Leah Gordon

The Ghetto Biennale surpassed all my expectations - truly it did - this was the creative act in extreme - it was an experiment of putting two extraordinary and incongruous words together - this recalls the creative amazing art happenings in the sixties and early seventies - the energy created in the neighbourhood was outrageous - each visiting artist that arrived had to reconceive their project - screw it in a ball and throw it away and start again when faced with the circumstances in haiti - but that was creative in itself - by the exhibition day itself the energy was intense, wild and revolutionary - the visiting artists vibing with the local teenagers, kids and artists - everyone had worked together to create a wild wonderful arts street party in the slum - one of the funniest was the impromptu 'tele ghetto' two local kids with a video camera made from a plastic motor oil container and a mike make from a stick and tape attached to cheap headphones - they kept up the ghost filming for three days even interviewing the minister of culture when she arrived - not everyone liked it – a gallery owner later describing it as ugly, not a biennale, badly curated, like a street fair (as everyone hung everything wherever - a glut of objects) – this made me think – and that's what led me to the revelation that the creative act is an energy, a revolutionary energy and the products at the end, the art objects, are merely a part of that revolutionary energy – some parts of society are afraid of that energy - very afraid - but enthralled too - so they gather up the material objects of that energy and worship that - they put it in so-called sacred spaces, the clean, white galleries - but these are not sacred spaces really - but containment spaces or decontamination chambers - spaces where they can separate the art object from the revolutionary energy of creation - what happened in Haiti in these last three weeks was truly a happening in the situationist sense and also a chance to see real deep community action - when I left London I really believed that the concept of political arts was hollow lip service to perhaps an empty ideology - but now I really have witnessed that the creative act can intensely connect people from diverse genders, sexualities, classes, races and nationalities.

Ghetto Biennale: After the Earthquake, Fallen but not Destroyed

'tis-Rezistans: the Sculptors of Grand Rue'

ATIS-REZISTANS | THE SCULPTORS OF GRAND RUE | Film by Leah Gordon from Gloria Maria Cappelletti on Vimeo.