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The Ghetto Biennale (
Haitian Creole Haitian Creole (; ht, kreyòl ayisyen, links=no, ; french: créole haïtien, links=no, ), commonly referred to as simply ''Creole'', or ''Kreyòl'' in the Creole language, is a French-based creole language spoken by 10–12million people wor ...
: ''Geto Byenal'') is an international contemporary arts exhibition held every two years in
Port-au-Prince Port-au-Prince ( , ; ht, Pòtoprens ) is the capital and most populous city of Haiti. The city's population was estimated at 987,311 in 2015 with the metropolitan area estimated at a population of 2,618,894. The metropolitan area is define ...
,
Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...
during November and December.


History

The Ghetto Biennale was founded and is curated by Andre Eugène, an artist and a member of the local group of sculptors known as the Atis Rezistans, and Leah Gordon, artist and curator. The idea for the event started when Eugéne and other artists were unable to obtain US Visas for an exhibition in Florida, to which they had been invited to exhibit in.
"In Port-au-Prince, Haiti, however, the Ghetto Biennial takes a cold, hard look at what it means to be unseen and excluded from the highly networked, globalized, financially fluid mainstream art circuit. Founded in 2009 by André Eugène and Leah Gordon along with members of the collective Atis Rezistans, the event was created to address the fact that artists living and working in Haiti are often not able to travel—even if their work is included in a major exhibition abroad—often from lack of resources or flat-out visa refusal due to severe restrictions on Haitian passports." –
The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...
Two of the city's poorest districts known as Lakou Cheri and Ghetto Leanne adjacent to the Grand Rue in central Port-au-Prince act as primary sites for the Ghetto Biennale. The biennale offers an opportunity for local artists – often without any training – to work side by side and collaborate with visiting international artists. The Ghetto Biennale has provided an alternative model to the larger and more predictably ' all star'
biennale Biennale (), Italian for "biennial" or "every other year", is any event that happens every two years. It is most commonly used within the art world to describe large-scale international contemporary art exhibitions. As such the term was popularis ...
s that have become common in over 250 cities around the world since the 90's.


Editions

*2009, 1st Ghetto Biennale *2011, 2nd Ghetto Biennale *2013, 3rd Ghetto Biennale: ''Decentering'' The Market And Other Tales Of Progress *2015, 4th Ghetto Biennale: ''KREYÒL, VODOU and the LAKOU : Forms of Resistance'' *2017, 5th Ghetto Biennale: ''A Cartography of Port-au-Prince'' *2019, 6th Ghetto: ''The Haitian Revolution and Beyond''


Bibliography

* Gordon, Leah. ''Ghetto Biennale = Geto Byenal : 2009-2015''. London: No Eraser, 2017.


References


External links


Official website
Haitian art {{art-display-stub