Chita Tann

11 february – 23 april 2017

Chita Tann is a collaboration between the Haitian artist André Eugéne and the British photographer Leah Gordon.

André Eugéne moves us in the depth of our souls with his sculptures that often use the religion of Vodou as a point of departure and the fact that he works in a part of the world where the economic resources are limited and where the population must struggle for their daily survival. Therefore the artist often and per tradition transforms abandoned objects into art. This time, André Eugéne uses the Artist’s Collective Workshop in Luleå to create a few works for this exhibition.

In the exhibition Chita Tann, he shows sculptures in an intimate dialogue with his partner, the internationally well-known artist and photographer Leah Gordon from Great Britain. Her photographs, films and installations are also about Haiti and repeatedly link directly to the work of André Eugéne. Leah Gordon also connects Europe with Haiti through working with issues of colonization. This topic directly connects with her history, as she grew up in the vicinity of Manchester, England.

To view these works, we ought to approach them, as the exhibition title suggest, with the respect and composure that a genuine encounter calls for.

More information can be found in the Folder (available only in Swedish).

About the artists

Leah Gordon is a multimedia artist living in London who collects, curates exhibitions, researches, writes, directs and expresses herself through photography, film and installations. Her works are about the expressions and effects of colonialism, the slave trade, industrialization, modernism, architecture, experiences from grassroots and popular history, religion, class and traditions. Gordon was the curator for the Pavillion of Haiti in the 2011 Venice Biennial and had also, with André Eugéne, been responsible for the Ghetto Biennale in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. At Havremagasinet she presents photographs from her project Caste, Karnaval, and The Tailors of Port-au-Prince.

The sculptor André Eugéne comes from Haiti, one of the principal members of the artist collective Atis Rezistans, part of a more significant movement known as the Sculptors of Grand Rue. His work has, among other venues, been shown at Musée d’ethnographie de Genève, Parc de la Villette and Grand Palais in Paris, Fowler Museum in Los Angeles and the Venice Biennial. Since 2006, one can also see his permanent sculptures at the Museum of Slavery in Liverpool.