This week it was Ghede, the celebrations around the vodou day of the dead, and on Wednesday night we went to a vodou ceremony.  Back in January HKKP put on a night of films about Vodou at the Cube Cinema as a fund raiser for this trip – and also to try and  counter balance the misleading image of vodou that has been spread by Hollywood mythology around the world. In fact vodou must be one of the misrepresented religions in the world…

Our experience on Wednesday was one of social celebration with drumming, singing, dancing… (and quite a lot of rum).

If you’re interested in finding out more about Vodou, two films we’d recommend searching out are Laurence Magloire’s Des Hommes et Dieux, and Maya Derren / Teiji Ito’s Divine Horsemen.

Here are three videos shot in March by young artists from the Ti Moun Resistans group. Tele Geto is their project to document day to day life in the ghettoes of Port au Prince and share their experiences through the internet with the rest of the world.

The group initially formed during the December 2009 Ghetto Bienalle held in the thriving artistic community of Grand Rue which was organised by UK photographer and HKKP friend Leah Gordon.  The equipment used by the group was sourced by another UK friend of HKKP – John Cussans… he tells the fascinating story behind the project in a podcast on London Fields Radio here.

The films have been shown in London in July as part of an artistic collaboration with young people from Morpeth school in London’s East End

This week it’s six months since the earthquake of 12th January 2010, when 300,000 people died and one and a half million people were made homeless.

Here’s one radio and one video piece recommended by readers of this blog, Ali and Aaron,  that ask  relevant questions like…

– Why with thousands of foreign NGOs in the country was Haiti a continuously failing state even before the earthquake?

– Six months after the earthquake, why has only 10% of the money promised by international donor governments reached Haiti?

Democracy Now! video piece                                                             http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/12/democracy_now_in_port_au_prince

This American Life, radio article                                                http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/408/island-time

Interviews with audience members at HKKP film night at Tapis Vert camp in Cite Soleil, Port au Prince.  April 2010.

Thursday 25th February 2010, unknown location

Projecting animations in tunnel

David and Marco testing kit out in secret tunnel in Bristol