Latin American Cultural Center debuts exhibit on Haitian art, culture

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Edward Rawson wants Haiti to be in the news for all the right reasons.

The executive director of Haiti Friends has partnered with the Latin American Cultural Center in Oakland to shine a light on the Caribbean nation with the art exhibit “Haiti: Culture, Religion and Revolution.”

Rawson said that the stereotypes and recent unsubstantiated and negative stories about Haitian immigrants in the United States have been disappointing but unsurprising “That’s nothing new. It’s always some kind of negative stereotype about Haiti that they’re always fighting to counter. This is our way of countering that. We wanted to give voice to Haitian people.”

Rawson’s grandparents, Gwen and Larry Mellon, moved to rural Haiti in 1954. They established the Hôpital Albert Schweitzer Haiti, the first hospital in its region. Eventually, Rawson’s father — who was 10 years old when the family moved to Haiti — took over as managing director of the hospital.

For her part, his mother Lucy Rawson began Haiti Friends around 30 years ago. It was meant to be a sister organization for the hospital.

“The main work that we do in Haiti is in direct partnership with the hospital. We plant trees with farmers in the same area where the hospital operates. We give free education and agricultural training for farmers and we provide free trees. Basically, the project is an intersection of where the ecology and economy meet in rural Haiti,” Rawson said.

He pointed out that by adding economic diversity and better education to the area, they can help lessen poverty-related diseases such as malnutrition, tuberculosis and malaria, which commonly show up at the Hôpital Albert Schweitzer Haiti.

Rawson was about 2 years old the first time he made a trip to Haiti. Throughout his life, his mother has also collected Haitian art.

“We met with artists and galleries and traveled all over the country buying art. Over the years, she would bring art back to America and sell it and have these big parties and events all over the U.S. as a way to raise money for the work that we did in Haiti.”

The exhibit at the Latin American Cultural Center draws from their collection.

“Throughout those years, she collected many many pieces that were really the best of the best that she kept to herself and are now on display at this museum,” Rawson said.

“He had been thinking about a proper way of giving tribute and also furthering the reach of the Haitian art that his family and Haiti Friends had been collecting,” said Manuel Roman-Lacayo, director of operations at the Latin American Cultural Center in Oakland and deputy director of the Latin American Studies Association.

“We worked with all of these artists who are still living, and in some cases the family of the artists. We showed them the paintings that we have in our collection and asked them to explain … their own interpretation of their own work. Underneath each painting, there’s a description of what’s there and that’s all extrapolated from those interviews with the artists,” said Rawson.

“Lucy Rawson thought that it should focus on aspects of daily life in Haiti, that it should display the richness of Haitian people’s daily routines and celebrations, highlights, the joy and the customs, and so the script for the exhibit was created around those themes,” Roman-Lacayo said.

The exhibit contains about 90-100 artworks in a variety of mediums. Most of the pieces are paintings, but patrons can also view found sculptures, wood carvings and sequined flags. The artists come from all over Haiti but are concentrated in the Artibonite Valley, where the Hôpital Albert Schweitzer Haiti is located.

According to Rawson, the display is split up into several sections.

”We start off talking about the history of Haiti, colonialism, revolution, independence, the abolition of slavery. Then we talk about the everyday life of Haitians, especially rural life … and how it contrasts with the United States. Then we talk about the many natural disasters that have hit Haiti, like the earthquake or the many floods or hurricanes that have hit and how that relates to political intervention from foreign nations.”

There is also a section on the Vodou religion, aspects of which were taken from both West African religious traditions and Catholicism and practiced by slaves brought to Haiti and their descendants.

“We wanted to demystify it. It’s been so demonized in the world, so we wanted to remove the negative stereotype … and give the artists who practice vodou an opportunity to explain it, why it’s important to the Haitian Revolution, why it’s important to everyday life in Haiti and culture and make people understand that it’s quite a beautiful religion — not devil worship or whatever they used to say in the ‘80s,” Rawson said.

Besides spotlighting the rich cultural history of Haiti, Rawson’s hope for the exhibit is that it will change the way people think about the island nation. He said that the way many people — especially foreign journalists — speak about Haiti is “derogatory.”

“That’s a really awful way of looking at the first independent Black nation, the first domino to fall in the transatlantic slave trade, you can’t even have a conversation about Latin America unless you talk about the Haitian Revolution. Haiti has contributed so much to global history and culture,” he said.

The Latin American Cultural Center opened in 2022, a project of the Latin American Studies Association, an international network of 13,000 members engaged in Latin American studies with its home in Pittsburgh. The Center will also be presenting a Haiti film series in partnership with Haiti Friends, with the first showing on Thursday, Oct. 10 at 6 p.m.

“We hope to represent, to exhibit and provide experiences that are focused on Latin America in all its various expressions,” said Roman-Lacayo.

He said that despite what is often portrayed in the news, there is vibrance and joy in Haitian culture. “People still have celebrations and birthdays and marriages and street parties and music and cultural pursuits and community life. We want to be able to represent that aspect.”

“Haiti: Culture, Religion and Revolution” runs through June 28, 2025, at the Latin American Cultural Center, 4338 Bigelow Blvd. For more information, visit haitifriends.org or lacc.lasaweb.org.

Alexis Papalia is a TribLive staff writer. She can be reached at apapalia@triblive.com.

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