Overview:
A workshop and installation at Weeksville Heritage Center introduced attendees to fanal, a Haitian Christmas tradition. Artist Fitgi Saint-Louis led participants in creating paper lantern houses and debuted her large-scale installation inspired by the craft.
Titled Fanal – Fe Limye, the installation by multidisciplinary artist Fitgi Saint-Louis, created in collaboration with Weeksville Heritage Center and the Beam Center, spotlights the Haitian holiday tradition of making and selling paper lantern houses.
On Dec. 6, the artist led a workshop where attendees created their own fanals choosing unique color schemes for the housing and “stained glass” windows. The event’s emphasis on light and what it represents was at the center of the workshop and installation inauguration.
To cap off the event, Saint-Louis presented the lighting of a life-sized installation that also featured her unique signature: the four-paned face. The installation will be on view from November through January.
Saint-Louis first learned about fanals when someone asked her to create a T-shirt featuring the tradition. From there, the artist followed her curiosity, speaking with elder family members who told her about their memories of their way to and from church on Christmas nights. Her takeaway was succinct, “fanals are about architecture and featuring it in a creative way,” she said.
Beginning with an introduction on the importance of a fanal, Saint-Louis led workshop attendees through constructing their own versions. Participants took home their curated craft projects.
Saint-Louis’ family immigrated to the United States from Haiti and often couldn’t travel with photos. The four-paned face serves as an allusion to their reality — one that many diasporic cultures can relate to — of never knowing how their ancestors looked.
The installation’s solar-powered approach allows the lighting to operate on a timer. Positioned along the exterior of the Center, it sits parallel to the historic designation Hunterfly Road Houses, built by free Black residents in the pre–Civil War era. To vote, free Black men had to own land while White men did not. Weeksville, named after James Weeks, was established as an opportunity to have a safe space and secure the vote. Now, Weeksville Heritage Center preserves that legacy, preserving the Hunterfly Road Houses. The positioning of the structures — the installation and the homes — is a symbol of the meaningful partnership between Saint-Louis and Weeksville.
Raymond Codrington, President and CEO of Weeksville Heritage Center, said the installation immediately felt at home in the space.
“When we see the house here, it looks like it fits,” he said. “It looks like it’s been here for a while. I’m interested in bringing in work that’s in dialogue with the history of the institution. We’re sitting where historic Weeksville was, the installation really brings it together.”
According to Codrington, the decision of the Center to highlight Saint-Louis’ work was a deliberate one.
“We’re a cultural institution that tells the history of the second-largest free Black community in the pre–Civil War era,” he said. “When you think of Haiti, its importance in terms of independence and freedom in the Western Independence […] there’s a nice fit and overlap between the two.”
Saint-Louis’ family friend Sandra McCalla, 65, said the workshop stirred childhood memories.
She made her first fanal at the workshop despite having spent the first 14 and a half years of her life in Haiti. Having been raised between Port-au-Prince and Gonaïve, creating the fanals wasn’t as common in the city. But she does remember them being sold during her youth. She said she remembers it being a tangible symbol of Christianity.
On reconnecting with the tradition in the U.S., McCalla said it offered bittersweet comfort.
“For us who are older, it’s a sweet nostalgia,” she said. “It reminds us of the good times.”
McCalla attended the workshop with her daughter, Christine Miguel, who has never visited Haiti, and her newborn granddaughter. Miguel said events like this help her maintain cultural ties she never experienced firsthand.
“Without touching base and making connections that are huge cultural memories of my mother and grandmother, I will slowly lose the parts of me that I so want to retain,” Miguel said.
“As generations pass, I want to have as much in my toolkit as I can share with [my daughter] even if I didn’t experience it myself.”
Saint-Louis was able to bring together a number of people to be introduced to or reminisce about this tradition. “It was created as a joyous holiday memento, so it has this beautiful glow,” she said.
Her research uncovered the layered significance of the craft, including how it mirrors Haitian architecture—particularly gingerbread houses—that has come under threat in recent years. Armed groups have increasingly used arson as a tactic to seize power, placing these historic structures at risk. For Saint-Louis, fanals offer a way to honor and preserve the legacy of these ornate wooden homes, built between the 1880s and 1920s, known for their intricate fretwork, vibrant colors, and blend of local and foreign design elements.
“It is a continuation of the architecture on the island as well as a way to bring folks together during the holiday season,” Saint-Louis said.
“The structure itself is called fanal fe limye — to create light. It’s about this collective unison of people coming together in order to create this strong beacon of independence, of sovereignty, of hope.”
Like this:
Loading…
