For over three years, six photographers from the collective Kolektif 2 Dimansyon (K2D) in Haiti documented and created a dialogue with the inhabitants of Kazal, a village north of Port-au-Prince in Haiti, to interrogate their memories of a massacre that happened in 1969. They encountered a troubled history that, to this day, has not yet been acknowledged. This project evolved into the exhibition ‘KAZAL – Narrating Haitian Memories’ curated by Nicola Lo Calzo.
-
Madame Eliazer, widow of Jérémie Eliazer, with a photo of her daughter Wisline in her hand who was abducted to coerce her husband to surrender. Kazal, 2015. | Photo: Jean Marc Hervé Abélard, “KAZAL – Narrating Haitian Memories” (2022), Framer Framed
‘KAZAL – Narrating Haitian Memories’ traces the memories of the dictatorship of François Duvalier in Haiti through the history of Kazal and the massacre of 1969, which has been obliterated from its official history. Soldiers and militiamen of the Duvalier regime brutally crushed a peasant uprising in Kazal. These peasants were protesting against the abusive taxes and the ban on using the river in their village.
Photography is the main form of narrating memory. At the same time, as a testimony to the past, photography is content and can be a source of historical knowledge; it reactivates the memory of a historical fact and invites its reflection. This project functions as a basis to explore how photography remains, however, a fragmentary, partial, subjective, polysemous testimony.
The curated images for the exhibition show an interpretation of reality and trauma that can never be completely grasped in the context of Haiti and by a post-Duvalier generation. For this presentation of K2D’s KAZAL project, the show features an additional perspective on memory narration from Haitian artist Tessa Mars. Mars explores the transformative strategies for survival, resistance, empowerment and healing that image making and storytelling propose.
-
The Mont-Carmel church built during the Duvalier regime as part of the Duvalierville project. Cabaret, 2016 | Photo: Moise Pierre, “KAZAL – Narrating Haitian Memories” (2022), Framer Framed
Kolektif 2 Dimansyon (K2D) is a group of journalists, photographers and filmmakers with a Haitian perspective created in October 2014. The creation of K2D is rooted in the members’ desire to enrich the Haitian media and artistic space with an alternative use of visual arts. The K2D member are Edine Célestin, Fabienne Douce, Reginald Louissaint Jr, Mackenson Saint Felix, Moïse Pierre, Georges H. Rouzier & Tessa, and Mars Dumas Maçon.
The exhibition is on view from May 27 to July 1, 2022. See details on Framer Framed.