On containers in the heart of the city’s bustling historic center, the organizers of the festival decided to display the photographs of Paolo Woods, Leslie Searles and Guillaume Coadou on 2 x 3 meter tarps. These images are perhaps those closest to the population.
Paolo Woods’ series PEPE is an inventory of T-shirts bearing various slogans. “Pèpè” is a reference to second-hand clothing from American thrift stores sold in the former slave market in Port-au-Prince. These funny, suggestive and sometimes inappropriate shirts are purchased out of necessity, and what they communicate is not always clear to the people who wear them. This approach is a comment on one aspect of the relationship between Haiti and the United States.
Following the earthquake, Leslie Searles, a Peruvian photographer, visited a small Brazlian town on the border of Peru where some 250 Haitian refugees have fled. Following a crackdown of a Brazilian immigration law in response to the mass arrival of exiles to the country, these refugees are trapped in precarious, makeshift camps, and any attempt to break away and find a better home is thwarted at the border.
Finally, the disturbing photographs of Guillaume Coadou are staged works making reference to voodoo rituals and pilgrimage ceremonies. The photographer surrounded himself with professional actors, whom he asks to act out scenes from daily life in Haiti, sometimes even outside the country.
EXHIBITIONS
– Pèpè by Paolo Woods
– La tercera Frontera by Leslie Searles
– L’Exil intérieur et Chango by Guillaume Coadou
Place des palmistes
Cayenne
Guyane
