SUPPORT

LAURA HEYMAN
Pa Bouje Ankò: Don't Move Again

» See Heyman's Light Work exhibition

The images seen here were part of the Ghetto Biennale, which took place in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, November–December 2009. The work began with the following question; "Can someone from the first world see/photograph within the third world without voyeurism or objectification?" For the period of the Biennale, I tested this query by opening a formal portrait studio in the Grande Rue and inviting members of the local community to have their portraits made. Formally, the images followed the example of artists like Mike Disfarmer, James Van Der Zee and Seydou Keita, who used the commercial and utilitarian aspects of their practice to portray their subjects with a consideration and respect that was both clear-eyed and beautiful.

The difficulty was how to avoid enacting the familiar and problematic situation wherein the first world artist takes home a photograph of "the other" as souvenir. It seemed quite possible to me that any interaction between a first world photographer and third world subject would smack of imperial beneficence, especially if that interaction was instigated by the first world. I was interested in mitigating this possibility and attempted to do so in two ways. First, I had a conversation with everyone who sat for a portrait. These discussions ranged from the how each sitter wanted to be seen/photographed, to what I though of Haiti’s international reputation, to what each sitter thought about the process and project itself. Second, I set up a darkroom in the hotel to process and print the work, so that each sitter would receive a print of their portrait before I left Port-au-Prince. The life of these images was to be entirely determined by their subjects, potentially occupying a place of importance in the home, or as an exchange between loved ones.

Before leaving for Haiti, I was concerned about how the context of these images might change once they were removed from their original environment. I was highly conscious of everything that stood in the way of a real exchange between a subject from the first world and a subject from the third world—race, class, opportunity and lack of opportunity, agency, the ability to move freely through the world; all of the things that make communication difficult, as they are always present, but rarely discussed.

What I found when I arrived in Haiti was that I was working within a community of fellow artists and their families and neighbors. I was treated not as a visitor, but as a peer. The community provided me with a great deal of assistance in completing the project—in fact I would not have been able to complete it successfully without them.

The work I undertook in the Grande Rue was meant in some ways to prove that I was both aware of the present and past difficulties between Haiti and the United States and compelled to address them. I didn’t realize at the time that this attitude was both colonial and paternalistic, as was my idea that the context of these images was something I could designate or control. The context of any artwork is constantly shifting, and the context of these particular images has now shifted again. In addition to whatever they were initially, the images are now a record and a memorial. Some of the people pictured here are living. Some are missing. Some are dead. Beyond that, there isn’t much more I can say.

—Laura Heyman, 2009