From Within and Without Opens in Fort Lauderdale

Exhibition Examines the History of Photography in Haiti

Photography has provided ongoing and important narratives of Haiti’s people, art, culture and politics since the advent of the medium in the 19th century. NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale will present the first comprehensive museum survey of photography in Haiti in its exhibition From Within and Without: The History of Haitian Photography.

The exhibition’s nearly 350 works from the late 19th century to the present engage the history of photography in Haiti with the work of contemporary artists and photographers, offering a fascinating perspective on life in Haiti and how political and natural crises have been perceived by native and foreign photographers and photojournalists. From Within and Without is organized by NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale and is curated by Haitian-American artist Edouard Duval-Carrié.

From Within and Without features documentary, commercial and official state photography, along with photographs from studio archives, family snapshots and graphic arts that incorporate photography and film, documenting Haiti’s public and domestic architecture, its landscape, political history, natural disasters, and events that exemplify the richness and vitality of Haiti’s past and present. By the late 19th century, photographic studios had been set up in major cities throughout Haiti to document the grandeur and respectability of Haiti’s political elites and wealthy merchant classes. Photography quickly became a tool for capturing Haitian life in broader terms as photographs were made of its less affluent classes, as well as aspects of the social unrest and injustice that plagued the island nation.

Haitians are survivors and bravely continue to preserve their traditions and assert their voices, as demonstrated in the riveting photographs of Pablo Butcher dating from 1986 and the overthrow of the Duvalier regime, to 1995, when the United States intervened to reinstate Jean-Bertrand Aristide as Haiti’s democratically elected leader. Butcher’s photographs of people gesturing in front of wall murals, which were destroyed during the earthquake, are not only compelling but are among the only documents of these historically significant murals. Maggie Steber’s photograph Mother’s Funeral, Port-au-Prince, Haiti, November 1987 and Paolo Wood’s Graduation, 2012, provide windows into multiple components of Haitian contemporary life.

The work will be on view through October 4. The NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale is located at One East Las Olas Boulevard, Fort Lauderdale. The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. with extended hours on Thursday until 8 p.m.; and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. The museum is closed Monday. Museum admission is free for members, NSU students, faculty, staff and children until 12; $12 adults; $8 seniors; $5 students (13-17) and non-NSU college students. Admission is free on Thursday evenings from 4:30 to 8 p.m. through Labor Day. Free admission for military and their families is also offered daily through Labor Day as part of Blue Star Museums. For information, please visit www.NSUArtMuseum.org or call 954-525-5500.