Beyond the Mountains: Danny Lyon’s Photography in Haiti offers a compelling and deeply human portrait of Haiti during a pivotal moment in its history — a time of repression, uprising, and ultimately, hope. On view from December 19, 2025 through May 17, 2026, the exhibition draws from nearly forty powerful black-and-white photographs from the Chrysler Museum’s collection that document life under the dictatorship of the Duvalier regime and the country’s uncertain yet hopeful transition after 1986.
In 1983, Danny Lyon traveled to Haiti intending to capture social life, but what he found was a nation simmering under decades of political oppression. His images range from quiet domestic scenes to public protests — from the lives of ordinary people going about their days to the charged energy of collective resistance. In framing both struggle and resilience, Lyon bears witness to a reality often obscured by distance and misunderstanding.
The title, Beyond the Mountains, draws on a Haitian proverb: “Beyond the mountains there are more mountains,” a phrase that speaks to persistence, resilience, and the endless challenges that await a people striving for change. Lyon’s photographs embody this spirit. Even in darkness, in danger, in uncertainty, there is movement; there is the sense that life must — and will — continue.
As part of his wider immersive practice — which has documented civil-rights activists, prisoners, Indigenous communities, and marginalized lives — Lyon’s Haiti work reflects his commitment to storytelling rooted in empathy and proximity. Though an outsider, he offers a perspective that is attentive to nuance, dignity, and complexity. The result is not a simplified narrative of suffering, but a layered account of history: oppression and defiance, grief and celebration, loss and hope.
< i>Beyond the Mountains invites viewers into a conversation — about power, memory, and the stories that endure even when violence and silence threaten to erase them. It is a testament to the enduring capacity of photography to bear witness, to challenge assumptions, and to remind us that across mountains — and beyond them — we meet humanity in all its complexity.
Image: Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) Danny Lyon in Haiti, 1986, Gelatin silver print, Chrysler Museum of Art, Gift of George Stephanopoulos, 2011.6.17
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