Nasir Jones and Damian "Junior Gong" Marley

The text said, “wAnted to invite u to nas & damian marley Tonight @ sonar”. A friend of a friend, Jon Sabban was reaching out. Jon and I are planning to collaborate on a project down the road, but hadn’t had an opportunity to meet yet. John clearly likes to do things with style, as this was a great ice-breaker. I’m looking forward to working with him…

Distant Relatives – Images by André Chung

I like to take life as it comes, and a chance to see Damian “Junior Gong” Marley and Nasir Jones up close and personal was Heaven sent. Both are two of my favorite artists, and their albums tend to camp in my car’s cd player, but somehow I nearly missed their Distant Relatives tour. I’m glad I got back on track, because these artists didn’t disappoint. The show pulsed with a heavy vibe. Junior smoldered on stage as Nas prowled. The crowd was giving them a lot of love, and they were sending it right back. An extended set with a three song encore is proof enough of the energy in the room.

PETIONVILLE, HAITI — Junior paints everyday. Bright colors on clothing, Creole slogans on sheets, acrylic on canvas; it doesn’t matter, his need to create is constant. Lyonel Elie, Jr., 30, has lost his home but not his art. His house, a concrete bunker cemented to a steep hillside in Petionville, is cracked. Too unstable to sleep in, but too solid to abandon, he spends his days there painting, cooking for family and talking with friends. At night he joins a band of rappers, artists and musicians camped in a tent city on the grounds of the Frere de l’inscription Chretienne monastery. They’ve unwillingly traded the immutability of concrete for the impermanence of sticks and sheets.

Lyonel, better known in Haiti as Junior, paints with passion. His work is a reflection of Haiti; her history, her politics, her culture are both his inspiration and his subject. He comes from an artistic family, his father is an actor and his sister draws and paints as well, but his formal study began in 2001 at the Ecole Nacionale des Arts in Port-Au-Prince. The political turmoil surrounding the removal of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide forced him to abandon his studies in 2005. Political gangs and gun violence made it impossible to get to classes. He has exhibited regularly since leaving school with major shows in 2006, 2007 and 2009 including a private show at the Haitian Consul. He expected to break out this year with two big shows scheduled this spring, but the institutions were leveled in the quake.

Now he’s at a crossroads. “I need change,” he says. “In my city, my life, I need to rebuild. I have many friends and family who have died. Thank God I survived, because I see, I see, I see. People keep doing the same thing, fighting for something to be changed, to realize good things in society. I need change. Change in the country. Too many homeless, too many poor.” He camps with friends in a corner of the settlement, and in the afternoons they get together and freestyle songs about life in Haiti. His friends didn’t have much before the earthquake and now have even less. Junior does what he can to keep everyone together. “Everyone has a mission on Earth. My mission is art, like Gauguin, Da Vinci, Kasimir Malevitch, Van Gogh. I have to let everyone know I’m a messenger.” He paints his messages on the sheets that serve as walls in his tent community, and gives money to the poor when he sells a painting. “The rich are gonna be rich, rich, RICH! And the poor don’t have a chance.

“I work seven days,” he continues. “I’ve got no time to eat. It’s about the work. Sometimes I take a brush, but I can’t paint. Too much misery in the country.” On a tour of the rubble field that was once his neighborhood, Junior and his good friend, Darbouze Laxima, climb the impossibly steep debris pile. Surveying the empty, cracked houses they pause to examine a handful of family photos scattered in the ruins of a home, then carefully line them up on the bottom step of the stoop. “There’s Nobody in the Ghetto,” they sing mournfully to each other along the way. “There’s Nobody in the Ghetto…”

Haiti Lyonel Elie, Jr – Images by André Chung

Port-Au-Prince suffered massive damage, with officials estimating that 70% of the city will need to be rebuilt. The downtown area was hit the hardest, with many buildings reduced to rubble.

Port-Au-Prince is in ruins, it’s downtown a field of rubble. As many as 1.5 million are estimated to be homeless, at least 200,000 lost their lives, and officials say the reconstruction will take decades. I had many days of mind-bending scenes of utter destruction and human tragedy. It was shocking in it’s ferocity, and has gone on day after day, continuing even now. But I began to witness something else emerge from the seams of this apocalypse. It started in a tent city, where I saw a woman cooking food for more than the people in her family. Then again, as I came across a man getting a haircut, and another selling ice cream from a cooler. Haitians were coming to terms with this new “normal”, and were restarting their lives.

I went into another tent city on the grounds of Frere de l’inscription Chretienne monastery and found a group of artists, singers and rappers who  banded together in one little corner of the camp. Their energy was incredible; upbeat, vibrant — they were undeterred in their dreams despite the level of their personal tragedy. These young men and so many more Haitians had already begun to pick up the pieces to their lives and move on.

Haiti has known hardship for generations. When I drove across the border from Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, I immediately noticed how much harder everything was. It became more crowded, the roads were worse, and the environment has taken a heavy hit from the human population. Even the landscape was steeper and more rugged, with concrete dwellings cemented in place on the hillside. A few days later I commented to my driver that when they divided Hispañola it seemed they gave Haiti the hardest part.

This country is the poorest in the Western Hemisphere, and has left many doubting whether it can ever succeed as a state. I don’t know the answer to that; Haiti has many problems. What I do see is that Haitians are some of the most resourceful and resilient people in the world. They don’t wait to see what will happen, they decide for themselves and get to it. While many people saw looters, I saw people scavenging for anything they could use to survive. I saw people doing what they could to maintain their personal dignity, bathing in public even, just so they wouldn’t have to sleep filthy. So many men approached me, eager to put their English to use as interpreters, or offering their services as a driver. People who sold goods in the market, returned to the market. Men and women carried loads of wood to build cook fires or new homes.

Set against the stark context of this disaster was a glimmer of hope that despite so much suffering, Haitians will find a way to survive and dream, and to think of something for themselves that lies beyond this misery.

]]> http://www.achungphoto.com/photography/haiti-do-not-despair/feed 6 http://www.achungphoto.com/photography/we-are-alive-in-haiti http://www.achungphoto.com/photography/we-are-alive-in-haiti#comments Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:44:45 +0000 admin http://www.achungphoto.com/photography/?p=221

I should have come to Haiti before this. This is madness, and despite all I’ve read and seen, Haiti could never be like this. Driving across the border from Santo Domingo was a good way to to ease into the shock. As we approached Port-Au-Prince, the outbound traffic became increasingly heavier, and took over both sides of the street, choking it. We skirted downtown, and instead climbed into Petionville to our hotel just outside the city. Concrete, houses and rocks partially blocked the road in places, and our Dominican driver kept the windows up and a facemask on as protection from the dust. My throat swelled too, and I wrapped a scarf across my nose and mouth, a practice I’ve quickly settled into whenever I’m in the street.

The partially collapsed Villa Creole is one of the media hotels, and the international press works all day and into the night from the poolside terrace. We have electricity, spotty internet and clean water, so despite huge cracks in the walls and debris strewn throughout, the hotel is up and running. The front courtyard is home to several dozen injured and displaced Haitians, and between the sheer numbers of guests, and dubious structure, every spot on the grounds is taken at night by someone in need of a place to sleep. After sleeping on the hard tile outside my colleague’s room, I’ve switched to a spot in the inner courtyard, alongside several other photojournalists and writers.

Yesterday was my first day covering this story, and it began with an eye-opener. As I went up to the terrace for breakfast, a huge noise and vicious shaking blurred my vision and filled my ears. For a heartbeat I paused, then quickly sprinted to the terrace moving away from any standing structures. People came flying to the terrace; everyone moving as far from the buildings as possible. I looked up and saw the fractured roof rippling and billowing like a sail in the breeze. No one wasted any time getting to safety and many people just ran, whether naked or not. It was over in a few moments and we all started talking excitedly, happy we could have a little faith in the ground once again.

We headed downtown in a two-vehicle convoy to see what was going on. Downtown is demolished. Rubble. Every park, including one across from the Presidential Palace has a tent city. Desperate Haitians scavenge the wreckage, taking incredible risks to go inside shaky buildings hoping to find something of use. Food, bedding, clothing and firewood are priority. While not as widespread as last week, there are still lifeless bodies on the street. At least 72,000 are officially dead, but that number is low. They are still counting. We spent the day crisscrossing Port-Au-Prince, from the port, where hundreds of families are looking for a way out, to the General Hospital with 1500 patients and counting, to water distribution stations and more. The scene while chaotic, was peaceful. Haitians are beautiful and resourceful people and just want to survive this great suffering. Do more than pray for them. Send help.

This is a Deep South experience, a real shift from my normal perspective. USM is in Hattiesburg, MS, which is about two hours east of New Orleans by car. Five years on, Katrina’s mark is still indelible. Works starts then stalls from the immensity of it. So many people who left never came back, and the dearth of humanity has left so much undone.

That slow rhythm of the South stalls time;
Man’s things idle, but Nature resumes her heartbeat.

When Oakland Mills High School cheerleading coach Shauna Kelly asked me to photograph the girls for their Senior Game, I couldn’t refuse. My daughter, Sierra isn’t a senior yet, but she’s cheered with them for the last three years and I knew how much it would mean to them if they could have the event on the record. The cheerleaders got nearly 200 images, but there’s no space here for that, so I’ll share these six.

A night in the Dancehall in Kingston

I’ll update as I go from now on, but for now take a look.