Haiti Before the Earthquake by Robert J. Mitchell
on view October 22 - November 28, 2010
OPENING RECEPTION Friday October 22, 7 - 10 p.m. with a free concert by billy with Justin Lewis.
Artist Statement
I want to share with you photographs of Haiti taken before the earthquake of January 12, 2010.
I visited the countryside and the now devastated cities of Port-au-Prince, Jacmel, and Léogâne. I also visited the northern city of Cap-Haïtian and the UNESCO World Heritage Sites of the Citadel (1805-20) and Sans-Souci Palace (1810-13), which were not affected by the earthquake.
Many of the people and places I photographed are now gone. It was a privilege to honor their lives. At the time, I wanted people in the United States to feel a shared bond with Haitians, because we both established the first democracies in the Americas. Following the earthquake, this need for compassion is even greater.
I think of myself as a politically commited photographer. I concentrate on the everyday lives of market women, farmers, sugar cane workers, the young and the old. I hope my photographs help you understand a people capable of remarkable acts of courage and dignity in the face of global economic deprivation and natural disaster. My artistic interpretation of Haiti seeks to lessen the distance between Haitians and Americans by re-examining democracy in a global context.
These photographs are paradoxically about beauty-a form of spirituality. I photographed scenes of scorched earth and the difficult lives of rural Haitians using a 2¼ film camera. The slow process of setting-up shots-loading film, taking a light reading, setting f-stop, speed, and focus-let my subjects relax their snapshot personas and express their true personality. I believe my strategy resulted in a unique body of work, which asks viewers to expand their ideas of where beauty resides.
These photographs are like a mirror, which reflect not darkness, but beauty. Therefore, they are elegantly lit, beautifully composed, and carefully cropped. Elegance, beauty, and care are all attributes of the people I met in Haiti.
My hostess, Madame Marèse Jean, for example, lives in a two-room house, yet her immaculately made bed reveals a much larger sense of grace. With the subtle tonalities of black-and-white film, I also tested the political idea that to be born with black skin is opposed to whiteness and light. I want viewers to linger in these images long enough to grasp the global politics of manual labor and the effects of environmental degradation upon Haitians.
This striving for beauty is very personal to me and the reason I have dedicated my life to art. I believe that art can take what is known but suppressed and make it visible. In my Haitian photographs, this means removing the masks of historic silences and superficial differences between two counties and making our shared humanity visible.
About the artist
Robert J. Mitchell is co-director of Zephyr Gallery in Louisville, Kentucky.
Mitchell’s MFA is from the University of Chicago and his BFA from the Atlanta College of Art. He has had solo exhibitions in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Frankfort, and Louisville.
The Artist Will Donate a Portion of Sales to Haitian Earthquake Relief.
