The mainstream media image of Haiti has always been bleak, an image that is continuously presented in a negative light to detract from the country’s impressive history. Gaining its independence in 1804, Haiti was the only nation in the world established as a result of a successful slave revolt, and the only nation in the western hemisphere to have defeated three European superpowers (Britain, France, and Spain). Like its people, Haiti’s culture is singular and it is strong. Its deep ties to its African roots have given the country the power and the will to survive and endure many trials and tribulations of being the only black nation in the Western hemisphere.
Chantal Regnault (b. 1945; French), “Easter Monday at LAKOU SOUVNANS”, 2000. Inkjet print.
Courtesy of Chantal Regnault, © Chantal Regnault.
Photography is a form of memory made physical, and shared with the world as a means to preserving a moment in time that no longer exists. It has an immediacy and an intensity that few other mediums share, and it is with the photograph that we may bare witness and reclaim our shared past. Haitian photography developed in complex and compelling ways, providing a broad array of viewpoints from which we my gaze upon the nation as it came into its own. This subject has been a longtime passion of Edouard Duval-Carrié who teamed up with photographer Maggie Steber, to guest-curate From Within and Without: The History of Haitian Photography, the first comprehensive museum survey of photography in Haiti, now on view at the NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale through October 4, 2015.
Carl Phillipe Juste (b. 1963; Haitian American), “Ruined Prayer”, January 12, 2012. Giclée print.
Courtesy of Carl Juste/Miami Herald Staff, © Carl Phillipe Juste.
Featuring nearly 350 works from the late 19th century to the present, From Within and Without features documentary, commercial, and official state photography, along with photographs from studio archives, family snapshots, and graphic arts that incorporate photography and film, documenting Haiti’s public and domestic architecture, its landscape, political history, natural disasters, and events. Included in the show are works by Haitian, American, British, French, and anonymous photographers, providing a wide vantage point by which we may observe the many different sides of Haiti over the past two centuries.
Carl Phillipe Juste (b. 1963; Haitian American),”Ready to Vote”, February 7, 2006. Giclée print.
Courtesy of Carl Juste/Miami Herald Staff, © Carl Phillipe Juste.
From Within and Without provides a visual history of the nation, as life has been lived, revealing the ways in which photography has played an essential part contemporary life. The photographs selected for the exhibition bare witness to the island’s triumphs and tragedies, allowing us to reflect on the ways in which we use the photograph as both an object of visual contemplation and evidence of the past, writing the historic record on silver gelatin paper run through chemical baths. We consider the ways in which we know a people and a nation by the images we observe, and we realize how important it is for such in-depth surveys to be done, for it is in the expansion of our visual language that we can begin to understand the greatness of Haiti, its people, and its culture.
From Within and Without: The History of Haitian Photography is on view at NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale now through October 4, 2015.
Header: Andrea Baldeck (b. 1950; American), “Figu ou se Paspo ou ( Your Face is Your Passport)” from The Heart of Haiti series, 1996. Inkjet print made from scan of the original gelatin silver print. Courtesy of Andrea Baldeck. © Andrea Baldeck .
Miss Rosen is a New York-based writer, curator, and brand strategist. There is nothing she adores so much as photography and books. A small part of her wishes she had a proper library, like in the game of Clue. Then she could blaze and write soliloquies to her in-and-out-of-print loves.
