Jaden Sekrè: A Story of Culture, Community, and Collaboration

North Miami, Florida | Mural by Ricardo Dieguez and Nate Peti-Dieu

Jaden Sekrè, meaning “Secret Garden” in Haitian Creole, grew from the vision and patronage of journalist, historian, and community advocate Nadege Green, in collaboration with Haitian artist Nate Peti-Dieu and myself, Cuban-American artist Ricardo Dieguez.

From the beginning, this mural was meant to be more than a colorful landscape. It became a meeting place between cultures, artistic voices, spirituality, ancestry, and the lived experiences of the South Florida community.

A Haitian Art Fusion

When Nadege invited me into the project, part of the challenge was to create something that drew from the visual language of traditional Haitian art while still feeling authentically like my own work.

That required more than borrowing an aesthetic.

I spent time studying Haitian painting, its colors, landscapes, figures, symbolism, and distinctive ways of telling stories. But the mural also grew from something much closer to home: conversations, friendships, spiritual traditions, and my own relationship with South Florida's Haitian community.

Rather than attempting to reproduce traditional Haitian art, I approached Jaden Sekrè as a fusion.

The landscape became a kind of visual patchwork. Hills, homes, pathways, water, vegetation, and small figures moving through the environment gradually formed a world where Haiti, memory, imagination, and contemporary South Florida could meet.

It became a story within a story.

Many Hands Create a Story

That story could not have existed in the same way without the people behind it.

Nadege's vision and support created the space for the mural to exist in the first place. Her work documenting Black and Haitian communities in South Florida, preserving stories, and supporting artists gave the project a cultural foundation that went far beyond simply decorating a wall.

Nate brought another dimension entirely.

As a Haitian artist, his perspective, tremendous work ethic, attention to detail, and personal relationship with the culture became an essential part of the mural. Watching him populate the landscape with its people and smaller details reinforced something I have come to appreciate more and more throughout my career:

Public art does not always have to speak with one voice.

Sometimes its greatest strength comes from allowing different hands, histories, and perspectives to meet on the same wall.

Art as Memory

For me, Jaden Sekrè also became a reflection on ancestry.

The people who came before us do not only survive through history books or photographs. They remain present through stories, music, spirituality, food, language, gestures, colors, and the ways communities continue to create.

As artists, we inherit pieces of those worlds.

We rearrange them. We interpret them through our own experiences. And sometimes, if we listen carefully enough, we create something that allows another person to recognize a piece of themselves.

That is what Jaden Sekrè ultimately became for me.

Not simply my vision, Nate's vision, or Nadege's vision, but something created through the intersection of all three, alongside the larger cultural and ancestral currents surrounding us.

Years later, the mural remains a reminder of why I value collaborative and community-centered public art.

A wall can become more than a surface. It can become a place where memory, culture, and imagination are allowed to live together.

I remain deeply grateful to Nadege Green, Nate Peti-Dieu, everyone who contributed to the project, and the communities and ancestors whose stories continue to inspire the work.

Ayibobo. Ashé. 🙏🏽

For mural commissions, public art collaborations, and site-specific artwork, visit RicardoDieguez.org.

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