Marie Vieux-Chauvet (1916-1973)

Regarded as one of Haiti’s literary vanguards, Marie-Vieux Chauvet grappled with Haitian society, gender, and race in her work, often exploring life under the US occupation and the dictatorship of François Duvalier. Her novels also provide insight into the sexual and gendered violence imposed onto women. 

Perhaps the most well-known work from Vieux-Chauvet is Amour, colère et folie (Love, Anger, and Madness), a trilogy published as a single novel.  While the three stories are not connected through plot, what unites them are their shared themes. Love explores the lives of Haitian aristocrats and the stifling nature of gentility. Anger examines the cost of survival and how rage consumes the soul. Madness focuses on the lowest classes in Haitian society. 

Love was perceived as an attack on Duvalier. Fearing reprisal, Vieux-Chauvet moved to New York City. While in exile, she persuaded the French publisher Gallimard to withdraw the original publication in 1968. Her husband traveled to Haiti to purchase as many copies of the book as he could to destroy them. 

Love’s resurgence came from Vieux-Chauvet’s children, who helped revive the triptych in the early 2000’s. Love could have disappeared, but the dedication of Vieux-Chauvet’s family not only revived the novel, but also her legacy. 

Gérald Bloncourt (1926 – 2018)

Gérald Bloncourt was born on November 29,1926 in Bainet, a small town in southeastern Haiti. A highly regarded painter, photographer, and activist, his artistic pursuits began in his youth. At only seventeen, he co-founded the Haiti Art Center, an exhibition space offering training for local artists. 

Bloncourt’s advocacy for artistic voices continued when he founded a newspaper titled La Ruche, a revolutionary In 1946, it published an editorial in favor of democracy. Blancourt continued his activism through participating in the 1946 anti-government protests. As a result, Blancourt was expelled from the country and he became exiled in France, where his photojournalism career began. 

Bloncourt became a photo reporter for Communist Party newspaper L’Humanité, documenting strikes and demonstrations. Bloncourt’s photography soon became an extension of his activism; he was consistently outspoken against the Duvalier dictatorship and advocated for earthquake victims in Naples. Bloncourt’s portfolio also reflects  the importance he placed on everyday life. A portrait of a quiet moment between two lovers is just as profound as his documentation of worker strikes. 

Bloncourt adhered to an ideology slightly similar to that of the iconic photojournalist Gordon Parks, who saw photography as a “weapon” against social ills.  However, Bloncourt’s  mission extended beyond fighting injustice. He said, “I wanted to use my photos as a weapon to change the world.”

Dieu-Nalio Chéry (1981)

Born in 1981, Dieu-Nalio Chéry’s journey in photography began when he worked at his uncle’s photo studio as a commercial photographer. 

In 2004, Chéry began his freelance work with Alerte Haiti, a local agency. That same year, President Aristide went into exile after another coup d’état ousted him from office. Chéry chose to focus his work on social and human rights injustices by documenting the lives of those in the slums. This dedication to documenting injustice continued after the devastating 2010 earthquake, which caused a major increase in crimes. Chéry personally witnessed the authorities’ inhumane treatment of victims, after which he devoted himself entirely to photojournalism. 

Chéry joined the Associated Press. He traveled the country constantly, photographing Haiti’s social issues and significant events for the world to see. This culminated in one of his projects, Haiti: Nation on the Brink. The photos documented the nation’s violent demonstrations due to government corruption, fuel shortages, and inflation in 2019. Protestors were demanding the resignation of former President Jovenel Moïse as social unrest took over the streets of Port-au-Prince. While on assignment, Chéry was injured when a senator fired a gun during a confrontation with protestors outside of the Senate. 

Chéry’s images echo those of Gérald Bloncourt.  They both elicit self-reflection and thought as they use their lens to reflect the world’s injustices. The viewer stands with Chéry in the protests and communities featured in his photographs, inspiring both empathy and care. 

Chéry joined the Associated Press after the devastating 2010 earthquake, continuing his work in Haiti. His photographs became essential sources of news for Haiti; he traveled the country constantly, photographing the country’s social issues and significant events. This culminated in one of his projects, Haiti: Nation on the Brink. The photos documented the nation’s violent demonstrations due to government corruption, fuel shortages, and inflation in 2019. Protestors were demanding the resignation of former President Jovenel Moïse as social unrest took over the streets of Port-au-Prince. While on assignment, Chéry was injured when a senator fired a gun during a confrontation with protestors outside of the Senate. 

Chéry received several accolades for his work, including the Robert Capa Gold Medal from the Overseas Press Club of America and the honor of  becoming a 2020 Pulitzer finalist. In July 2021, Chéry started a one-year scholarship at CUNY University of New York. He arrived on a cultural exchange visa after being forced into exile after threats from gangs. 

In New York City, Chéry began a new project: documenting Haitian immigrants who had been granted Temporary Protection Status (TPS). Chéry wanted to provide a space for them to share their stories and hopes, as several of his subjects had been threatened with deportation in the past. When speaking about his project, published in The New York Times, Chéry said:

“I am one of the examples of people who left Haiti under threat and insecurity. I didn’t pass the same way with these people, but I am one of them. I feel what they are feeling.” 

Chéry invites the viewer to see Haitians as people who contain multitudes, not just tragedy. 

Josué Azor (1986) 

Traveling around the country since 2008, Josué Azor’s photography explores Port-au-Prince nightlife and the LGBTQ+ community. With projects exhibited regularly in Haiti and internationally, Azor’s photography captures the life of those marginalized in his country. 

His work is intertwined with his own self-discovery and revolution. Growing up as a young gay man, he didn’t have the resources to connect with his community and that aspect of himself. It was through a friend and attending gay parties that the discovery began:

“What first touched me and continues to touch me was what happened at parties that was different from outsider fantasies of those gatherings. I haven’t gone to parties where there was debauchery. There is definitely a certain freedom that some people give to themselves, to be somebody else or to be themselves […]  When you grow up with limited freedom of expression, there’s a way you have to be, there’s a way you have to behave. When you’re a young man, you have to be masculine. You have to be this and you have to be that. So when those prescriptions are a strong part of your life, and then you discover those spaces, for me I entered a space of liberation. I learned much from these spaces, about myself and my own life, how I model my life, and about the freedoms that I finally give to myself slowly but surely.”

He started to document these spaces of liberation. The images he created came from the trust he established with his community and his desire to share his experiences. From this closeness emerged portraits of LGBTQ+ nightlife that are as intimate as they are bold, carefully capturing the lives and environments Azor turns his camera to.  

For a community so marginalized in his society, Azor’s portraits come from a perspective of integrity and thoughtfulness. There’s a gentleness in his photographs that invites the viewer to re-evaluate how society deems those it ostracizes. 

Haiti’s artists embody the idea that art reflects the world we live in. It can also inspire and invigorate those that art touches to change their world for the better, in whatever way is available to them. Most importantly, Haitian artists portray a Haiti not often seen—a Haiti that is more than its hardships. They show a nation that is complex, proud, beautiful, and above all else, hopeful. 

By Gabrielle Pascal, March 28, 2023. Gabrielle is a MFA graduate student at the New School.