“HAITI NOIR” LED BY AUTHOR EDWIDGE DANTICAT and FILM “EAT FOR THIS IS MY BODY” MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART

In conjunction with the exhibition Bruce Weber: Haiti/Little Haiti , the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami will host a panel discussion led by acclaimed author Edwidge Danticat on the new anthology Haiti Noir Saturday, January 22 at 4 pm. This  volume of stories set in Haiti, both before and after the earthquake, features writing by a selection of diverse writers including Rodney Saint-Eloi, Madison Smartt Bell, and Gary Victor.  Danticat, editor of Haiti Noir as well as contributor, will be joined by two of the contributing writers,  M.J. Fievre and Marie Ketsie Theodore-Pharel.

That afternoon, MOCA will screen the film Eat for This is My Body, Director Michelange Quay’s feature film that is a poetic telling of the power in his native Haiti and the colonial relationships that existed.

Both events are free with Museum Admission and will be held at MOCA, 770 NE 125th Street, North Miami, FL  33161.

Saturday, January 22 at 2 pm
Films at MOCA: Eat for This is My Body
Director Michelange Quay’s feature film is a poetic telling of the evolution of power in his native Haiti.

Saturday, January 22 at 4 pm
Reading: Haiti Noir
Author and editor Edwidge Danticat and contributors J.J. Fievre and Maire Ketsia Theodore-Pharel will read from Haiti Noir, a timely volume set featuring stories set before and after the Haitian earthquake.

BRUCE WEBER: HAITI / LITTLE HAITI
Museum of Contemporary Art
Knight Exhibition Series

On view through February 13, this exhibition features 150 extraordinary photographs of Miami’s Haitian community by celebrated photographer Bruce Weber taken over the last seven years.  Also included in the exhibition are two films by Weber: A Letter to True, and Liberty City is Like Paris to Me, which captures the street celebrations of Martin Luther King Day in Miami’s Liberty City neighborhood.

In 2003, The Miami Herald published a magazine supplement of Bruce Weber’s photographs of Miami’s Haitian community.  The photographs were Weber’s response to an unjust U.S. immigration system in which Haitians were detained indefinitely unlike refugees from other countries who were typically released while awaiting asylum hearings. The documentary film, The Agronomist, by Jonathan Demme, had been Weber’s call to arms. In it, Demme chronicled the life of Haiti’s most famous journalist, Jean Dominique, the founder of Radio Haiti Internationale and his murder by unknown assailants in 2000. Incensed by the violence, political strife and poverty depicted in the film, Weber asked Demme what he could do, and Demme suggested turning his attention to what was happening to Haitians in Miami, where Weber had a home. Compelled to tell the story of the struggle of Haitian immigrants, Weber immersed himself in the Haitian community, which he has continued to chronicle through the present.

Spread the love!