Black and white archival photograph of a group of women sitting under a tree with small cuts and burns obscuring portions of the background, and creating a double image on the reverse side.

Belle’s series, "Swarm", delves into the archives of the Danish West Indies. In this body of work,she alters photographs by making hundreds of cuts and burns, bending the time and space ofstaged images from the colonial era. Her interventions disrupt the conventional narratives ofsocial status and wealth represented in the imagery. La Vaughn Belle challenges viewers toconfront the complexities of history, nature, and memory. The manipulation of thesephotographs create a double image on the back. These works are framed to be mounted fromthe side to enable viewers to see both the front and back of her work.