Leah Gordon’s Kanaval @ Photofusion
Intimidating; intoxicating; terrifying – people have tried to put their reactions into words, but nothing compares to standing in the room with the photographs.
Taken by Leah Gordon in Jacmel, southern Haiti, over a period of 13 years, the snapshots feel like a key-hole view to another way of life.
“Haiti is an antidote to the apathy in our society,” Leah says. “There’s a nationwide participation in culture, rather than an elite creating it for it to be consumed.”
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The power of the pictures shows a grassroots performance which effortlessly eclipses so many of London’s big-budget shows.
Taken during pre-Lenten Mardi Gras street carnival, their simplicity makes a mockery of highfalutin’ shows such as Alexander McQueen’s latest collaboration at Sadler’s Wells.
“Performance is not allocated to actors, it’s a way of life,” Leah, an aspiring photographer since the age of seven, explains.
From the politicians to the poorest, in Haiti there isn’t an exclusive hierarchy when it comes to self expression.”
Tied in with the influence of the Vodou religion, carnival is a particular time of transformation.
Take Madame Lasiren, for example. She is a he (Andre Ferner, 59 years old) who wears a dress; hat; mask; necklace and gloves to carnival because Lasiren is a fish and ‘she has to disguise herself as a woman to be at Mardi Gras’.
All the text which accompanies the photographs defy expectations, especially in a country which is generally associated with images of destitution.
“In Creole they call it ‘monte chwal’, which translates as ‘the spirit is riding you like a horse’,” Leah says.
“Fiction becomes as strong as reality and the stories that arise are wonderful.”
From Ellesmere Port, Merseyside, Leah, 47, says she didn’t chose photography for the adventures it would bring, but that encountering Haiti has been the best thing to have come from following her craft.
Shot on black and white negatives with a Rollieflex medium format camera, Leah refuses to be a part of the digital revolution.
“The universe is built on spherical shapes, not squares. Film, at its most minute, is spherical in shape, whereas pixels are square,” she says.
Whichever way you see the world, make sure you take a glimpse through Leah’s eyes when looking for inspiration.
● Leah Gordon, Kanaval, runs at Photofusion 17A Electric Lane, Brixton, until April 24. Free. Tues-Sat 10am-6pm. See www.photo fusion.org and www.leahgordon.co.uk
● Leah Gordon talk and screening with John Cussans, author of Voodo Terror: (mis)representations of voodoo and western cultural anxieties, is Tuesday, April 21, at 7.15pm.
● The Book of Vodou: Charms and Rituals to Empower Your Life, by Leah Gordon, is available from Barron’s Educational Series
Permalink | March 27, 2009