Blog
Deserving Existence 2
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Haiti's been in the news a lot in the last few months. Just since I left in March, all the big news programs have covered the food riots, the forced resignation of the prime minister, and the unfortunate trend of eating dirt cookies for survival, plus Nightline aired a special investigation program on "how to buy a child in 10 days" in Port-au-Prince. And just a couple weeks ago, right before I made a short return trip, Haiti made the news again as one of the most popular musical groups in the country, Barikad Crew, lost 3 of its members in a tragic car accident. Sure, I may be more prone to pay attention to all of this news, but it seems with so much happening, it would be nearly impossible for anyone to avoid at least hearing some small bit of factual information about Haiti. Yet, I still frequently encounter people who have no idea what Haiti is or where it is or what is going on there.
When I mention to people that I work in Haiti, they more often than not assume that it's somewhere in Africa. They see the photos of black people living in impoverished conditions and, not knowing any better, they think that it must be in Africa. When I first decided to go to Haiti last year, a lot of people who knew me, but didn't know Haiti figured that it was in Africa, simply, I think, because they knew that I had always traveled and worked in Africa before. So, since they didn't know where Haiti was, and I was going there, it seemed reasonable that it must be in Africa. But it has been incomprehensible to me lately as I notice Haiti popping up more and more in the news, that people would still be so clueless about this nation that is just a few hundred miles of the shore of the US. If you mention any other Caribbean nation, Jamaica, Cuba, the Bahamas, even the Dominican Republic, and Americans will know that they're just south of us. They will probably even know someone who has spent their spring break there or taken a cruise there.
Even just this weekend, as I was promoting HAPI's products at a trade show, a woman came up to the booth and was looking at some items, so I pointed out to her that "all these items were made by a group of Haitian artisans," and she looked at me completely confidently and said, "Oh, so they come from South Africa." I'm sure I didn't hide the stunned look from my face very well. And it was really the same way when I went to Mali. I don't know how many times people said, "Oh, isn't that where the tsunami hit?" Or, "Isn't that a city in India?"
I don't expect everyone to be an expert at geography or international issues, but is it really too much to ask to just reserve a little space in their minds for places like Haiti? Especially Haiti, because it has such a history of (not so agreeable) relations with the US. But I guess, as long as we don't even recognize its existence, then we don't have to acknowledge the detrimental effects that those relations have had on the country and its people. Early in the 1800's, when Haiti first gained its independence, for decades, the US refused to recognize it as an actual nation, yet we continued to trade with them for sugar, rice, and other products. And we're essentially still doing the same thing today, pretending that we can't see them there, yet exploiting their labor and land for our own benefit.
And I think, that all of this is why I am attracted to Haiti as an artist. As a country, in this giant world, it is, and always has been, an outsider. A tiny little voice screaming in a crowd of people with headphones on. And what's the point of making art about something that everyone already knows and understands? Art is pointless if it doesn't communicate some greater truth that forces the viewers to look beyond themselves. And I, as an artist, am automatically an outsider of mainstream society myself, so a nation like Haiti, is a larger representation of such exclusion. So I identify with Haitians as outsiders and possibly see their struggle for recognition as similar to an artist's struggle for understanding.
This weekend, at that trade show, I had a couple of my paintings hanging in the booth near a large display of the Haitians' paintings, and one women came in and really loved the Haitian paintings. Then another woman that she was with pointed out my pieces and the first woman commented, "Well those are nice, but they're too realistic for me. I prefer outsider art." And while I appreciate her interest in my students' work, and I, by no means, expect everyone to like my art, I thought to myself, "someone on the inside needs to make art about the outsiders to show who they really are, otherwise they just get exploited as naive, uneducated neanderthals." Which, obviously, couldn't be more absurd. These painters have just as much talent as many people walking around the states with Masters of Arts degrees, they just haven't been invested in, they just haven't been given the opportunities. It's not naive or primitive, it's just early genius. It's hungry art. Made by other humans not that different from you or me. And that's the point of my artwork, to express the beauty in our collective humanity.
When I mention to people that I work in Haiti, they more often than not assume that it's somewhere in Africa. They see the photos of black people living in impoverished conditions and, not knowing any better, they think that it must be in Africa. When I first decided to go to Haiti last year, a lot of people who knew me, but didn't know Haiti figured that it was in Africa, simply, I think, because they knew that I had always traveled and worked in Africa before. So, since they didn't know where Haiti was, and I was going there, it seemed reasonable that it must be in Africa. But it has been incomprehensible to me lately as I notice Haiti popping up more and more in the news, that people would still be so clueless about this nation that is just a few hundred miles of the shore of the US. If you mention any other Caribbean nation, Jamaica, Cuba, the Bahamas, even the Dominican Republic, and Americans will know that they're just south of us. They will probably even know someone who has spent their spring break there or taken a cruise there.
Even just this weekend, as I was promoting HAPI's products at a trade show, a woman came up to the booth and was looking at some items, so I pointed out to her that "all these items were made by a group of Haitian artisans," and she looked at me completely confidently and said, "Oh, so they come from South Africa." I'm sure I didn't hide the stunned look from my face very well. And it was really the same way when I went to Mali. I don't know how many times people said, "Oh, isn't that where the tsunami hit?" Or, "Isn't that a city in India?"
I don't expect everyone to be an expert at geography or international issues, but is it really too much to ask to just reserve a little space in their minds for places like Haiti? Especially Haiti, because it has such a history of (not so agreeable) relations with the US. But I guess, as long as we don't even recognize its existence, then we don't have to acknowledge the detrimental effects that those relations have had on the country and its people. Early in the 1800's, when Haiti first gained its independence, for decades, the US refused to recognize it as an actual nation, yet we continued to trade with them for sugar, rice, and other products. And we're essentially still doing the same thing today, pretending that we can't see them there, yet exploiting their labor and land for our own benefit.
And I think, that all of this is why I am attracted to Haiti as an artist. As a country, in this giant world, it is, and always has been, an outsider. A tiny little voice screaming in a crowd of people with headphones on. And what's the point of making art about something that everyone already knows and understands? Art is pointless if it doesn't communicate some greater truth that forces the viewers to look beyond themselves. And I, as an artist, am automatically an outsider of mainstream society myself, so a nation like Haiti, is a larger representation of such exclusion. So I identify with Haitians as outsiders and possibly see their struggle for recognition as similar to an artist's struggle for understanding.
This weekend, at that trade show, I had a couple of my paintings hanging in the booth near a large display of the Haitians' paintings, and one women came in and really loved the Haitian paintings. Then another woman that she was with pointed out my pieces and the first woman commented, "Well those are nice, but they're too realistic for me. I prefer outsider art." And while I appreciate her interest in my students' work, and I, by no means, expect everyone to like my art, I thought to myself, "someone on the inside needs to make art about the outsiders to show who they really are, otherwise they just get exploited as naive, uneducated neanderthals." Which, obviously, couldn't be more absurd. These painters have just as much talent as many people walking around the states with Masters of Arts degrees, they just haven't been invested in, they just haven't been given the opportunities. It's not naive or primitive, it's just early genius. It's hungry art. Made by other humans not that different from you or me. And that's the point of my artwork, to express the beauty in our collective humanity.
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