Haiti Madi 12 Janvye 2010 (Haiti, Tuesday, January 12, 2010)

Myrlande Constant's Haiti Madi 12 Janvye, brightly colored square textile completely covered with elaborate beadwork. The beadwork depicts scenes in Haiti after the earthquake in 2010, including dead, injured and grieving people. It also depicts figures from the Vodun religion and related iconography.
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Myrlande Constant created Haiti Madi 12 Janvye 2010 after the catastrophic 2010 earthquake. Over the course of a year, she filled the canvas with scenes she had witnessed in her own community. Tombs and the cityscape converge on the same picture plane, collapsing into each other. As Constant said, "On that day the city became a cemetery." Images of Haitians experiencing pain, grief, and chaos appear alongside individuals helping one another. Gede, Grann Brijit, and Bawon Samdi, lwa of death and sexual regeneration, command the foreground. Gede, ordinarily a joyful trickster, is on his knees, weeping. His disbelief echoes the words stitched on the two tablets: "Look at our suffering! We cannot count how many thousands of bodies have died, have disappeared, in the earthquake on 4:53 pm, Tuesday, January 12, 2010."

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    PEOPLE

  • Myriam Chancy smiling outdoors

    Myriam J. A.

    Chancy

    Hartley Burr Alexander Chair in the Humanities

    Scripps College

  • Kyrah Malika Daniels wearing a brightly colored shirt and glasses

    Kyrah Malika

    Daniels

    Assistant Professor of African American Studies, Emory University

    Faculty Co-Coordinator, Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program

  • Mamyrah Douge Prosper standing oiutside with her arms crossed, wearing a blue dress

    Mamyrah

    Dougé-Prosper

    Assistant Professor of Global and International Studies

    University of California, Irvine

  • Jean Daniel Lafontant wearing a dark suit against a dark red background

    Jean-Daniel

    Lafontant

    Oungan (Vodou priest)

    Executive Director, Haitian Cultural Foundation

  • Jerry Philogene wearing a black shirt against a dark grey background

    Jerry

    Philogene

    Associate Professor, Chair of Black Studies Program

    Middlebury College

  • Katherine Smith wearing a green top, with a piece of a Myrlande Constant artwork visible behind her

    Katherine

    Smith

    Former Curatorial and Research Associate of Haitian Arts

    Fowler Museum at UCLA

  • Gina Ulysse with bright red hair against a brick background

    Gina Athena

    Ulysse

    Professor, Graduate Director

    Feminist Studies Department, University of California, Santa Cruz

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