Benoit Aquin | Haïti

31 March - 28 April 2012

Exhibition Dates: March 31 – April 28, 2012

Reception for the Artist: Saturday, April 14, 2-5pm

 

The gallery is pleased to present our second solo exhibition by Benoit Aquin, entitled, “Haïti,” which documents the aftermath of the 7.0 magnitude earthquake on January 12th, 2010 and the resiliency of people who have been plagued for decades with political and social unrest.

On January 16th, four days after the earthquake, Aquin arrived in Haïti as a volunteer with the CECI (Centre for International Studies and Cooperation). For years, Aquin has sought to document and further understand the relationship between people and their environment and he knew that this journey would be instrumental to his personal and professional growth. Over the course of five different trips, Aquin documented what he describes as “a metaphor for the cycle of life.” On his first trip, he photographed at dusk where the blue-grey tone inherent to this time of day emphasized the unbearable atmosphere of death and was reminiscent of the sepia tone that pervaded Aquin’s images from his “Chinese Dust Bowl” series.  The normally brimming and populated city streets of Port-au-Prince were destruction zones, with people isolated in its spaces.  On his second visit, three months later, the affected atmosphere begins to dissipate and in his most recent images, scenes from carnival and of daily life depict a genuine exuberance; life celebrating a victory over death.