What lessons can the Haitian experience teach the world today ? At the beginning of the 19th century, a civilization was established in Haiti in both its learned and popular forms. Its written literature is an initial answer, in its very posture of bravado and panache, demonstrating an undeniable way of inhabiting the world " de plein jour et de plain-pied ". Less well known are the learned forms of his music and painting. And their popular expressions have suffered from often reductive presentations.
Popular forms of expression have built a strong coherence by proposing a vision of the world around, among other things, vodou, a way of occupying space and a language. A vision that resolutely turns its back on the vision of the Great Plantation that was to dominate the Caribbean and Latin America during the 19th century.
Popular and learned culture have never been totally separate, and since the second half of the 20th century, we have witnessed a dialogue between the two, which is often clash-ridden, sometimes harmonious, but always fruitful.
Creativity in literature, music and the visual arts today bears witness to the undeniable openness of the " countries outside ", to the impact of migratory phenomena and the transformation of the imaginary with globalization, but above all to the power of beauty to resist. Resistance and beauty as utopias for inhabiting tomorrow.