The State of Haiti

Rèmi Orsier, a French employee of the Swiss NGO Terre des Hommes that manages a program to combat malnutrition in southern Haiti. The country has more NGOs per inhabitant than any other nation in the world. Les Cayes. Haiti, 2013. © Paolo Woods/INSTITUTE

Tent city on a soccer field that belongs to a church. After the earthquake, inhabitants of makeshift districts (Jalousie, seen in the background) sometimes pitched tents in the camps to benefit from NGO help. The most visible camps in public squares were dismantled. Pétion-Ville. © Paolo Woods/INSTITUTE

Julio Jean Pierre is a host on Tèlèvision Nationale d’Haôti (TNH). He’s being made up a few minutes before going on air. Behind him, a bust of Alexandre Pètion, president of the Haitian Republic from 1806 until his death in 1818, one of the fathers of the nation. Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 2012. © Paolo Woods/INSTITUTE

A borlette office. Haitians invest two billion dollars every year in these private lotteries, nearly a quarter of the GNP. They are often referred to as banks since the poor invest their money in them. Camp Perrin, Haiti. © Paolo Woods/INSTITUTE

At the Hùtel Karibe, above Port-au-Prince, two go-go girls dig into fried chicken after dancing for hours at the concert of a local singer, J Perry. Juvènat, Pètion-Ville, Haiti. © Paolo Woods/INSTITUTE

In Port-au-Prince’s Notre Dame Cathedral, a man looks for iron to recycle from the ruins of the earthquake. Port-au-Prince, Haiti. © Paolo Woods/INSTITUTE

The inauguration of Michel Joseph Martelly, the 56th president of Haiti. In the crowd, on horseback, a man is dressed as Jean-Jacques Dessalines (1758-1806), leader of the Haitian Revolution and the first chief of state. May 14, 2011. Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 2011. © Paolo Woods/INSTITUTE

Radio Men Kontre 95.5 FM. Men Kontre (“united hands” in Creole) is the radio of the Catholic diocese of Les Cayes. Sister Melianise Gabreus is one of the stars of the radio. Even if there are no official figures, father Elysee, that runs the radio, says that lots of people tune in for Sister Melianise’s program on daily life advice. Les Cayes, Haiti. © Paolo Woods/INSTITUTE

Grègory Brandt is a businessman whose German grandfather emigrated from Jamaica at the beginning of the last century. He presides over the Franco-Haitian Chamber of Commerce. The garden of his residence, Pètion-Ville, Haiti. © Paolo Woods/INSTITUTE

After the January 12, 2010, earthquake, the capital’s public squares were taken over by displaced people living in tents. Here, an equestrian statue of Jean-Pierre Boyer, president from 1818 to 1843, is used to support a tent made of tarps from international aid organizations. Place Boyer, Pètion-Ville, Haiti, 2011. © Paolo Woods/INSTITUTE

At a time when the small republic of Haiti, independent since 1804, was described only through the prism of tragedy, photographer Paolo Woods was looking for something else: how a national identity can be forged in spite of the State. STATE shows Haiti like never before. While not ignoring the huge difficulties of a land where two thirds of the inhabitants don’t have enough to eat, the project tells how a country presented as “cursed” is, above all, a place where resistance, humor, creation and culture live side by side; how the idea of a nation articulates itself around an absent State; how Haiti concentrates all the issues of a Southern nation submitted to the winds of globalization that the combined efforts of the international community are not capable of addressing. —Courtesy INSTITUTE

STATE is currently on display at Photoville in Brooklyn, and Woods will be in conversation with Fred Ritchin discussing STATE Sunday, September 29 at the Photoville Talk Area at 5:10pm. Woods and two other INSTITUTE artists, Elinor Carucci and Wayne Lawrence, will discuss their projects on Friday, September 27 at the Photoville Beergarden at 7pm. STATE is also currently on view at the Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland through May 1, 2014 and a book by the same name is also available.