Out of Focus

”Sa w wè a se pa sa“

There’s more to it than meets the eye

Haitian saying

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Can an exhibition by a German photographer

convey an image of Haiti that is not character-

ized by stereotypes? With Out of Focus, the

artist‘s collective U5 presents the images of

Leonore Mau (1916–2013) in a multimedia,

sensory environment that addresses questions

of showing and not showing.

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Leonore Mau traveled to Haiti in the 1970s

during the dictatorship of Jean-Claude “Baby

Doc” Duvalier. She traveled together with the

writer Hubert Fichte (1935–1986). The trip was

part of a long-term research project on Afro-dias-

poric religions. Mau‘s photographs were pub-

lished in the photo books Xango (1976) and

Petersilie (1980) and in travel reports in many

German magazines. However, the majority

of her photographs have not yet been published

or shown in exhibitions and are in the photogra-

pher‘s estate in the bpk-Fotoarchiv, Berlin.

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In Mau‘s photo books, there are photographs

that confirm the prejudiced image of Haiti and

Vodou, but in her extensive legacy there are

many more images in which everyday life, com-

munity, dictatorship, spirituality and tourism

coexist. Leonore Mau’s oeuvre opens a space for

critical reflection on political, economic, cultural,

and personal entanglements. This touches

upon questions of aesthetics, as well as on the

ethics of photography. How can the images

be shown without reproducing power relations?

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The environment developed by U5 in collaboration with ALIAS architects​ transforms Mau’s photographs in various fluid states and thus opens up a dialog on the topic of representation. Madafi

Pierre, an artist and filmmaker, designed a sound

collage to accompany it.

 

Our exhibition is an artistic development of the

SNF research project Out of Focus by Dora Imhof and

U5 at the chair of Prof. Dr. Bärbel Küster at the University of Zurich. Together with the

cultural anthropologist and artist Gina Athena Ulysse, the houngan (priest), musician and

general director of the Bureau National d‘Ethno-

logie in Port-au-Prince Erol Josué and other

people and their different expertise, the exhibi-

tion develops an approach to Leonore Mau‘s

images that allows for ambivalence, in which

criticism and beauty are not contradictory.

​

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Showing and not showing, fluid images

​

In the exhibition, Leonore Mau’s work is trans-

formed in various fluid states. There are two cen-

tral elements that address the themes of seeing

and showing/not showing: a water basin onto

which images are projected and a shelf in which

ceramic bottles are placed. A textile structure

softens the boundaries of the space.

​

Mau‘s photographs float in the water basin. They

show everyday life in Haiti in a non-sensational-

ist way and reveal its beauty: street scenes,

people at work or at school, landscapes, the

carnival, or prepa­ rations for rituals. The images

appear with transitions lasting 21, 14 or 7 seconds.

The situations and encounters are manifold;

often the same motif is repeated. The images

blur, appear and disappear. It is not possible

to hold on.