May 20, 2018

We have now added annotated commentary to some of Aponte’s descriptions of the láminas of his “book of paintings.” One of our goals in creating the website was to make the archival trial record, where Aponte describes his book, as accessible as possible. The annotations clarify portions of the trial record and help explain the visual references Aponte makes in his images. To access the commentary, visit the “Book of Paintings” page. A table at the bottom lists each page in the book and its corresponding contents. If commentary is available, a check mark appears in the “Commentary” column in the table.

For now, we have added scholarly commentary from published works, which are referenced in the Bibliography section on the site.

January 27, 2018

We added a page about the Visionary Aponte: Black Art and Freedom exhibit in English and Spanish. The pages include an exhibit overview, artist bios, and press clips.

December 9, 2017

In honor of the opening of Visionary Aponte: Black Art and Freedom exhibit this week, we wanted to post some site updates! Also, a huge thank you to the Alex Gil, Kelly Baker Josephs, and Kaiama Glover for inviting us to talk about the website (and exhibit) and make our more public launch at The Caribbean Digital IV conference last week.

We have added a brief biography of Aponte. We also updated and expanded the introduction to both the trial transcript and the “book of paintings.” The first iteration of the Image Gallery now features an expanded introduction and completed explanations for each image. (Much gratitude to Pilar Garrett for her insightful edits.) We also refreshed the look of the image gallery with a beautiful template for each image page. Thanks to Eric Anderson for his wonderful work on the template and other improvements to the site. Lastly, we also revised the introduction to Aponte’s Library.

The Aponte’s Havana map continues to be a work in progress as do the annotations to the trial transcript.

July 11, 2017

We added links to the available digital versions of the books in Aponte’s library. For information on each book (including links to the digital versions), click on a book spine from the Aponte’s Library page.

April 17, 2017

We super soft launched our way into the world last week!

The website is still very much under construction, so we will use this space to post site updates and new content. Here is what we are working on: adding annotations to the trial transcript, finalizing the first image gallery, writing up a biographical sketch of Aponte, and developing a map of Aponte’s Havana. There is a lot in the pipeline! Check here for updates and follow the hashtag #DigitalAponte on Twitter for news.