ARTWORK AND TEXT BY SHNEIDER LÉON HILAIRE
TRANSLATED FROM FRENCH BY LÉOPOLD LAMBERT
Haiti’s nocturnal imaginary is a particularly rich one. On August 14, 1791 in Bois-Caïman, it was during the night that numerous enslaved people held a ceremony that initiated the Haitian Revolution. But this imaginary goes beyond the political history of the country and encompasses a multitude of rituals, myths, creatures, and ghosts. As such, we are happy to feature the artwork of Shneider Léon Hilaire that fully revolves around this dimension of the Haitian collective imaginary.
My artistic project explores the profound relationships between myths, perceptions, and realities within the Haitian nocturnal imaginary. For me, art is much more than creative expression; it’s an essential means of questioning our society’s beliefs, doubts, and ideologies, of representing our culture and traditions, and of exploring our collective identity. As a Haitian, I’m particularly interested in perceptions of the Night, which is populated by mysteries, fantastical tales, and fascinating stories handed down from generation to generation. The night in Haiti forms a space that harbors intimate and collective experiences, where dreams, dreamlike journeys and strange events, perceived as much by the imagination as by the senses, mingle.
