Paper short abstract:

This paper will contextualise the process of gathering and disseminating evidence of material culture from Haiti in the weeks after the earthquake of January 12, 2010.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will show how the author interpreted the Haitian earthquake over several months after visiting Port-au-Prince in the weeks just after the disaster. It will show how this international news was at the same time an intimate portrait of domestic life. And how a variety of processes transformed an immediate personal response into radio broadcast, then into site specific art installation. And how it continues to be adapted and proliferated as media - from discussion as archaeological and anthropological enquiry, to NGO and other charity dialogues, BBC World Service and Radio 4 scripting and broadcast, to photographic selection and editing, exhibition curation and written artist statements one for the site specific domestic location, another in a designated art space. It will draw upon a presentation which originated in Bristol, at CHAT 2006, where the author presented 'Leaving Home - the visual version' as a response to domestic change and loss. The three year project, Leave Home Stay, which emerged from this, became Leave Home Stay in Haiti in July, 2010, and was further adapted and re-curated for the Cube Cineplex gallery, Bristol, in October, 2010. For more background see www.leavehomestay.com