un-graying
Note: This series was created in collaboration with Rodolph Lapointe, Peterson Baptiste, and Moise Saintime.
I first traveled to Port-au-Prince six months after the massive 2010 earthquake and was alarmed to witness the countless buildings that lay ripped open at the seams. When I returned to Haiti again - one year after the earthquake - most of the rubble was untouched. The buildings that remained standing were painted in bright colors, exuberant color is a hallmark of Haitian visual culture. But the rubble blighted the city with ominous gray a physical reminder of the immense human suffering and enormous loss caused by the goudou-goudou (the Haitian neologism for the tremblor). Along with a team of Haitian collaborators we sought a way to respond to this tragedy. We decided to embellish some concrete ruins with paint. We saw this graffiti as a way of honoring the fallen buildings – and the people that they once housed – with one last moment of hued radiance. Our intent was akin to laying flowers on these unmarked graves. These pieces were temporary; our hope was for the color to also serve as a sliver of hope, a re-imagining the future of this city, when colored buildings will one day line the streets and the vibrant culture will again flourish and thrive. Click on thumbnails below to see full images. |