KAZAL – Narrating Haitian Memories – Digital

KAZAL is a photographic project that traces the memories of the dictatorship of François Duvalier in Haiti through the history of Kazal, a village north of Port-au-Prince in Haiti, where the massacre of Kazal was perpetrated in 1969 and subsequently obliterated from the nation’s official history.

Over the course of three years, six photographers from the Haitian collective Kolektif 2 Dimansyon (K2D) initiated a dialogue with the inhabitants of Kazal to investigate their memories of places and events. They encountered a troubled history which, to this day, has not yet been acknowledged.

Within the project, photography is the main form of narrating memory. At the same time, as testimony of the past, photography can be a source of historical knowledge; it reactivates the memory of a historical fact and invites reflection. This project functions as a basis to explore how photography remains, albeit, a fragmentary, partial, subjective, polysemous testimony.

The works show an interpretation of reality and trauma that can never be completely grasped in the context of Haiti and a post-Duvalier generation. For this presentation of K2D’s KAZAL project, the show features an additional perspective on memory narration from Haitian artist Tessa Mars. Mars explores the transformative strategies for survival, resistance, empowerment and healing that image-making and storytelling propose.

This special edition of the exhibition catalogue in English and French features an introductory text by the directors of Framer Framed, essays from curator of the exhibition Nicola Lo Calzo, independent curator and researcher Rita Ouédraogo, Haitian novelist Edwidge Danticat, and K2D co-founder Edine Célestin.