Kanaval

Leah Gordon's photographs of Jacmel Carnival capture the energy and creativity of the event, while her oral histories provide insight into the historical narratives of the Madigra troupes. Her work explores the interrelated histories of the Caribbean plantation system, the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, the Enclosure Acts, and the creation of the British working class.

Format: Hardback
Publication date: 26 November 2021
Publisher: Here Press

Before Carnival, the Madigra troupes of the Haitian port town of Jacmel enact and subvert myth, legends, and the nation's own histories, their improvisational costumes and surreal narratives a Vodou-charged blend of folk memory, political satire, and personal revelation. Here, the Zèl Maturin, satin-clad devils in papier-mâché masks, hinged wooden wings clapping on their backs, do battle against Sen Michèl Arkanj and his army of pastors; further on, the Chaloska in their cows-tooth-adorned masks transform the feared early twentieth-century police chief Charles Oscar Étienne into a metaphor for the corrupting nature of absolute power. At the crossroads, the horned Lanse Kòd, their skin shining blacker than black with a mixture of cane syrup and charcoal, perform press-ups before running amok through the crowds. Meanwhile, a trouser-clad donkey, led by the leaf-skirted Atibruno troupe, speaks into a mobile phone and eats fried plantain, to show the world that the peasants are as good as anyone, that all donkeys are important. Here too are lone, idiosyncratic characters: Geralda, the single mother of a starving child, the mermaid-in-disguise Madanm Lasirèn, and Bounda pa Bounda, who plays out a Vodou vision revealed by a treetop-dwelling spirit. Leah Gordon has been photographing Jacmel Carnival and recording oral histories with its participants since 1995. Her photographs in 'Kanaval are stripped of kinesis and exuberance. She uses a sixty-year-old Rolleicord medium-format twin-lens-reflex camera, and shoots onto black and white negative film.

Weight: 864g
Dimension: 244 x 288 x 21 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781999349479