In 2004, Haitian-American photographer Christopher Mitchell went to work on Labor Day. Living in Brooklyn at the time, he decided to take photos during the New York borough\u2019s famous West Indian Day Parade held every first Monday of September. But he didn\u2019t shoot the main parade \u2013 instead, he got up before the crack of dawn and joined a procession for J\u2019ouvert, a Carnival celebration celebrated in several Caribbean countries including Haiti.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI would always document Carnival in Haiti, and when I was in New York, I would also document American parades and types of festivals (including Carnival),\u201d says the artist, now based in Miami at Bakehouse Studios. \u201cBut you have to get up very early to catch the J\u2019ouvert element.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
J\u2019ouvert originates from Colonial-era protests by enslaved Africans: Barred from celebrating Carnival, they would vandalize the costumes of white Colonial citizens with tar or oil in the early hours of the morning. Mitchell took a similarly radical approach to his own project. He shot from within the crowd rather than inside it, entirely on film and mostly in predawn darkness, experimenting with film stocks that would allow him to work in very low light. A malfunctioning flash meant that the only source of light came from overhead street lamps.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Christopher Mitchell shot the photos within the crowd, capturing the dynamic celebration of J\u2019Ouvert.\u00a0<\/p>\n
(Courtesy of the artist)<\/p>\n
\u201cThese images are very much like a time capsule of how things were,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was a beautiful challenge for me, to be able to shoot during that time when it was mostly film that was available. And I got to try it out in a way that maybe, if I was hired, I doubt a client would want me to do that. But that\u2019s the beauty of being free \u2013 I wasn\u2019t hired for this. This is a passion project, so I got to shoot it the way I wanted to see it done.\u201d<\/p>\n
The photos mostly went shelved for years, existing only as a single, self-printed volume in Mitchell\u2019s studio. It took a visit from Yessica Gispert, an artist, curator and visiting assistant professor of photography at Florida International University, for them to see the light of day. A show of the photos, titled \u201cDaybreak\u201d is now on view at P71 Gallery in Little Haiti.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Curator Yessica Gispert compares Christopher Mitchell\u2019s work to social photographers such as Gordon Parks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
(Courtesy of Christopher Mitchell)<\/p>\n
\u201cThis whole project that he put together is in real time. It\u2019s him walking through the crowd, and when it starts, it\u2019s at night, and when it ends, it\u2019s daytime.\u201d Gispert, the show\u2019s curator, says. \u201cAnd I was really drawn to that perspective of him being within the crowd versus on the outside, him being a Haitian photographer, being among his community, him being shoulder to shoulder with everyone and enjoying and observing, not in this kind of outsider view, but very much an insider view. It made me think of Gordon Parks, it made me think of also a lot of SNCC photographers who documented the Civil Rights Movement.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Certainly, the images themselves are striking and dramatic, defined by strong shadows and a dynamic sensibility, with bodies constantly in motion. Light shines off black-painted limbs covered in slick, glossy liquid, a reminder of the celebration\u2019s origins. The graininess of the photos also confers an appropriately gritty quality.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s more to the photos than their aesthetics. Time has given Mitchell\u2019s work an additional resonance: This is, after all, a time before smartphones and omnipresent cameras, and it shows in the faces and movements of the paradegoers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople don\u2019t think the way they used to, they don\u2019t carry themselves the way they used to,\u201d Mitchell says. \u201cLike as we\u2019re editing, we\u2019re going through 100-plus images and just watching people in the crowd, just being totally lost in the moment, really immersed. Watching people\u2019s eyes being almost in a trance, like being somewhere else.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Christopher Mitchell\u2019s J\u2019Ouvert photos were shelved for years and now see the light of day in \u201cDaybreak\u201d on view at P71 Gallery in Little Haiti.\u00a0<\/p>\n
(Courtesy of the artist)<\/p>\n
Mitchell points to something that\u2019s commonly expressed in 2026, that people are so hyperaware of smartphones and potentially being posted on social media that they refuse to express themselves in public. His photos show what the world could be like without this state of mass surveillance: More fun, less inhibited, not afraid.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As the artist says: \u201cThis is before people even cared about social media.\u201d<\/p>\n
IF YOU GO<\/p>\n
WHAT: \u201cChristopher Mitchell: Daybreak\u201d<\/p>\n
WHERE: P71 Gallery, 230 NW 71 St., Miami<\/p>\n
WHEN: Through Thursday, May 28<\/p>\n
COST: Free\u00a0<\/p>\n
INFO: instagram.com\/p71.art<\/a><\/p>\n ArtburstMiami.com<\/a> is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don\u2019t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n