Making Art in the 3rd World: Haiti’s Ghetto Biennale

In December 2009, a group of local and international artists presented at the first-ever biennial in the Haitian capital of Port-Au-Prince, mixing art with street culture in the cleverly-captioned “Ghetto Biennale.” This inventive art fair boldly bucked tradition with it’s unique approach to art as community rather than commodity, and lent a fresh perspective on the magic behind the creative process. The event was the embodiment of its slogan, which begs the question, “What happens when first world art rubs up against third world art? Does it bleed?”—asks MutualArt writer Lauren Meir in this piece for the Huffington Post.

Less than a month later, Haiti was devastated by one of the worst earthquakes in the region’s history, claiming the lives of nearly 100,000, and leaving over one million people homeless. With the poor infrastructure of the majority of the buildings, much of the country was reduced to…