“I wish I spent my weekends there”

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Bois Jalousie, Haiti, Kinam Hotel, Patrick Vilaire, Pétion-Ville, Prefete Duffaut, Santorini, UCLBP

An employee at Kinam Hotel  took a picture of UCLBP’s painting project in the densely populated neighborhood of Bois Jalousie’s hills. The image was posted on Facebook on which this comment was made: “I wish I spent my weekends there”. Although the Facebook user probably meant she would like to spend a weekend at Kinam Hotel, the fantasy of spending a weekend at Bois Jalousie seemed possible with, of course, a stretch of imagination. As Patrick Vilaire dared to imagine a colorful Prefete Duffaut painting, stretched out on Bois Jalousie’s hills, tourists could imagine visiting Bois Jalousie to find the next new café, and [eventually] the next new guest-house to stay in….

As an example, I thought about Santorini in Greece. Perched on the hillsides of the volcanic island, small houses seem to offer spectacular views and great amenities for an ideal vacation…. [to be continued]

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Bois Jalousie- La Fresque Murale

Tags

Arnold Antonin, Beauté contre Pauvreté, Bidon-Villes, Bois Jalousie, Haiti, Patrick Vilaire, PNUD, Prefete Duffaut, UNESCO

Now that we finally have clean drinkable water, I can sign my mural!” Patrick Vilaire / sculpture, muralist

The artist/sculptor Patrick Vilaire, whose work I’ve admired at a very young age (I was drawn to reproduce his abstract metal bird on paper, when I took art classes at the Centre d’Art du Musée St Pierre) has been involved in a long-term project to provide necessary basic infrastructure to the community of Bois Jalousie in Pétion-Ville. Little did I know, Vilaire would open a path for me to explore the combination of art, architecture and urbanism in Haiti. The project of Bois Jalousie started in 2000. Patrick was commissioned to work on a ceramic mural in Bois Jalousie and participated in the project of providing clean drinkable water to the community. As a matter of fact, the 30 meter long mural leads to the source of water where many Jalousie-inhabitants can get water for only 1 Gourde the Bucket. Patrick explained to me that before this system, the young girls would have to fetch water far away, very early in the morning, and were often victims of rape.

When I arrived to Bois Jalousie with Patrick Vilaire, it was amazing to see how much the community appreciated him. Everybody recognized him and the chattiest couldn’t help but call after him “enjenyè! enjenyè!”

There is a building at the entrance of the neighborhood, which also holds a cyber-café and ceramic studio for murals to be carried on in other neighborhoods. All those spaces were kept clean and under the surveillance of a neighborhood committee.

It was an interesting experience walking through the narrow paths of this very lively community. Of course I could see the poverty, yet there was a sense of community that I never really captured when I drove by other poor neighborhoods. That’s when I also realized that I ‘drove’ through the outskirts of such communities and never really walked through them…

Photo ci-dessus tiré du document:

Évaluation du projet | Les Villes : gestion des transformations sociales et de l’environnement – UNESCO | Le Projet Jalousie : « développement intégré d’un bidonville haïtien »: http://www.unesco.org/most/evaluationvillesjal.pdf

Document in English: http://www.unesco.org/most/dp54merklen.pdf

There is also a documentary produced by the film-maker Arnold Antonin on this project: Beauté Contre Pauvreté

Haiti Villes-Monde sur France-Culture: Bois Jalousie et Patrick Vilaire à 45:00