Did you know that Iowa is home to the largest publicly held collection of Haitian art in the country? A small selection of those pieces are on display at the Des Moines Art Center through the summer.
Organized in partnership with the Waterloo Center for the Arts, Light with Ourselves: Haitian Art in Iowa showcases a selection of 15 pieces from the WCA’s collection, which has grown to more than 2,000 pieces since its founding in 1977. The collection is on display year-round at the WCA.
The Des Moines exhibition features paintings, metalwork, ritual objects and beaded and sequined banners called drapo that WCA executive director Chawne Paige hopes will offer a broad introduction to different aspects of everyday Haitian life and spirituality.
"I wanted to be able to equip the Des Moines Art Center with pieces that really have conversation in a small space across that entire gallery, and create a space that's so immersive and celebratory of Haitian culture, as much as possible," he said.
How Iowa became a 'beacon' for the preservation of Haiti's cultural heritage
The Waterloo Center for the Arts' Haitian art collection began with a donation of about 20 pieces from F. Harold Reulin and his wife's personal collection, acquired from artists during their travels to Haiti in their retirement. Working with the center's curators, they met with leading artists and increasingly acquired important works that reflected on the energy and spirit of Haitian life.
As the collection expanded, the museum began working with other collectors, researchers and scholars and aimed to become a strong advocate for Haiti’s rich cultural and artistic heritage.
"The growth of the collection really came from the art center's dedication to presenting Haitian artwork, and really doubling down on that research," Paige said. "It's a very beautiful and powerful story that needs to be shared. And so in that process, we started getting connected to other donors and other collectors from around the world that saw and appreciated what we were doing, along with the individual artists themselves."
NEH grant cuts play a role
The collaborative effort with the WCA also includes multiple events and projects, including a presentation of interviews with Haitian families who have built their lives in the heartland. But recent cuts to the National Endowment for the Humanities grants mean that those efforts have to be dialed back or go on without federal support.
According to Amy Day, the Des Moines Art Center's senior director of communications and marketing, the center was previously awarded an $11,275 NEH grant to support educational programming, installation costs and shipping costs for transporting the exhibition's artwork, but now it's unknown if the center will ever be reimbursed for those expenses. The cuts mean that the center also had to cancel a presentation on Haitian vodou and culture from an invited lecturer.
"The art center relies on the NEH for a small portion of overall funding. NEH funding in the past has supported special exhibitions and educational programming that would not otherwise be possible," Day said.
The WCA's collaboration with Grinnell College to digitize approximately 1,150 Haitian artworks located at sites in Haiti and the U.S. also lost $350,000 in federal grant funding. Items were to be cataloged and, along with 1,266 already-digitized materials, incorporated into a multi-lingual open-access database. The site is still accessible.
By absorbing the cost of the exhibition's expenses and adjusting programming to reduce overall costs, Light with Ourselves: Haitian Art in Iowa will continue uninterrupted and remain open through Sept. 7. An upcoming symposium will also invite lecturers and researchers to speak on April 26, which is free for the public to attend.
