Vodou art in Haiti

This is an article about Haitian religious art. It ostensibly has little to do with the central agrarian theme of this blog, but there is a personal connection. The 1995 Vodou art exhibition mentioned in this article came to the Field Museum in Chicago in '95 or '96. I practically grew up in the Field; it has always been my favorite museum in the world. Seeing this exhibit when I was about 13 sparked my interest in Haiti. In my young life I'd always looked for the underappreciated, the different, the unknown. I never liked doing what everyone else was doing. This, combined with a nascent interest in the Third World during my preteen years, predisposed me to take a real interest in Haiti. Its language, its religion, its culture were unique in the world.

I had hardly even heard of Haiti before that museum exhibit. Frankly, even after seeing the exhibit, it's not like my life changed drastically; I didn't begin diligently studying Haiti from that point forward. But it seems that a seed of fascination had been planted in me, that would manifest itself in occasional papers on Haiti for class assignments, in my paying extra attention whenever a news story came out of Haiti, in my reading books on Haitian history when the opportunity presented itself.

Eventually in college, when I was in dire need of a break from studying abstract agricultural concepts, I decided to take a semester off to work and learn farming in a poor country. I considered many destinations for this short sabbatical, but Haiti was always the strongest contender, and won out in the end. I spent the school year studying the Kreyol language obsessively, and then it was time to actually go to Haiti to work with an organized peasant group in Fondwa, in the south of the country. Since then I have returned a number of times to Haiti, and the country has played a subtle but ever-present role in my career choices, in my education, in my interests, in my beliefs, even in my decision to start this blog.

None of this would have happened had it not been for that art exposition in the Field Museum, fifteen years ago.