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Why Did Gede Let This Happen? Catastrophe and Theodicy in Twenty-First Century Haitian ArtPost an Event »

California College of the Arts (SF)

April 4 - April 4, 2013

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1111 Eighth Street San Francisco, CA 94107
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Why Did Gede Let This Happen? Catastrophe and Theodicy in Twenty-First Century Haitian Art in the studio of Andre Eugene, Port au Prince
A public lecture by Dr. Donald Cosentino, Professor Emeritus of World Arts and Cultures, UCLA. California College of the Arts Timken Hall 1111 Eighth Street, San Francisco The Earthquake of January 12, 2010 was also a theological dilemma for the vast majority of Haitians who serve the lwa: the divinities of Vodou. The lwa have been doppelgangers of the Haitian people from their appalling African exodus to the unparalleled catastrophes that have befallen the Black Republic in the 21st Century. The Quake, and before that Katrina-sized hurricanes and relentless social and political violence, have unmoored that special relationship between the Haitian people and their gods. Particularly so in the case of the Gedes, beloved tricksters of the Vodou pantheon, who were commonly regarded as tribunes of the poor. “How Could Gede Let This Happen?” is now a profound religious query, with startling reverberations in the refiguration of the Gedes in contemporary Haitian art. Donald Cosentino is Professor Emeritus of World Arts and Cultures at the University of California-Los Angeles. He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nigeria (1964-66), and a community organizer in Orangeburg, South Carolina (1968-69). He received his Ph.D. in African Languages and Literatures from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1976. Cosentino’s research interests include Black Atlantic art, myth, rituals, and pop cultures. He has done extensive fieldwork on oral traditions in Sierra Leone (1972-3; 1983) and Vodou art and mythology in Haiti (1986-present). He is the author of Defiant Maids and Stubborn Farmers: Tradition and Invention in Mende Story Performance (Cambridge UP, 1982, 2008) and Vodou Things: The Art of Pierrot Barra and Marie Cassaise (University of Mississippi Press, 1998). He was curator, editor and chief writer for the award-winning project, The Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou (1995-99), and for Divine Revolution: the Art of Edouard Duval-Carrie (2004). As a Guggenheim Fellow (2006), Cosentino completed fieldwork for Chasing the Dead, a book he is writing about his travels with an L.A. santero and his Kongo spirit guide. Cosentino is chief writer and co-curator for In Extremis: Death and Life in 21st Century Haitian Art wbich opened at the UCLA’s Fowler Museum in September, 2012.