From Black + White Photography Issue 276
"Leah has been documenting the participants in Jacmel’s carnival for more than two decades. Her formalised, considered portraits strip away some of the pomp and pageantry, allowing the viewer to pore over the details of the costumes.
Leah works in a reciprocal manner. Since the early 2000s she has been collecting oral histories from the people she photographs, learning their stories in addition to capturing their images. She is also highly collaborative, allowing the people she photographs a great deal of agency in how they are posed and photographed, as well as paying them for their time.
The project has gathered momentum, being published as a book and exhibited extensively, most recently at London’s Ed Cross Fine Art. Leah has even directed a feature-length documentary that was shown in cinemas last year and broadcast on BBC Four.
Jon Stapley: Your Kanaval project has been more than 25 years in the making, as you’ve gone back and photographed Jacmel’s annual carnival again and again. At what point did you realise it was going to be a project as long-term as this?
Leah Gordon: I suppose you never really do. You just keep going back. I guess the time when I knew this was something a bit different was probably around 2002 or 2003, when I made the decision to go back and actually get the oral histories. I suppose that was a turning point in that I knew the scope of the project had changed and that it wasn't purely imagery; it was a kind of deeper or more profound look at the carnival."
