Cultural Recovery and Rescue - My Upcoming Trip to Haiti

This is my last month or so of Conservation School. In just a little over a month's time, I will pack my bags and leave Los Angeles, all the while wondering how the hell the last two years went by so fast! What this means of course is that it's internship time!

This summer, I've been offered an unusual opportunity, one which I am very much looking forward to, though I know that it's likely to be one of the most difficult projects I have and will ever work on. Under the auspices of the Smithsonian, AIC and ICCROM, I will be joining a team of conservators in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti; for the month of July, I will working to rescue a number of objects including stone sculpture, iron sheet metal sculpture and other ethnographic materials under the supervision of Chief Conservator, Stephanie Hornbeck.

The Cultural Recovery Centre, Route de Bourdon, Port-Au-Prince. Image from http://haiti.si.edu

The importance of this project, with respect to the preservation of endangered artefacts, cannot be understated. Between the damage caused by the January 2010 earthquake and the torrential rains and hurricanes of the island's wet season, thousands of irreplaceable Haitian paintings, sculptures, archives and other items of cultural history are in danger of being lost forever.

The collapsed 'Centre d'Art', Port-Au-Prince, Haiti (image from http://haiti.si.edu)

When I first told my mother that I was applying for this internship, she was, unsurprisingly, apprehensive. As a country, Haiti's infrastructure is fragile at best, and as a city, Port-Au-Prince has hardly even begun to heal. The loss of life, both past and present, is staggering. Malaria, Dengue Fever, and more recently, cholera, plague a country's people who struggle just to live from one day to the next.

Despite all of this, as well as her own worries for my health and my safety, nobody has been more supportive of my desire to see this project through than my mother. Surprising me again has been the words of support and congratulations from my friends, both new and old, most of whom do not work in my field. For the most part, I'm pretty sure that they can still barely wrap their heads around what it is that I've chosen to do with the rest of my life. In spite of this, they understand why I want to do this, and more importantly, they understand why it's important.

The Nader Museum collapsed. Paintings and other art are visible in the rubble. Images from http://haiti.si.edu

Which is why I was so shocked by the negative reception I've received from certain colleagues in my field. Needless to say, having a fellow conservator say to me, "It's not like you're really making a difference. People are dying -- who cares about a bunch of art?" shocked me -- it really did.

Since then, I've found myself struggling with the idea - does it really make a difference? In the greater scheme of things, will the Haitian people look at my pathetic efforts to save a bunch of rusty metal sheets and think, "the least she could have done was bring some more aspirin"?

Up until now, I've said to myself and to my naysayers - I am neither a doctor, nor am I rich; these are the skills that I do have and this is what I can do to help.

Sometimes these words silence the arguments and bolster my feelings that what I'm doing is the right thing. Sometimes, they just sound hollow.

Until three days ago.

Three days ago, I began receiving more emails with more details so as to plan my trip. In those emails, there was a deployment manual put together by AIC for conservators working on the Cultural Recovery Project. On the very first page, they quote AIC Member Rosa Lowinger, a conservator who worked on the murals of the Cathédrale Sainte Trinité:

"As we crawled around the site, measuring and testing, I could not help but wonder if it is right to be spending money and energy on murals in light of other pressing demands. Every drive I took through Port-Au-Prince was a study in human need and the urgency of action: collapsed houses, tent cities, open trench latrines, roads blocked by piles of debris, hospitals and schools that list precariously, shored by makeshift scaffolding. This, along with infinite unseen calamities (like the exorbitant prices of everything, from rice to fuel) made our job of rescuing artwork seem like a luxury. It was an issue that nagged at me during my entire stay in the country.

"So one afternoon, in the rubble-strewn courtyard of Ste. Trinité, I asked architect Magdalena Carmelita Douby, the project's registrar, about local attitudes towards our somewhat unusual rescue effort. Her answer came without hesitation: 'We have lost everything except our culture,' she said calmly, 'we have to protect what is left.'"

Cement holding together the brick and rock wall is unstable, endangering the murals attached to them. Image from http://haiti.si.edu

After reading this, I realised that it really didn't matter what my colleagues in the field believed. If the people of Port-Au-Prince were grateful for our contribution to the preservation and rescue of their cultural heritage, then I had done what I set out to do.

I would be making a difference.

Though I know that the internet will, at best, be dicey -- it is my hope to continue blogging throughout my time there.