Report on the Foundry Fund for the artist's community of Grand Rue.
The Grand Rue Sculptors live in a bidonville area that scrawls behind Grand Rue, the busy main route passing through downtown Port au Prince. There has always been a tradition of arts and crafts in the area and now a culturally rich community of self-taught artists who exhibit internationally. In the last two years these artists have been training the children in the area and have a vision of creating an artistic zone in the slums and giving the youth a chance to make art to sell and support themselves. The vision of the two main artists, Andre Eugene and Celeur Jean Herard had created a zone that was virtually drug, gun and gang free through arts and creativity. In Decemeber 2009 the Ghetto Biennale was held in this area and was the first ever arts festival held in a slum in the developing world. Over thirty international artists came to make work with the children and artists of Grand Rue.
The Grand Rue area has been red-zoned by the UN for a number of years. This affected the community after the earthquake as they received no aid or support whatsoever. Grand Rue was utterly decimated by the earthquake.
The community had lost their houses and many that were still standing were too unsafe to inhabit. The neighbourhood were living their lives on the rubble.
A group of artists who had worked with the Grand Rue artists during the Ghetto Biennale www.ghettobiennale.com got together and started the Foundry Fund. The money was collected via an arts venue called the Foundry in Hoxton, East London. The idea was to help the neighbourhood as directly as we could with no money taken for administration costs at all. All work for the fund is done voluntarily by UK-based artists. As one member, Leah Gordon, was flown straight to Haiti after the earthquake to do photographic work for aid agencies the fund was able to get the much needed cash directly to the neighbourhood. This was distributed to the people in the area as sacks of beans and rice. Next we bought tarpaulins to help people build structures for shelter.
The neighbourhood also used some of the money to get their children out of Port au Prince to live with relatives in the countryside away from the dreadful smells and pollution of the earthquake. A month later the children returned and the neighbourhood requested better places to live in and we responded by sending 20 family size tents via Andre Eugene, who had been invited to the UK for a benefit concert, and Laura Hayman, an American artist who was going to Haiti on a private commission - thereby still keeping administration to a minimum.
After we were assured that everyone had some level of security against the rains the community requested WiFi access and some computers. Laura Heyman, on a second self-financed trip to Haiti took some second hand computers donated by her university and we helped fund WiFi access in the neighbourhood. This gave the children in the neighbourhood a place to get together and something to do whilst all the schools were still not functioning. This enabled them to practice English, google artists and learn about other arts too.
Now that schools have started again we have asked the community what they need in the future.
They have asked that their artists website www.atis-rezistans.com be expanded to include the art that the children's collective 'Ti Moun Rezistans' are producing. The children have been given video cameras to allow them to record and document their own lives after the earthquake in a project involving Chelsea Art College and linking with Morpeth School in the East end of London. They want to be able to show their films on the new website so we need to pay more WiFi. They have asked for money to rebuild some of the fallen walls so that they can display their work again. Finally we want to start a project that will give them English lessons once a week using a local translator who is happy to give these lessons at a discount rate. This is considered important as English is the lingua-franca of the art world. It is hoped that in the future these children can help pay themselves through further education (there is no state provided education in Haiti whatsoever) using their skills and imaginations as artists and use the tools that we have supplied to help them promote and distribute their work. We are also working with Photo Voice to try to set up a photography project in the area and the work can be exhibited at the next Ghetto Biennale in 2011.
Leah Gordon
