Each year, Jacmel, a coastal town in Southern Haiti, holds pre-Lenten Mardi Gras Festivities. Troupes of 'performers' act out mythological and political tales in a whorish theatre of the absurd that courses the streets unshackled by traditional parade.

The characters and costume partially betray their roots in medieval European carnival, but the Jacmellien masquerades are also a fusion of clandestine Vodou, ancestral memory, political satire and personal revelation.

The work is accompanied by oral histories from the participants. The next few pages of this gallery include extracts from these histories.

*Kanaval by Leah Gordon
20 January - 19 March 2004 at The Brunei Gallery, SOAS
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