people - Sharjah Art Foundation

Leah Gordon is an artist, curator and writer. She is the co-director of Haiti’s Ghetto Biennale and was a curator for the Haitian Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale (2011).

Biography

Leah Gordon (b. 1959, Chester) is an artist, curator and writer whose work explores the intersectional histories of the Caribbean plantation system, transatlantic slave trade, Enclosure Acts and creation of the British working-class. Her work amplifies histories from below and recognises the role of carnivals, folk traditions, grassroots religion in performing and sustaining radical histories. Gordon’s work has been exhibited internationally, including in the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Dak’art Biennale; National Portrait Gallery, London; and Norton Museum of Art, Florida. She is the co-director of Haiti’s Ghetto Biennale and was a curator for the Haitian Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale (2011). Gordon is the co-author of Kanaval: Vodou, Politics and Revolution on the Streets of Haiti (Soul Jazz Books, 2010). In 2022, her award-winning documentary Kanaval: A People’s History of Haiti in Six Chapters, was screened in cinemas and BBC 4. Gordon exhibited in and curated the Atis Rezistans | Ghetto Biennale exhibition at documenta fifteen, Germany (2022).