Matthew Kupakwashe Murrell’s Residency: Week 1 Report

May 13, 2013June 9, 2015Leave a comment

Greetings and Blessings in the name of the most high, no matter how you see or revere him or her, my name is Matthew De Vere Andre Murrell, also known as Kupakwashe, but you can call me Kupa for short. I am young playwright, director, actor and the founder and Creative Director of Yardie Boy Theatre.

For my first entry, I would like to show respect of two men today as I write this blog (May 11^th). R.I.P to the honorable Robert Nesta Marley, who passed on this day in 1981. I read a few days ago that the kind of music a child grows up listening to, determines his taste, my mother against her father’s wishes was an avid reggae music fan, and so am I. Listening to Bob’s words and music has influenced me in my art and ideologies. R.I.P. to the Father of Reggae and a powerful Caribbean cultural icon. R.I.P. to I’Akobi Tacuma Hembadoon Maloney, a young prodigy of the Rastafarian faith whose life was cut short and whose spirit cries out for justice. I have never met you, but I feel as if I’ve known you all my life. RASTAFARI LIVE!

Just my first week in Fresh Milk was a humbling experience. Living on the south coast of Hastings, trying to write without hearing ZRs, a stray gunshot, loud music and whatever noises that fumigate the air makes it a task to concentrate. But being in the clean air of St. George, seeing the abundance of foliage, hearing birds, cows and the lyrics of Bob in my ear was the prescription I needed.

My first day, I had no idea how to start, many ideas came into my head about this play. I just didn’t know how and where to start. I wanted to write a piece, yes about I’Akobi, his life to his unfortunate crossing, but I want a deeper message. My message to people is that this situation is NOT just a Rasta ting! It is human ting! We have seen how the system claimed many of our people, from Emmitt Till, Trayvon Martin, Walter Rodney, I’Akobi Maloney and many more. So hence my stance ‘I AM I’AKOBI’. After posting the above picture on Facebook, I received so many great responses. Herbal Specialist Everton ‘Heru’ Holligan, did two videos of his kids with the same stance, Margurita Maloney, mother of I’Akobi Maloney said “GIVE THANKS for ALL of your support my SUN Matthew Kupakwashe Murrell, ‘BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY’!!! May WE ‘eventually’ get the legislative reform WE seek” and “You know, there are times when I ‘feel sooo alone’ and THEN……THIS…GIVE THANKS for ALL of my comrades who ‘CARE’!!!”. The picture garnered over 12 shares from Barbados and across the region to the USA.

So far my research comes the literature of Marcus Garvey, ‘The Philosophies and Opinions of Marcus Garvey’, ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’ by Walter Rodney, ‘Rastarian Theology: From Garvey to Marley’ and the DVD ‘The I’Akobi Maloney Conspiracies: A Mother’s Perspective’. I’ve already meet Maggie, I’Akobi’s mum, and I plan to meet her again, along with Mandela, his younger brother. My great friend and “twin sister” Ayesha NuRa, already has her foot on board to help me with anything I need in my research and development in this piece. Ayesha knew I’Akobi personally and they were the best of friends.

So far in the script, the piece has taken many different shapes and forms as I am still trying to formulate the script. I’ve tinkered with the mode of ‘totality theatre’. The most commonly known play I can think of right now which emulates that idea is ‘For Coloured Girls’. I’ve done it before in other plays like ‘JAHovah Witnesses’, ‘De Angry Black Boy Tantrums’ & ‘Demons in Me’. I’m incorporating poetry, as I’Akobi was interested in poetry, as well as the music of Bob Marley.

I chose this topic because it spoke to me. I’Akobi Maloney and I are both born the same year, 6 months apart. Two weeks after his crossing, I remembered being stopped and harassed by a policeman for no reason. At the time I had an afro which I wore wild and drove a car many wouldn’t be proud seeing. But like I’Akobi, I was an intelligent young man scrutinized not for what is in my head but what is on top of my head. I do believe in the work of ICAR, The Justice Committee and the Maloney Family to fight for justice. This could happen to anyone’s son and anyone’s daughter. Many Barbadians, I noticed, didn’t join in actively or speak out about it, because of the feeling that it was a Rastafarian affair with the police. Then so, what about Trayvon Martin and Emmitt Till? Was that only an African American thing? What about Brenda Belle? Is that only a female thing? Anne Frank? Only a Jewish thing? It is ALLAWE!!!!

“…until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned. That until there are no longer first-class and second class citizens of any nation; that until the color of a man’s skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes; that until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race; That until that day, the dream of lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion, to be pursued but never attained..”
–
Emperor Haile Selassie I

Barbadian artist Ewan Atkinson talking with Matthew Kupakwashe Murrell

Ewan Atkinson, Matthew Kupakwashe Murrell, Conan Masterson and Marla Botterill in the studio

Marla Botterill & Conan Masterson’s Residency: Week 1 Report

May 12, 2013June 9, 2015Leave a comment

Fresh things are starting to happen already. We arrived on May 1, a little groggy after travelling all night without sleep. But the warm welcome we received from Blue Curry who met us at the airport and Fresh Milk’s dynamic duo of Annalee & Katherine certainly gave us energy. The people are not the only warm thing about this place, the heat envelops you and we welcome that after the frigid winter and chilly spring we left behind in Canada.

The first few days were spent in a whirlwind of meeting some members of the art community here in Barbados, including past resident Mark King, Ewan Atkinson & Allison Thompson (who proved an excellent and knowledgeable tour-guide). We enjoyed the generous hospitality and tours of impressive art collections of Leandro Soto, Mervyn Awon & the historical Colleton House as well as studio visits to Winston Kellman & Ras Ishi. It’s been a bi-coastal extravaganza! We find the lively scene here in Barbados invigorating and encouraging. We are delighted to be included among the artists in ‘A Performative Moment’ happening next week with the Northern Kentucky University visitors to Fresh Milk and we enjoyed meeting the local artists who will be presenting their work at a group meeting. We also got to attend BCC’s graduation exhibition of both the Fine Art and Foundation students. On Monday, playwright Matthew Kupakwashe Murrell began his residency at Fresh Milk and we look forward to a continued and on-going dialogue with him.

Since our arrival we’ve been on sensory-overload. The sound-scape here in Barbados is very unlike anything we have at home and it took some time to adjust to the singing frogs, alarm-sounding crickets, mahogany tree bombs and new bird calls as well as the farm sounds of the cows and roosters! Even when inside, the surrounding landscape is ever-present, there is very little separation between outdoor and indoor space, the windows all open wide allowing nature to be seen, heard, smelled and sometimes even entering your space. The grounds surrounding Fresh Milk are a sensory feast. We are drawn to the repetition of long narrow tendrils and laying in the landscape. Our work began in earnest last week. We are using Fresh Milk as a platform to experiment with new ways of working. Though we have known each other for many years, this is our first journey into working collaboratively. It is not without challenges. As individual artists we are used to processing and working though our ideas independently and privately, we are still adjusting to this new way of working. The first couple of days we set up at opposite ends of the studio, but have gradually begun shifting our things together and working jointly on some initial puppet pieces. There are obvious references forming in the work to the vegetation, insect, bird and animal life that surrounds us.

Annalee’s dogs have appointed themselves our chaperones, though we think they are just using us for the chickens they hunt after assuring we are safely home. We spend most evenings at Prendoma, reading through items borrowed from the Colleen Lewis Reading Room. Our walks home are filled with the seductive smell of ylang-ylang blossoms.

Conan and Marla talking to visiting Bahamian artist Blue Curry

Marla and Conan's work out in the landscape

Marla and Conan's self appointed chaperones, Mica and Rico

Videobrasil Meeting | Caribbean: Archipelagos for Thought

May 11, 2013June 29, 20151 Comment

Caribbean: Archipelagos for Thought, May 14 2013, at 8:00 pm São Paulo time

To the Martiniquais writer Édouard Glissant, the geography of Antillean archipelagos represents a template for thinking a “creole world” whose dealings with the others are no longer outlined by instances of multiculturalism and compartmentalized identities, but rather by coexistence and dissolution processes. Glissant builds on the Antilles’ insular multitude to propose a model of “archipelago-thinking” as opposed to “continental thinking,” whose nature is hegemonic or homogeneity-inducing.

Annalee Davis, director of Barbados’ Fresh Milk independent center for art practices; Andrés Hernandez, a Cuban-born, Brazilian-based curator; and Mirtes Oliveira, a member of the G27 study group will convene at São Paulo’s Ateliê 397 to relate the notion of “archipelago thinking,” coined by Glissant, with their own contemporary art practices.

This initiative will usher in a new phase in Videobrasil’s audience interface, featuring horizontal, collaborative, investigative, and debate-oriented platforms.

Featuring: Andrés Hernandez, Mirtes Oliveira, Annalee Davis. Mediated by Sabrina Moura. English and Portuguese will be spoken. No simultaneous translation available. On the occasion, issues of ARC Magazine dedicated to Caribbean art, will be available to public consulting.

About the guests

Andrés I. M. Hernández is a curator and independent producer who holds a master’s in Visual Arts. He was coordinator of the exhibition department at Wilfredo Lam Contemporary Art Center (which hosts the Havana Biennial); the executive coordinator of the curating department at the São Paulo Museum of Modern Art; and recently the production and institutional relations coordinator at Luciana Brito Galeria.

Annalee Davis is a Barbadian visual artist whose work addresses the Caribbean’s postcolonial heritage. She was the founder of Fresh Milk, an independent Barbados-based association that supports research exchange initiatives and fosters productions by contemporary creators. She is a part-time professor at the Barbados Community College’s baccalaureate program. As an artist, she has featured in the São Paulo and Havana biennials (both in 1994), among other shows.

Mirtes Marins de Oliveira was the coordinator of the Baccalaureate in Fine Arts (1997-2006) at Faculdade Santa Marcelina (Fasm), and the implementer and coordinator, from 2003 to 2013, of the master’s program in visual arts at the same institution. Presently, she is a professor at the masters and doctoral courses in Design at Universidade Anhembi-Morumbi. The G27 group, of which she is a member alongside Ana Maria Maia (Tomie Ohtake Institute), Regina Parra (FAAP) and Tainá Azeredo (Casa Tomada), studies the manifold aspects of curating processes and practices, by means of historical research on art and design shows held since the emergence of 20^th century vanguards.

About Ateliê 397

Founded in 2003 by a group of visual artists (Bruna Costa, Rafael Campos Rocha and Sílvia Jábali), Ateliê 397 promotes the diffusion, production and exhibition of contemporary art. It holds art shows and interdisciplinary events involving video art sessions, performances, happenings, music concerts, publication of artist books, and other forms of contemporary art experimentation. Currently coordinated by Marcelo Amorim and Thais Rivitti, the facility plays the role of spreading debate, creating opportunities for artwork to be shown, and presenting productions by young artists from across Brazil.

About Associação Cultural Videobrasil

Associação Cultural Videobrasil is an international reference center on art from the Southern hemisphere. Created by curator Solange Oliveira Farkas, the former director of the Museum of Modern Art of Bahia, Associação maintains a partnership with SESC. The two institutions have jointly promoted a biennial International Contemporary Art Festival, focused on the geopolitical South circuit, and exhibitions such as Isaac Julien: Geopoetics (São Paulo, 2012), Joseph Beuys – We are the revolution (São Paulo and Salvador, 2010/2011), and Sophie Calle – Take care of yourself (São Paulo and Salvador, 2009). Other ongoing productions of the partnership include the Videobrasil Residency Program; Videobrasil Authors Collection, a series of documentaries; and Caderno SESC_Videobrasil, an annual contemporary art publication. Devised as a platform for production, dissemination and discussion of contemporary art from the Southern hemisphere, by means of partnerships and dialogue with curators, artists and other institutions, Associação also maintains a network of residency partners and educational actions aligned with the Festivals and exhibitions it conceives.

This meeting is an opening activity of a series from the Public Programming segment, a new Videobrasil’s front, dedicated to foster platforms for widening of access and research on contemporary arts and culture.

Fresh Performance Chapter 1: Defining Performance

May 2, 2013June 29, 2015Leave a comment

FRESH MILK in collaboration with Damali Abrams presents Chapter 1 in the Fresh Performance Project: Defining Performance

Fresh Performance is an experimental documentary that I am working on through a seven-month off-site residency with Fresh Milk. Each month I will interview one artist in New York City and one in the Caribbean concerning different aspects of performance in their respective practices and post the videos online. I will then edit them all into a full-length documentary. My intention is that as artists we can connect with and learn from each other through our work. In my own practice, I use my art as my therapy, my school, my playground and also my surrogate when I need to communicate things that I do not know how to communicate otherwise. Through this project I am studying performance via conversations with a group of exceptional contemporary artists. I am extremely grateful for this opportunity to collaborate with Fresh Milk and all of these talented makers.

Art itself is a nebulous concept that eludes definition. Performance art is that much more precarious. I am drawn to performance because it can encapsulate just about anything else from any medium or discipline. It seems to be somewhat lawless and anarchic. But that is my own personal definition. In chapter one of Fresh Performance, artists Sandra Vivas, originally from Venezuela, currently living in Dominica, and Nyugen E. Smith from Jersey City, share their own definitions.

I met with Nyugen at 59th and Columbus in New York City on a very chilly early Spring day. It was far windier than expected and we scouted around for a location that would not provide too many audio challenges. We tried inside of a mall, a hotel lobby and finally Nyugen suggested a tunnel at Central Park. It turned out to be perfect.

Sandra Vivas and I met on Google Hangout. Despite many technical difficulties, she and I had a very warm conversation. It was more like speaking with a friend I had known for years rather than someone I was meeting for the first time online. Sandra shared that while she enjoys living in Dominica, she feels very isolated creatively and has not done any performance art there.

This project is a work-in-progress and as stated above, Fresh Performance is intended to remain an open discussion so please feel free to share any questions, comments and critiques.

– Damali Abrams

About Nyugen Smith:

With a fearless approach, multi-media artist Nyugen Smith embraces the role of cultural informer and champion of social justice. Drawing heavily on his West Indian heritage, Smith is interested in raising consciousness of past and present political struggles through his work which consists of sculpture, installation, video and performance. Growing up in Trinidad, Smith was profoundly influenced by the conflation of African cultural practices and the residue of British colonial rule encountered in his daily life on the island. Responding to this unique cultural environment, Smith’s art is a reaction to imperialist practices of oppression, violence and ideological misnomers.

About Sandra Vivas:

Sandra Vivas was born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1969 and is currently living in Dominica West. Sandra has developed a body of work that has performance as a permanent thread through her paintings and videos. Irony and humour play a fundamental role in her work and she is considered a feminist performance pioneer in Venezuela. From 1997-2008, Sandra taught at the Universidad Central de Venezuela, in the Undergrad and Graduate Programs of the Escuela de Artes, teaching Contemporary Art History. Sandra studied painting and ballet and has a Bachelors Degree in Art History from the Universidad Central de Venezuela and a Masters Degree in New Genres from the San Francisco Art Institute, California, USA.

The Fresh Performance Project

April 5, 2013June 29, 2015Leave a comment

FRESH MILK, in collaboration with New York-based Guyanese performance and video artist Damali Abrams, is excited to embark on the Fresh Performance Project, an experimental documentary highlighting contemporary performance artists in the Caribbean and New York City. Damali will engage in conversation with twelve performance artists, one Caribbean-based and one New York City-based artist per month, filming these discussions to create episodes or chapters which will be shared online. The first video will be aired at the end of April 2013, and will revolve around defining performance art.

This project aims to expand the cultural arena for both NY based and Caribbean based creatives, contributing to critical discourse around performance art by addressing topics such as gender and sexuality; power; love and romance; the role of the audience among other topics. Given that performance art in the Caribbean is practiced by a growing number of practitioners, this project will foster a stronger creative community, offering support to performance artists who often work in isolation, while increasing production in this medium. Archiving the conversations between the twelve participants increases awareness and documentation of the arts, and will hopefully lead to further opportunities and collaborative ventures.

One of the exceptional aspects of The Fresh Performance series is its reciprocal nature. Projects like this reverse the trend of Caribbean-based artists often wanting to find relevance for their work in a North American context; in this instance, the U.S. based artists are also keen to see how their work resonates within the Caribbean environment, creating a give-and-take relationship that is crucial to the growth of both cultures. The project will build cultural bridges between the U.S. and the Caribbean, and generate understanding and community through the arts.

The Caribbean-based participating artists are Ewan Atkinson, Shanika Grimes, Michelle Isava, Olivia McGilchrist, Sandra Vivas and Alberta Whittle, and the NYC based artists are Zachary Fabri, Maria Hupfield, Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow, Seyhan Musaoglu, Shani Peters and Nyugen Smith.

Damali Abrams is a New York City-based artist working primarily in video. She received her BA at New York University and her MFA at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Damali was a 2009-10 A.I.R. Gallery fellowship recipient. Her work has been shown in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Memphis, New Orleans, Denver, and Miami. In New York City, her work has been exhibited at The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art (MoCADA), A.I.R. Gallery, JCAL, Rush Arts Gallery and BRIC Rotunda Gallery, among others. Damali is a member of the women’s artist collective tART and one of the NYC coordinators for The Feminist Art Project.

Caribbean-Based Artists’ Bios

Ewan Atkinson:

Ewan Atkinson was born in Barbados in 1975. He received a BFA from the Atlanta College of Art in 1998 and is currently pursuing an MA in Cultural Studies at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill. He has exhibited in regional and international exhibitions of Caribbean contemporary art, including most recently the 2010 Liverpool Biennial, “Wrestling with the image: Caribbean Interventions” at the Art Museum of the Americas in Washington DC, and “Infinite Islands” at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. Atkinson has taught in the BFA program at the Barbados Community College for over a decade. He also works as a freelance illustrator and designer.

Shanika Grimes:

Shanika Grimes completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Barbados Community college, while juggling the birth of her now two year old son. She displayed a proficiency in the arts from a very young age despite the pull of the business oriented society in which she lives. Shanika works in a variety of two dimensional formats and has more recently extended her practice to the realm of performance art, which is documented and presented through video or photography. She focuses on an examination of self, which she uses as a catalyst for a barrage of ideas including, but not limited to, gender, culture and relationships.

Michelle Isava:

Michelle Isava (born 1985) holds dual nationality from Trinidad & Tobago and Venezuela. She is a conceptual artist who straddles across different mediums and genres to place the priority on message and experience. She experiments with drawing, painting, installation and video because she believes the message should decide the mode of expression. Her interests lie in the body as an object, and what it has the potential to reveal or betray about the subject.

Olivia McGilchrist:

Born in Kingston (Jamaica) in 1981 to a French mother and a Jamaican father and educated in France and the U.K., Olivia McGilchrist moved back to Jamaica in 2011 after completing a Photography M.A. at the London College of Communication (2009-2010). Since this sudden return, her current practice has incorporated her body, remapping it within the tropical picturesque through photographic tableaux and multi-layered videos. She has indulged her alter-ego Whitey in her appropriation of this space of utter difference, Jamaica, by exploring trans-location and physical expressions of emotional states in the search for her cultural identity.

Sandra Vivas:

Photo credit Stephi Leigh Davis

Alberta Whittle:

Alberta Whittle is a Barbadian artist, who graduated from the Masters programme at Glasgow School of Art in 2011. Whilst a student she participated in the exchange programme at Concordia University in Montreal. Since graduating, Whittle completed a commission for the Museum of London, where she presented an interactive installation, referring to migration and displacement. Whittle has undertaken numerous international residencies, including CESTA (Czech Republic), Market Gallery (Scotland), Fresh Milk (Barbados), Collective Gallery (Scotland) and Greatmore Studios (South Africa). She choreographs interactive installations, interventions and performances as site-specific artworks in public and private spaces, including at the Royal Scottish Academy and has exhibited in various solo and group shows in Europe, South Africa and the Caribbean. She is currently in Cape Town preparing for an exhibition at the Centre for African Studies and participating as a researcher at Joule City’s Artist Incubator Project, focusing on visual and aural culture.

NYC-Based Artists’ Bios:

Zachary Fabri:

Zachary Fabri was born in Miami, Florida in 1977. His mother is Jamaican and his father is Hungarian. In 2007, he received his Master of Fine Arts from Hunter College in combined media. His work mines the intersection of personal and political spaces, often responding to a specific environment or context. Zachary’s work has been exhibited at Sequences Real-time Festival, Reykjavik, Iceland; Nordic Biennale: Momentum, Moss, Norway; Gallery Open, Berlin; the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art, New York; the Jersey City Museum, and El Museo del Barrio, New York, The Studio Museum in Harlem, and The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. He is a recipient of the Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art in 2011 and was awarded a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in interdisciplinary work in 2012. Recent solo exhibitions include Third Streaming in New York City and Real Art Ways, in Hartford, Connecticut. He lives and works in Brooklyn.

Maria Hupfield:

Photo credit Henry Chan

Maria Hupfield (born 1975) is from the Georgian Bay region Ontario, Canada and currently based in Brooklyn New York. She is of Anishnaabe (Ojibwa) heritage and a member of Wasauksing First Nation. Hupfield holds an MFA in sculpture from York University, Toronto. She recently participated in: A Conversation on Performance Art: Women Redrawing/Performance, organized by The Feminist Art Project at SOHO20 Chelsea NY; (2013) Wave Hill’s Winter Workspace Program, Glyndor Galley, Bronx, NY; and (2012) Artist Leadership Program, National Museum of the American Indian Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC. She has performed at ACCOLA GRIEFEN GALLERY, Chelsea NY, Grace Gallery, Brooklyn NY and (2012) 7a*11d International Performance Festival, Toronto ON. Hupfield’s work is currently in the traveling exhibitions Beat Nation and Changing Hands III.

Hupfield’s work was featured in the 2011 winter edition of Black Flash Magazine on performance photography and in the North Edition of Fuse Magazine winter for the collaborative artist project “From the Moon to the Belly” with Laakkuluk Williamson.

Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow:

Born in Manchester, Jamaica, Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow is a multidisciplinary artist who received a BFA at University of Florida (New World School of the Arts) in 1996. In 2005 she attained an MFA from Hunter College, New York City. Her work has been exhibited and performed nationally and internationally at venues including Exit Art (NYC), Rush Arts Gallery (NYC), Amelie A. Wallace Gallery at SUNY Old Westbury College (NY), Scope Art Fair (FL), The Queens Museum of Art (NY), Third Streaming LLC (NY), Rush Arts Gallery (NYC), Open Contemporary Art Center (Beijing, China), Art Museum of the Americas (Washington, DC), A.I.R. Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), SOHO 20 (NYC), MoCADA (Brooklyn, NY), Grace Exhibition Space (Brooklyn, NY), ‘’Gwangju International Media & Performance Art Festival’’ at the Gwangju Bienalle (Gwangju, SOUTH KOREA) and Edna Manley College for Visual and Performing Arts (Kingston , JAMAICA). She is also a Rema Hort Mann award nominee and a 2012 NYFA Fellow in Interdisciplinary Art.

Through a feminine perspective Lyn-Kee-Chow uses allegories to navigate issues of the body, desire, and nature while weaving in humour, absurdity, and familiar objects. She lives and works in New York City.

Seyhan Musaoglu:

Seyhan Musaoglu is a multi-media artist whose work spans the fields of live performance, sound art, film and video, and 2-D media. Drawing inspiration from diverse sources ranging from science fiction imagery, to fashion, to modern dance choreography, her work investigates the gap between sound production and music composition, contemporary feminist theory, and the history of avant-garde filmmaking. She has been performing widely with collaborations celebrated internationally in genres of sound and experimental noise. She is also an innovative independent curator, and is the founder of the sound, new media & peformance festival {SØNiK}Fest. Seyhan holds an MFA from Parsons the New School for Design. Some of the venues her work has been presented at are: The Kitchen (NYC), New York Studio Gallery (NYC), Lit Lounge (NYC), Curta 8 Film Festival (Brazil), and Istanbul’s famed venue, Babylon.

Shani Peters:

Shani Peters is a New York based artist (born in Lansing, MI) working in video, collage, printmaking, and social practice public projects. Her work reflects interests in activism histories, cultural record keeping, media culture, and community building. Peters completed her B.A. at Michigan State University and her M.F.A. at The City College of New York. She has exhibited, screened and/or presented her work in the US and broad, including exhibitions at the Schomburg Center for Black Culture and Research, Bronx Museum of Art, Rush Arts Gallery, the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), The Savannah College of Art & Design, The Contact Theatre (UK), and Seoul Art Space Geumcheon (SK).

She has participated in multiple residencies including programs hosted by The Center for Book Arts, The Lower Manhattan Cultural Counsel, the Lower East Side Printshop, the Bronx Museum of Art’s Artist in the Marketplace program, and apexart’s Outbound Residency to Seoul S. Korea. Peters has taught extensively throughout her Harlem community as an educator and program designer working in New York Public Schools, Harlem Textile Works, Casita Maria Arts Education Inc., The Laundromat Project, and as a social justice arts education adjunct lecturer at The City College of New York.

Nyugen Smith: