KODEKS
Sources and Method
Where the House's observations meet the people, histories, and research that make deeper learning possible.
KODEKS / RESEARCH DESK / 001
Sources and Method
KODEKS is an artwork, an evolving record, and a place to begin. The House brings its own experiences and interpretations into conversation with language, scholarship, craftsmanship, and living communities. Sources open the path outward: readers can encounter the material for themselves, follow it further, and arrive at readings of their own.
01 / THE STANDARD
How we write
We begin with the people and institutions closest to the knowledge: voices from Haiti, the Caribbean, Africa, and Indigenous communities, alongside practitioners and researchers with sustained ties to their subjects. We read, listen, make, and return to the record. SANON also brings an artist’s interpretation—sometimes adopting a form, shortening a name, or carrying an inherited idea somewhere new. We distinguish these contributions so they can remain in conversation without being mistaken for one another.
02 / INDIGENOUS NAMES
Ayiti and the Taíno
The Indigenous Taíno association of Ayiti, often interpreted as mountainous land, belongs at the beginning of the country's written cultural record. Historical spellings and interpretations vary; Indigenous peoples and their descendants belong to the present as well as the past.
UNITED CONFEDERATION OF TAÍNO PEOPLE — HISTORY ↗TAÍNO AND ARAWAK AUTHORS — RESEARCH AND ESSAYS ↗03 / LIVING PRACTICE
Haitian Vodou and the lwa
Loko, Ayizan, and Zaka are encountered in the histories and practices of Haitian Vodou, often through names and stories understood differently across communities and lineages. Practitioner voices, Haitian reporting, and museum records help us follow those histories. The service caps bearing the names are SANON's original designs: part of an ongoing artistic conversation, not the only possible interpretation of what the names carry.
LWA AND ORDER — PRACTITIONER ACCOUNT OF LOKO ↗LWA AND ORDER — PRACTITIONER ACCOUNT OF AYIZAN ↗VISIT HAITI — KOUZEN ZAKA IN HAITIAN CULTURAL REPORTING ↗03A / LANGUAGE AND TRANSPARENCY
Haitian Vodou, Not a Stereotype
Haitian Vodou is a living religion with its own communities, history, practices, and Kreyòl name. KODEKS gives it its own primary entry. The English word “voodoo” has sometimes been used for that same religion and sometimes to circulate caricatures; we explore that word’s history separately. Louisiana Voodoo and West African Vodun have their own histories and living communities. In spoken Haitian Kreyòl, Vodou may sound closer to “wou-dou” or “wudu”; these are aids for readers, not replacements for the Kreyòl spelling. For language guidance we point readers toward the Akademi Kreyòl Ayisyen and Haitian-language reference resources, while continuing to learn from spoken Kreyòl.
HAITI-RÉFÉRENCE — VODOU SCHOLARSHIP AND WRITINGS ↗LWA AND ORDER — AN INITIATED PRACTITIONER'S PERSPECTIVE ↗LOUISIANA STATE MUSEUM — A DISTINCT REGIONAL HISTORY ↗AKADEMI KREYÒL AYISYEN — OFFICIAL LANGUAGE RESOURCES ↗HAITI-RÉFÉRENCE — PAPA LOKO IN KREYÒL ↗03B / REPORTING FROM AYITI
Visit Haiti — Stories from Home
Visit Haiti publishes Haitian cultural reporting grounded in experiences and places across Ayiti. Its guide to the lwa covers Papa Loko, Ayizan Velekete, and Kouzen Zaka together. Its coverage of Lakou Soukri documents a living religious community through writing by Costaguinov Baptiste and photography by Jean Oscar Augustin. KODEKS credits the individual authors and photographers and reads these accounts alongside practitioner testimony, historical research, and House experience.
VISIT HAITI — PAPA LOKO, AYIZAN AND KOUZEN ZAKA ↗LAKOU SOUKRI — REPORTING AND JEAN OSCAR PHOTOGRAPHY ↗HAITIAN VODOU REVEALED — STEREOTYPES AND PRACTICE ↗VISIT HAITI — LOCAL CONTRIBUTORS ↗04 / THE FUTURE
Vodun in the world's institutions
Benin is developing the International Vodun Museum in Porto-Novo to advance research, present Vodun on its own terms, and challenge negative stereotypes. International coverage describes it as a prospective landmark-scale museum. As of this entry, we have not independently confirmed its public opening. Beninese Vodun and Haitian Vodou are connected, but their communities and practices are not interchangeable.
BENIN NATIONAL HERITAGE AGENCY — OFFICIAL MUSEUM PROJECT ↗BENIN GOVERNMENT — MUSEUM PROJECT STATUS ↗05 / HOUSE TESTIMONY
What the House can add
The House can contribute what only its participants can observe and remember: why a garment took its form, how a name entered the work, what changed during making, and what an image or object opened up for its artist. SANON's experience of being called Zaka in Haiti is one such memory. Readers can encounter that testimony alongside the separate histories of the lwa and arrive at their own relationships with the work.
06 / AN OPEN RECORD
Corrections and continuing study
A living record can change. We credit the people and works we learn from, return to original accounts where possible, and make corrections when stronger evidence or better understanding emerges. Historical claims can be checked; artistic interpretations can be discussed, challenged, or read differently. Our responsibility is to keep that distinction visible while leaving the work—and the conversation—open.
REFERENCES ARE A STARTING POINT. OUR RESPONSIBILITY IS TO KEEP LEARNING.