HAITI: TREE RUINS & TREE LINE (2010)

Etching and chine-collé on paper.
Each 27.75″ × 22.25″

These limited edition prints represent portions of Haitian and Domican landscape, as observed during De St. Croix’s 2010 research trip to Haiti. The Dominican Republic has lush tropical forests and is economically thriving due to protection laws and a robust tourism industry. In contrast, vast areas of Haitian landscape, once similar to that of the D.R., are now a treeless, erosion-ridden wasteland. Even before the earthquake, the country’s inadequate energy infrastructure forced the population to rely on charcoal for heat and cooking, leading to extensive unregulated deforestation.

Tree Ruins (Haitian Charcoal Field) shows the remnants of the trees felled to make charcoal, while the diptych Tree Line (Haiti and Dominican Republic Border) uses physical division to emphasize the disparity between  between the D.R.’s flourishing ecosystem and Haiti’s man-made wasteland. Though seductive at first glance, the landscapes are underlaid with turmoil and, upon closer examination, reveal the discord within themselves.

Prints were were produced with the Lower East Side Printshop, NYC, Special Editions.

Photographs in support of the project and its research can be viewed in the “research” section.