Anyone familiar with the tarot knows there are now a vast number of interpretations of the famous esoteric card deck. But a new crowdfunding campaign has a fascinating angle on it, recreating tarot imagery via photographs of people living in a Haitian ghetto:
What is the Ghetto Tarot?
The Ghetto Tarot is a photographic interpretation of the traditional tarot deck in the ghetto. The scenes are inspired by the Rider Waite Tarot deck (originally designed in 1909 by artist Pamela Colman Smith) and are replicated together with a group of Haitian artists called Atis Rezistans (resistant artists) in the Haitian slums using only material we were able to find or create locally. On several cards we used the artists art, that includes symbolism from the Voodoo religion to embody the important meaning of the cards original symbols.
While the cards were designed many years ago with the situations of the time when the world was very different, they resonate today with timeless symbols that can be applied to our busy modern world. And not just our modern, western world, but also to any other continent, country or culture, including the Haitian Ghetto. So here comes a temporary, provocative and vivid tarot deck!
The campaign is already a success (at the time of writing, it already has four times its funding goal!), but if you’d like to contribute and get your own Ghetto Tarot, you’ve still got a week to get in before it comes to an end.
Link: The Ghetto Tarot
