Kaelen Iron-Skin
A shield that heals, a heart that never breaks.
Leah Gordon (born 1959) is a British photographer, artist, curator, writer and filmmaker. Her work explores the intervolved and intersectional histories of the Caribbean plantation system, the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, the Enclosure Acts and the creation of the British working-class. She has made various work in Haiti, such as the photographs of Kanaval, which was published in 2021 by Here Press and exhibited at the New Art Exchange, Nottingham in 2012; and the documentary film Kanaval: A People's History of Haiti in Six Chapters (2022, with Eddie Hutton-Mills).
Lore & Background
Gordon has made various photographic work in Haiti, such as about Haitian Carnival (Kanaval); Freemasons; the three-tiered racial classification system created by the 18th-century French colonialist Médéric Louis Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry; and the tailors of Port-au-Prince. She has also made photographic work about airport prayer spaces. She is a co-founder of Ghetto Biennale, a biannual international contemporary arts exhibition in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Reader's Guide
Gordon's solo exhibitions include Kanaval: Vodou, Politics and Revolution on the Streets of Haiti at New Art Exchange, Nottingham in 2012, and The Invisibles at Riflemaker Gallery, London. She curated Pòtoprens: The Urban Artists of Port-au-Prince with Edouard Duval-Carrié at Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, New York in 2018, featuring work by 25 Haitian artists including Katelyne Alexis, Josué Azor, Karim Bléus, Myrlande Constant, Ronald Edmond, André Eugène, Guyodo (Frantz Jacques), Celeur Jean Hérard, Michel Lafleur, Dubréus Lhérisson, Ti Pelin (Jean Salomon Horace), Evel Romain, Jean Claude Saintilus, Maggie Steber, Roberto Stephenson, and Yves Telemaque.
Her films include A Pig's Tale (documentary, 52 mins, commissioned for Channel 4), Atis Rezistans: The Sculptors of Grand Rue (32 mins), and Bounda pa Bounda: A Drag Zaka (documentary, 20 mins), all compiled on the Iron in the Soul: The Haiti Documentary Films of Leah Gordon DVD from Soul Jazz Records. She co-directed Kanaval: A People's History of Haiti in Six Chapters (2022) with Eddie Hutton-Mills (74 mins).
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