana, Nigeria, Jamaica, Atlanta, Chicago. And they’re not waiting for anyone’s permission to be global. “They’re hosting Nigerian wedding parties without the weddings,” he laughs. “They’re remixing traditions. That’s culture in motion.”

In many ways, Howard is his other canvas—a living quilt of talent, ambition, and shared roots. “I learned a lot there,” he says. “Now I get to give back.”

CJP, VOLTA Basel 2025

What VOLTA Offered

VOLTA’s 20th anniversary this year wasn’t just a celebration of longevity—it was a signal of direction. And artists like Jean-Pierre are part of what’s making that direction more intentional.

He wasn’t tucked in a corner as an afterthought. He was fully in the mix, holding space alongside artists from Seoul, Shenzhen, Nairobi, and beyond. “Nothing worth doing is done alone,” he said at one point, reflecting on the curatorial process with The Bishop Gallery and VOLTA.

“This was about real collaboration. Not just showing up, but showing up together.”

Final Thought: Drift, Don’t Disappear

Diaspora often gets framed as loss. But in Jean-Pierre’s work, it becomes dialogue. Reflection. Continuity. His figures don’t drift into erasure—they drift into recognition.

From Howard halls to VOLTA walls, from U.S. embassies to art fair floors, his presence reminds us that legacy doesn’t need permission. It just needs to be lived, taught, painted—and shared.

Key Takeaways:

• “Drifting Once Again” reframes diaspora as connection—not rupture. Two figures gaze across the Atlantic, not in longing, but in recognition.

• Haitian proverbs ground the work in ancestral rhythm.

  
  

  “Behind every mountain is another mountain” becomes a life lens, not just a motif.

• From embassies to classrooms, Jean-Pierre’s art carries soft power.

  
  

  He brings Brooklyn, Chicago, and the Caribbean into every space he enters.

• The Bishop Gallery created a booth that felt like global and diaspora community, not simply art commerce.

  
  

  A place where a Howard professor could hold space—and dance breaks—in equal measure.