Leah Gordon, whose exhibition of photos of Haiti, The Invisibles, is currently showing at the Riflemaker Gallery, says she owes her fascination with the country to the late Jill Dando. Presenting an edition of the BBC’s Holiday programme which focused on Haiti’s neighbour the Dominican Republic Dando warned tourists not to confuse the two countries as Haiti was a sink of despair, corruption and military coups and violated the Caribbean dream of cocktails and steel bands on every score. Within a few days Gordon was on her way to Haiti.
Gordon’s many encounters with Haiti began in 1991 and looking at her photos it’s hard not to think that whatever contrary impulse first drew her there was simply forestalling the inevitable. For someone interested in the “boundaries between art, religion and anthropology” Haiti with its panoply of Catholic saints and Vodou spirits and rich traditions of painting and sculpture, almost begins to look like an obvious destination.
Gordon points out that photography’s literalist aspects – the technical processes used to make the images and their status as a form of on the record reportage – mean that it’s often seen as an enemy of the divine and spiritual. Using a medium that has “observed and policed but never taken part” Gordon has produced a series of photos of carnival participants that almost seem to pre-empt this charge by if not taking part, taking apart and separating the different elements of carnival and showing how they inhabit everyday life in Haiti, rather than just appearing for special events.
Two boys masquerading as slaves stand in an empty street. They carry chains and wear body stockings like second skins that cover their faces too. One boy poses, hand on hip, the other crouches as though, sightless himself, he is trying to dodge the camera’s eye. In another photo a man with a pipe and white paint dappling his shoulders sits and watches the world go by. He is Pa Roro, a character who represents the life and traditions of Haiti’s peasants.
Looking at this camouflage of masks and painted skin strolling the streets does give a sense of people vanishing into their history – Gordon believes carnival in Haiti recounts a history “not determined by state curricula, television adaptations or text books”.
Haiti is a small country with a big history, some might say too much damn history to be absorbed with comfort or carnivals. Gordon has returned to the country since January’s devastating earthquake and some of the photos in this exhibition and its accompanying book have been sold to raise money for the earthquake’s victims. Most of these photos like the serene image of a girl cradling a bird (see above) were taken before the earthquake. The pictures persist but almost inevitably some must now be of survivors and others of those who were lost.
The Invisibles runs until 10 September 2010 at Riflemaker, 79 Beak Street, London W1F 9SU
Image: Girl with bird, Cite Soleil 1993 © Leah Gordon
