Written By Maco Monthervil
When we speak of the earthquake that forever changed Haiti, we often talk about infrastructure, the Haitians who were displaced, and of course, the 300,000 lives that were lost on that Tuesday in 2010. What we seldom talk about is our other losses—things that were part of the tangible evidence of our rich culture.
We don’t talk enough about the centuries-old gingerbread houses, that pink cathedral now in ruins, the National Palace whose white walls could blind you if you looked at them at noon, and the priceless artwork of our most brilliant artists.
Still, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t many of us who care about these losses, and it doesn’t mean that there aren’t several among us who are working to preserve what they can.
Franck Louissaint and a small team of fellow artists have been working tirelessly over the last several years to salvage more than 600 works that were damaged in the quake.
They do this work because they know that while there are things we must simply accept, there is a kind of defeat that we cannot—our art contains our stories, and we cannot allow our stories to simply fade away.
These artists should be talked about, and the work that they do for our culture should be valued.
You can read more about Frank and his work here.
