Water has an intense symbolic meaning in many religions: it signifies the closely related terms 'cleansing' and 'new life', as witnessed among others in the Christian ritual of baptising. The religious connotation of water is not only found in Christianity. Water also plays an important role in other religions and cultures - as in the voodoo rituals on the island of Haiti, a melting pot where through the mixing of indiginous and colonial (western) traditions very special forms of religious practice came to life.
In voodoo, introduced by African slaves to the island some 500 years ago, the ghosts of nature and of ancestors play an important role. The cult has not only a religious, but also a social component: three hundred years after the arrival of the slaves it inspired their descendants to revolt against the French colonisation.

In the context of the Year of Water, and on the occasion of the Rotterdam Photobiennial, Noorderlicht presents a show in the World Museum with two photographers who have captured voodoo-rituals in Haiti in a remarkable way: Danish Henrik Saxgren and Iranian (living in France) Abbas.

The Danish photographer Henrik Saxgren (1953) is seen as the mentor of today's Danish photojournalism. The work he made in 2001 in the Gaza strip of demolished buildings and facades was part of the Noorderlicht exhibition Confronting Views last year.
In 1995 Saxgren photographed a voodoo-meeting in the village Plaine du Nord, in the utmost north of the island. The meeting takes place annually on a catholic feast that's called after Saint Jacques: pilgrims from all over Haiti travel that day towards the village, which houses a church that is named after the patron.
For most attendants, the church is no more than a sidenote however. They gather at a pool outside the village, also named after Saint Jacques, where events take place that are unlikely to be on the agenda of the catholic church. At the pool offers are being made to the 'loas': the personal or family spirits to whom prayers are directed for all sorts of things, ranging from a visa to the US, to money for a car, or the healing of a sick cow.

Abbas (1940) established his fame with the book 'la Révolution Confisquée' about the Iranian revolution, published in 1980. As a member of the renowned Magnum collective, he has involved himself intensely with the creation of a worldwide report on religions, and the role of religion in social life.
He named his project 'The Clash of Religions', focusing on his belief that the old political ideologies will be replaced by religious ideologies in the conflicts of the near future. Currently Abbas is documenting several animistic belief systems. His series on Haiti originated in this context.
The photos were made in 2000 at several locations in the island, among which Plaine du Nord. He also photographed at Seau d'eau, a sacred waterfall where the religious take a 'fortune bath' under the influence of herbal medicine and perfumes, and ask the 'loas' to give them strength, and in Limonade where tribute is paid to Saint Philomene, a spirit closely related to Africa.