Birmingham Museum of Art will glimmer this weekend, not with holiday decor but because of its latest exhibit, "Haitian Flags from the Cargo Collection." The exhibit includes 21 flags, drawn from a recent donation to the museum's permanent collection, with text panels and other elements to explain the flags' role in the Haitian religion Vodoun.

"We can't possibly, in a show of that size, have you leaving with a full and comprehensive understanding of this very complex, beautiful faith system," says Emily G. Hanna, senior curator of the arts of Africa and the Americas.

Hanna is drawn to art of Africa and the diaspora because of its utilitarian nature, she says. Those functions are clear in the Haitian flags exhibit.

"It helps people live their daily lives," she says. "It helps them solve their relational problems, their power struggles, resolve their conflicts, mourn the passing of people who have died, let go of their children when it's time. It's useful, it's functional and, to me, it's incredibly beautiful."

Here are five more things you should know about the exhibit, which opens Saturday and runs through May 15.

How did these flags come to the Birmingham Museum of Art?

Museum patron Caroline Cargo donated 700 objects collected by her late parents, Dr. Robert and Mrs. Helen Cargo. The Cargo Collection includes a number of pieces by self-taught Alabama artists, who were a particular interest of the Cargos, and Haitian flags. The Cargos began traveling to Haiti in the '80s, and Robert, a French literature professor at the University of Alabama, later taught there. During those visits, he became interested in the Vodoun religion and its material expression. The Haitians incoproate flags, called drapo, into Vodoun religious ceremonies. The flags were made by priests and priestesses, and are worn over the shoulders during procession in such gatherings.

Haiti was inhabited by the Spanish and then the French, who enslaved West African people and brought them to Haiti. The flags reflect European heraldic banners that were carried into battle as well as African textiles. These Haitian flags reflect both a sense of nationalism born of Haiti's revolution in 1804 and their faith traditions.

What is Vodoun?

Hanna offers context: "It was really the French who brought all these African people to labor on sugar cane plantations, indigo, coffee. They were so brutal. They were so brutal. It's hard to overstate how brutal they were, and forcing Catholicism. People had to, No. 1, survive. They had to find a way to survive the brutality. They kind of hunkered down. Even though they came from different spots along the coast, they formed a common faith system which is called Vodoun.

"Voodoo is a mispronunciation of that. There's a common kind of confusion that happens between New Orleans voodoo, which is a different set of practices, and this system, which is really a religion. It's a faith practice with very old roots in West Central Africa.

"The faith and the practice is really about maintaining harmonious relationships with spirits that are all sort of inn an intermediary space between people and God."

Why do they include Catholic imagery?

"Because there was such a brutal effort to convert people to Catholocism, the two became sort of enmeshed--syncretized, they say--so Vodoun is a syncretic religion whereby a spirit or a loa has its creole or Vodoun name, and then it has a face that belongs to the Catholic saints," Hanna says.

For example, some flags depict the Virgin Mary, who is prominent in the Catholic faith and represents a feminine loa in Vodoun. "It's a complex kind of interweaving between how much is that image about the Virgin Mary and how much is it about this feminine loa," Hanna says.

What you'll see

Although Hanna is quick to note that the exhibition gallery is not a sacred space, the Haitian flags will be displayed in a way that evokes their use in a sacred context. They're suspended in front of indigo-blue walls, above platforms. A graphic symbol appears below each flag. These relate to each spirit and would be drawn on the ground in the process of honoring that spirit. At the end of the corridor formed by the flags, you'll see a video projected on the wall, depicting people processing around a worship space. Trees are important in the Vodoun religion, and so the worshippers circle a post meant to symbolize a tree. That post is meant to connect the earth and what's below to the heavens.

"I've tried to make something for everyone," Hanna says. "Some people come here and they just want to see something dazzling. They might have 15 minutes. They don't necessarily want to read my text panels. Those people will have a lot to look at."

Labels, text panels and smart phone technology will further the experience, enabling visitors to learn about the flags in whichever way best suits them.

"You've been a student. I've been a student. Everybody learns differently," Hanna says.

What you'll take away

"I hope (visitor) misconceptions about Haiti are dispelled," Hanna says. "I hope they leave with a sense of wonder that men and women would sit and sew these beautiful flags as part of their faith life, part of their devotion, part of their practice. The act of processing with a flag to proclaim your faith, the act of wearing a flag on your shoulders, these are common gestures that people will recognize. I hope they leave with a sense of wonder, a sense of respect, a sense of appreciation, and I hope they come back again and again."

DETAILS

Haitian Flags from the Cargo Collection

Dec. 19-May 15

Birmingham Museum of Art

2000 Rev. Abraham Woods Jr. Blvd., downtown

205-254-2565

artsbma.org