The photographs taken under the rubric “Rituals in Haiti”, from a work about trance, full of strength, expressiveness and profound intentionality. Black and white inhabit dance and ecstasy, the stillness of trance and confusion, lace and devastation, tears and smiles, accentuating the throb of blood, the love and the life of people living on the brink of slavery.

Although this is an area that has not succeeded in escaping poverty or the voodoo beliefs that are practised with a force that makes spiritism permeate the whole of its social life, this is not a sad country. Its people draw strength and joy from the slightest ocassion.

Through these rituals they are purified with water, mud, dances and songs, naked and in contact with the graves where the spirits live ….

Although they may offend us, the smells with which they are surrounded are smells of fullness, of moving forward, of remembering their ancestors, ultimately the smells of happiness.

Cristina Agàpito