About the Cover

Haiti: History Embedded in Amber is a collaborative art installation created by faculty, students, and visitors affiliated with Duke University’s Haiti Laboratory during the 2010–2011 academic year. Overseen by Haitian artist Edouard Duval-Carrié, it is made up of thirty-five resin blocks layered with images and objects. Each block was made by one or more individuals: the artists whose work is pictured on the cover are Isabella Arroyo, Vincent Brown, Laurent Dubois, Edouard Duval-Carrié, Deborah Jenson, and Christina Mobley. A guide to each block is available at http://www.fhi.duke.edu/haitiamber/.

Collectively, the piece was a response to the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, and was driven by an imperative to mine, reveal, and collect vestiges of the country’s past—not only the immediate past that had been destroyed or transformed by the disaster, but the longue durée history that has been “fossilized” in cultural forms from Taino zemis to architecture, song, archive, photography, paintings, and other forms. The process involved collecting and discussing images and texts collectively, sharing ideas as well as. As the artists layered their selections into the molds, they also had to think about depth, light, and shadow, imagining what the pieces would look like once they were lit from behind.

The piece was installed on the main wall of the lecture hall of the Franklin Humanities Institute at Duke during the summer of 2011 by artist Andrew Priess, working in collaboration with Laurent Dubois and Edouard Duval-Carrié. It is now a permanent installation in the space, a reminder to all visitors of Haiti’s complex and multi-layered past. The piece in the center on the cover, “Ezili Lives in Durham,” by Laurent Dubois and Edouard Duval-Carrié is built around a photograph of a metal carving that sits atop St. Joseph’s AME Church in Durham (located in the Hayti neighborhood, and today the Hayti Cultural Center). Though the provenance and history of this piece is unknown, it is obvious to anyone familiar with Haitian art that it is none other than a Vodou vèvè for the lwa Ezili. This block attempts to help Ezili feel at home, flanking the image with sister vèvès, and offering her a bottle with the makings of sequin and bead necklaces. A depiction of the goddess in one of Edouard Duval-Carrié’s most famous paintings (“Ezili Intercepted”) has been placed in the right-hand corner. The image shows Ezili being stopped by the U.S. Coast Guard as she attempts to enter the country by boat (see p. 4). As this block suggests, however, she can’t be stopped; she is already here, and has been for a long time.