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Stories of Haiti
Durham, NC - Note: In addition to preparing a resin block for the Haiti art exhibit, each artist wrote a "story block" that provides a narrative description of the content and process of making each contribution. Below is the story block from Professor Deborah Jenson, which goes with the image above. At bottom, author Madison Smartt Bell writes a story for his image below.
Agwe and LaSiren in a Tent
by Deborah Jenson
The aquatic loa or vodou spirits Agwe and LaSiren preside over the underwater realm known as "anba dlo." In Haitian art they are shown heralding the arrival of Columbus, and flicking their magnificent tails in the wake of the slave ships across the Middle Passage. Agwe and his merman cohort cruise in full military regalia through the spaces of the maritime crossing to "Guinen" or the African Afterlife, for slaves who sought that return through death by drowning. What happened to Agwe and LaSiren in the earthquake of January 2010? I imagine them in an underwater tent, regal, outlined by pearls and jewels. The IDP (internally displaced persons) camps also appear in waves that are formed of photos of tents from the Port-au-Prince camps, and in the motif of amputee prostheses. Were Agwe and LaSiren beached in the earthquake, clumsily adapting their tails to life in the camps? Or are there IDP camps under the sea, anba dlo, where earthquake survivors float free and navigate shoals artfully in their role as attendants to Agwe and the mermaid?
by Madison Smartt Bell
Touching his right hand to the knife still clipped in his trouser pocket, he moved into the shadows of the bamboo and strained his attention toward the roadside trees. If it's not your time, he remembered, Ghede won't take you.
No, he thought, with a weird joy, we don't kill for no reason. If they'd come for him now he was ready either way. On the far side of the compound, the house of Micheline's family was shut tight and dark. It might as well have been in some other galaxy-- if he were attacked he'd never reach that shelter. Somewhere high up on the mountain, the voice of a deep drum had opened. A figure appeared on the roadside, as if it had been reeled in by the sound, and then another, then half a dozen more, flitting from tree to tree like silver fish in the starlight. They wore dark cloths wrapped around their heads and in their hands were what appeared to be long knives.
Delamarche felt his own pulse move with the drums-- now there were three of them-- but he remained standing where he was, the bamboo whispering at his back. From the crown of the old almond tree, the serpent lwa Boan was rising, figured in the pattern of the stars. It was he the drums were calling, three drums and the jerk and stuttering sway of the dancers shifting from tree to tree. The knife-objects beating in their hands were flamboyant pods they used to make the rattle of the spirit. They were not coming for Delamarche. It was as if they could not even see him. The drums, and Boan's need to be, pulled them over the road and across the ravine and up the mountain trail.
When they had passed, the risen constellation held the sky together, shaped it as the drums modeled the silence. Here, when you looked into darkness, there was God.
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