Uncovering Haiti’s Lost Artwork, part I

By Liz Williams

On Jan. 12, 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake shook the nation of Haiti, reducing businesses, homes, and entire towns to ruins within minutes. Over one million people became homeless that day, and an estimated 300,000 lost their lives. Amid all the rubble, hundreds of years’ worth of Haitian culture was instantly destroyed, leaving the population of weakened survivors clinging to an unseen collective identity.

Richard Kurin, Director of the Smithsonian Recovery Project, visited campus on Sept. 26 to talk about the process of rebuilding a broken culture in Haiti. His lecture, titled “Restoring Haiti’s Damaged Art,” was the fourth event in the “Eyes on Haiti Fall Programming,” coordinated by Prof. Janet Powers.

Kurin currently serves as the Smithosonian Institution’s Under Secretary for History, Art, and Culture, and oversees most of the Smithsonian museums. During his lecture, he showed photos of the devastation caused by the 2010 earthquake and discussed the ways in which he and a group of people have begun to resotre Haiti’s lost culture of visual arts.

According to Kurin, several major art centers in Haiti were ruined during the earthquake. What little artwork survived was thrown into two large trailers, where it sat for months collecting mold and beginning to deteriorate.

Within five months of the earthquake, Kurin and a group of Haitians and Americans began the Haiti Cultural Recovery Project. According to its website, the project works to “rescue, recover, safeguard and help restore Haitian artwork, artifacts, documents, media and architectural features damanged and endangered by the earthquake and its aftermath.”

Continued at Uncovering Haiti’s Lost Artwork, part II