Image: Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, East Lansing
The Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University will open 'Laas / Absan / Peldía: Caribbean Cinema Cultures' on August 22, 2026, presenting an exhibition that examines Caribbean cinema through themes of loss, absence and mourning. The show is scheduled to remain on view in Gallery 103, the John and Susan Berding Family Foundation Gallery, through January 31, 2027.
The museum’s announcement places the exhibition within a broader fall season that also includes 'We Are This Land: Meditations on the Great American Experiment' and 'Rayyane Tabet: 128 Civics Questions'. The Broad said the museum will be temporarily closed from July 27 to August 21, 2026, in preparation for the installation, reopening on August 22 with the new exhibitions on view. The museum also notes that admission is free and that its regular hours are Wednesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
According to the exhibition text, 'Laas / Absan / Peldía: Caribbean Cinema Cultures' is built around the question, “How do you mourn a film?” The project considers the history of cinema in the Caribbean alongside the conditions that have shaped it, including slavery, colonialism, climate crisis and economic developmentalism. The museum frames the exhibition as a response to both the preservation of moving-image works in the region and the losses that have resulted in gaps within the cinematic canon.
The exhibition also addresses the way Caribbean people and the region have been represented in popular cinemas such as Hollywood. The museum’s text points to racist depictions, propaganda and exploitation of land and communities, while also raising questions about whether all images need to be seen. At the same time, the exhibition acknowledges cinema’s role in preserving memory and in holding on to people who are no longer alive.
The title 'Laas / Absan / Peldía' refers to notions of loss or absence and is stylized in Jamaican Patwah/Guyanese Creole, Haitian Kreyòl and dialects of the Hispanic Caribbean. The museum says the exhibition flows through Caribbean cinema cultures as shared, though distinct, experiences, and links this conversation to recurring debates around the so-called “death of cinema” amid technological change.
Artists featured in the exhibition include manuel arturo abreu, Zoe Butler, La Vaughn Belle, Ojos Caribe, Mahlet Cuff, Leandro Feal, Mónica Félix, Richard Fung, Sofía Gallisá Muriente and Natalia Lassalle Morillo, Rey Parlá, Samuel Sarmiento, Michaëlle Sergile and Christin Washington. The exhibition is organized by the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University and curated by Dalina A. Perdomo Álvarez, assistant curator; Pedro Noel Doreste Rodríguez, assistant professor of film studies at MSU; and Diaspora Solidarities Lab fellows Zoe Butler, KV Bailey, Luis Prieto and Nehemías Toro Padrón, with support from the MSU Federal Credit Union.
