Haitian Vodou at the Crossroads of the Carnival – Bilyana Manolova (prezi)

The cultural map “Haitian Vodou at the Crossroads of the Carnival” explores the place of Vodou in the socio-cultural consciousness of Haiti through tracing its origins, foundational belief system and historical importance in parallel with its representations in Haitian art and the Mardi Grass carnival’s character performances. Vodou is a syncretic religion, entangled in Christian faith and native African heritage. The symbolics of liminal spaces, such as the crossroads, and the conception of boundary crossing (e.g. between the spiritual and the material world, human and animalistic forms) is an essential aspect of the Vodou beliefs and practices. Introducing its religious cosmology through representations in Haitian art, the map aims to visualise the presence the Vodou spiritual world in Haiti’s cultural consciousness, as well as the spirit of the carnival permeating its artistic representations. The carnival is a locus and a time defined by an aesthetics of subversion, as theorised by Mikhail Bakhtin. Celebrated “at the crossroads” between winter and spring, and in the case of the annual Haitian Mardi Grass festivities – between two Christian traditions, the carnival’s source of spiritual and cultural energy originates in the tension between transgression, subversion, and reaffirmation. By introducing Haiti’s Kanaval through Lea Gordon’s photographic and oral history project, the map aims to showcase not only Vodou’s place in the Haitian artistic imagination, but also its palpable presence in the society’s everyday consciousness. Vodou’s cultural, political and historical significance is lived and performed during the Mardi Grass carnival and as the stories from creators and performers of Zombi, Lanset Kod and Lwa characters evidence, the identities assumed during the festivities are deeply ingrained into people’s political, personal, and cultural practices and beliefs. In this sense, the carnival gives an expression of a belief system that is omnipresent in Haiti’s everyday life.