For centuries, the Taino-Arawakan people and the Carib Indians lived on the island of Ayiti in the tranquil blue waters of the Caribbean. All of that changed when Christopher Columbus arrived on 4 December 1492, charging in alongside the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. The Conquistadors brought colonisation, slavery, and disease to the once idyllic land, wiping out the indigenous communities and repopulating the island with people stolen from Africa.
For centuries, the Haitian people have borne witness to acts of savagery and wickedness so cruel, they introduced the archetype of the zombie – modelled on the enslaved – to the world. And yet, they lived to tell the tale, preserving their history and culture in carnival. The annual masquerade is a magnificent celebration of a people who have survived against all odds, honouring their ancestors and passing their stories along from one generation to the next.
“After the Haiti Revolution, the formerly enslaved peasants had three tools for their ‘counter-plantation’ position: the Kreyòl language, the Lakou system and the belief-system and ritual practices of Vodou, a triumvirate of linguistic, territorial and cultural resistance,” says Gordon, who honours these forms in the new exhibitionGordon recalls arriving in Haiti at a time when “the local politics felt quite radical and hopeful.