Out of Focus

Leonore Mau and Haiti

Out of Focus

"Sa w wè a se pa sa" (There’s more to it than meets the eye. Haitian saying)

Out of Focus: blurred, obscure, unclear, fuzzy, if something is out of focus, it is not being discussed or its purpose or nature is not clear. (Collins Dictionary)

The photographer Leonore Mau (19162013) traveled to Haiti in the 1970s during the dictatorship of Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier. She traveled together with the writer Hubert Fichte (19351986). The trips were part of a long-term research project on Afro-diasporic religions, which took them to Benin, Brazil, Grenada, Senegal and Venezuela, among other places. Mau's photographs were published in her photo books "Xango" (1976) and "Petersilie" (1980) and in travel reports in many German magazines. The majority, however, has not yet been published or shown in exhibitions and is now part of the photographer's estate at the bpk-Bildagentur in Berlin.

"Out of Focus" is a collaborative examination of Leonore Mau's photographs taken in Haiti. The exhibition seeks a decolonial approach to these images and asks how working with this archive can contribute to changing the image of Haiti, which is still characterized by stereotypes today.

While Mau’s photo books include images that confirm the prejudiced image of Haiti and Vodou, her extensive estate contains photographs that convey a multi-layered picture of the country, in which everyday life, dictatorship, spirituality, beauty and tourism exist side by side. However, looking at the photographs also raises questions about image ethics, representation, exoticism and extractivism. 

Together with the cultural anthropologist and artist Gina Athena Ulysse, the artist and filmmaker Madafi Pierre, the houngan (priest), musician, and director general of the Bureau National d'Ethnologie in Port-au-Prince Erol Josué, and other scholars and artists, the exhibition develops a dialogical, critical, and productive approach to Mau’s images. The photographs will be shown at the Lenbachhaus in a multimedia, sensual environment. An essential component is an event program (during the exhibition period) in which the previous dialogues in and with the public are continued through performances and discussions.

"Out of Focus" focuses on Haiti and Leonore Mau and sees itself as a process-based case study in dealing with artistic-ethnological photographs and archives. The exhibition is dedicated to the central questions of access and responsibility and explores the possibility to address and redress of (post-)colonial injustices with sensitivity and respect.

The exhibition at the Lenbachhaus is an artistic development of the research project "Out of Focus" by Dora Imhof and the artists' collective U5 at the University of Zurich. The exhibition will be accompanied by a comprehensive four-language publication edited by Dora Imhof, Gina Athena Ulysse, and U5, published by Hatje Cantz.

Cooperation partners: S. Fischer Foundation, bpk-Bildagentur, Berlin

With generous support of Förderverein Lenbachhaus e.V.

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