In the September issue of ARTnews, OPC member Stevenson Swanson writes about the efforts of several American cultural institutions, including the Smithsonian, to repair the thousands of artworks damaged in the January earthquake that struck Haiti.
Swanson talks about how the story came to be: I was drawn to this story in part because, although most people know that Haiti is one of the poorest countries on earth, far fewer realize that it has a rich and flourishing art culture. I also thought it was interesting that the rescue effort was set in motion by a Minneapolis curator who is a retired Army major (a fairly unlikely background for a curator). One of her motivations in launching the conservation project was her experience working with the staff of the Baghdad museum after its looting in 2003. She had been frustrated by the international community’s lack of response to that disaster and didn’t want to see it repeated in Haiti.
This summer, amid the rubble still left from the January earthquake that devastated Haiti, a new conservation center opened in Port-au-Prince where American specialists have started the laborious task of repairing thousands of artworks damaged in the disaster. The effort, led by the Smithsonian Institution and funded by a mix of public and private money, is believed to be the most ambitious attempt by the American cultural community to respond to an international disaster.
“The highest priority of the Haitian government and the international humanitarian communities has rightly been to save lives and provide food, water, medical care, and shelter,” said Richard Kurin, the Smithsonian’s undersecretary for history, art, and culture, when the Haitian Cultural Recovery Project was announced in May. “However, Haiti’s rich culture, which goes back five centuries, is also in danger, and we have the expertise to help preserve that heritage.”
Although Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, it has one of the Caribbean’s richest artistic traditions, in part an outgrowth of the country’s voodoo culture. The earthquake exacted a heavy toll on Haiti’s art, ripping holes and gashes in paintings, reducing sculptures to fragments, and exposing fragile artworks to rain and sun.
Read the entire story at ARTnews >>