Fresh Milk is pleased to share our 2023 highlights newsletter, including our work with amazing partners locally, regionally and internationally, while celebrating grants that have us bursting with gratitude and happiness!

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In Barbados, we collaborated with the Future Centre Trust on our project for the Healing Arts Initiative (a programme by UK-based organisation Culturunners), while regionally we worked on an offshoot of the Caribbean Linked residency programme with Ateliers ‘89 Punto di Beyas Arte Aruba, the BIAC-Réseaux and Campus Caraïbeen des Arts (CCA) in Martinique, and participated in the inaugural FUZE Art Expo in the Bahamas. Internationally, our relationships with Rotterdam- and Amsterdam-based partners have grown deeper through the Tilting Axis Fellowship.

We’re also beyond delighted to celebrate with all of you the most amazing news of Fresh Milk having been successfully awarded a grant for 2024-2026 by the US-based Mellon Foundation’s Arts and Culture programme in support of our operating and programming expenses.

Mellon believes that “Art and artists are essential to human connection,” and we couldn’t agree more. We go into action this year to work on elevating the local contemporary visual art community in exciting ways, continuing to support the region’s creative network, while also looking for new partners to come on board. Stay tuned for more information as we focus on the local and Caribbean contemporary visual art community with some exciting plans for the next three years!

Read the full newsletter here

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If you would like to support the work we do in Caribbean arts, go ahead and click on the donate button below! It’s very easy to support us and the artists we work with by making a donation through this PayPal link. Your contributions make our programmes possible, and gifts of any size are welcome.

Thank you for your continued support, and we’d like to express gratitude to the many artists who we have had the honour of working with across the Caribbean as we continue to find ways of celebrating and nurturing creativity.

We look forward to continuing our creative journey together in 2024, and hope for peace and the cessation of war and conflict the world over.

Fresh Milk participates in the inaugural FUZE Art Expo

October 23, 2023Leave a comment

Fresh Milk is thrilled to share our participation in the inaugural FUZE Art Expo, hosted by The Current Gallery and Art Center at Baha Mar, Nassau, as part of the 2023 Bahamas Culinary & Arts Festival. The art fair will take place October 28th and 29th.

FUZE is a first-of-its-kind regional art fair, offering an opportunity to gather art-minded individuals as they explore the rich culture that the Caribbean visual art communities have to offer. FUZE aims to generate an efficient art ecosystem to guide the development of artwork in the region to intersect with new philosophies, new audiences, and new platforms both locally and abroad.

For the last twelve years, The Fresh Milk Art Platform has supported excellence in the visual arts through residencies and programmes that provide Barbadian and Caribbean artists with opportunities for development and foster a thriving art community. Over this time, we have built ongoing and meaningful relationships with the creative practitioners we have engaged with, continuing to support their artistic growth in tangible and intangible ways. For our participation in FUZE, Fresh Milk wishes to showcase the work of two local multidisciplinary artists who have not only taken part in our residency programme, but also been involved with several of our other regional and international initiatives over the years – Versia Harris and Kia Redman.

Versia Harris

Versia Harris, From the ‘Thousands of Thousands’ series, Ink, bleach and gouache on illustration vellum / 100% cotton paper, 4″ x 4″ each, 2023

Kia Redman

Kia Redman, Still from video work ‘Buried Treasures’, Mixed 2D animation, mixed media drawings, video and photography, 4K UHD 3840 x 2160 px, 2 mins, 2022

In collaboration with the two artists, Communications & Operations manager at Fresh Milk Katherine Kennedy, will curate a selection of their work to exhibit in the booth. Both Versia and Kia are exceptional, forward thinking artists whose practices display layered interpretations of what “Caribbean art” can be, challenging limitations and stereotypes by interrogating themes such as identity, fantasy and the physical and social landscape of Barbados and the region.

FUZE Art Expo will be open at Baha Mar on Saturday October 28th and Sunday October 29th, 11:00 AM – 6:00 PM each day. Book tickets here.

Launch of Fresh Milk/Healing Arts Initiative Public Art Projects

April 17, 2023April 17, 2023Leave a comment

What: Launch of Fresh Milk/Healing Arts Initiative Public Art Projects
When: April 29th, 5-6 pm
Where: The Carmichael/Trailway Crossing, St. George

The Fresh Milk Art Platform, Future Centre Trust, Environ Ltd (Adopt A Stop Barbados) and The Healing Arts Initiative in partnership with CULTURUNNERS as part of the World Health Organization are pleased to invite you to the launch of a collection of artistic interventions which will be held at the Carmichael/Trailway crossing on the Barbados Trailway (click the link for a Google Maps Pin).

Six local artists have been commissioned to create new works strategically installed as artistic interventions on the Trailway and incorporated into bus shelters placed in rural, underserved communities around the island as an outdoor exhibition opportunity.

The artists whose works we are celebrating include Anna Gibson who has provided artwork for the rain shelter, Dion Gibson and Anya Greaves who have provided artwork for the benches on the Trailway. The bus shelters will be situated in St. John, St. George, and St. Andrew with a series of new works created by Joshua Clarke, Versia Harris, and Amelia Rouse.

Do join us and the artists at the Carmichael/Trailway crossing which will be accessible via the Boarded Hall Road where parking will be available. This event is free and open to the public, and light refreshments will be available.

ABOUT THE PROJECT:

This project recognises the role of the arts sector in addressing the growing mental health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, followed and further impacted by the La Soufriere volcanic eruption and Category 1 Hurricane Elsa.

The pandemic and occurrence of natural disasters have reminded us of the value of green spaces and the natural environment to enhance our physical, mental, and spiritual wellness. It is well known that people, and children in particular, recover better and flourish in the outdoors. While Barbados is blessed with many beaches where locals can recreate, there isn’t enough variety of safe outdoor recreational activities promoting active mobility for young people and families.

The Future Centre Trust has been working for some time to repurpose the historic train line located in the south-central part of the island in the St. George Valley.

With the support of the Healing Arts Initiative, Fresh Milk is pleased to be collaborating with the Future Centre Trust and Environ Ltd (Adopt A Stop Barbados) to work with local artists and to strategically install these artistic interventions on the trailway as a linear outdoor exhibition opportunity, giving artists a chance to contribute to this dynamic and highly anticipated public project. Secondly, we proposed the intervention of three additional outreach solar bus shelters to be placed in underserved rural communities.

Healing Arts was launched in 2020 under the auspices of the World Health organization as part of The Future is Unwritten, a global initiative calling for urgent cooperation between the Arts Sector and United Nations Agencies in order to amplify and accelerate the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the most ambitious and comprehensive global development plan in human history. With leading UN Agencies describing the recent pandemic as nature’s first ‘warning shot’ to civilizations playing with fire, global cultural action that contributes to the envisioning and shaping of a more resilient, healthy, and sustainable future is now more urgent than ever.

Established as part of the United Nations’ 75th Anniversary Programme (UN75) and Decade of Action, Healing Arts 2020-2030 is produced in 2022 by CULTURUNNERS and Arts & Health @ NYU under the secretariat of the World Health Organization’s Arts and Health Program.

Announcing Selected Artists from the Second Fresh Milk/Healing Arts Initiative Open Call!

January 6, 2023Leave a comment

The Fresh Milk Art Platform, Future Centre Trust, Environ Ltd (Adopt A Stop Barbados) and The Healing Arts Initiative in partnership with CULTURUNNERS as part of the World Health Organization are pleased to announce the Barbadian artists, selected by jury members across each participating entity, who will design new works to be incorporated into bus shelters placed in rural, underserved communities around the island.

Joshua Clarke, Versia Harris and Amelia Rouse will provide artwork for the bus shelters. Congratulations to the artists, and in early 2023 we look forward to launching all of the artworks from both Phase 1 and Phase 2 of this collaborative venture!

Learn more about the artists and see previews of their proposed artworks below.

About Joshua Clarke:

Joshua Clarke

Concept sketch (side panel) of Joshua Clarke’s proposed work for one of the bus shelters

Joshua Clarke is a graduate of the Barbados Community College with a BFA in Graphic Design. He has worked in game development as a character, environment and concept artist (Le Loupgarou), as sequential artist on graphic novels (Power in the Blood GreenBook Comics 2020) was a semifinalist in the Kingstoon Pitch Competition(Junkyard Dragon 2019) and is the winner of the first Black Celebration in the Future art contest(2020). A childhood spent reading has given him a lifelong love of storytelling and an inability to put the pencil down has drawn him inexorably to his career in illustration and concept art. A student of culture and history he attempts to capture that same joy and wonder of the stories that inspire him while ensuring representation of the fullness of Blackness in his work. His work shows a particular focus on Afrofuturism and Afrofantasy as he seeks to claim space of diasporic Afro Caribbean identity in the stories that shape our collective imagination.

Excerpt from his proposal for the bus shelter:

Afrofuturism, Solarpunk and Caribbean identity. These are the three pillars I hope to explore
and illustrate with the work. As a piece of public art that exists to be pored over repeatedly
I’d like to create a multilayered work that the viewer can find a bit of respite and enjoyment in
every time they see it anew … In the move toward resilience in the face of climate change education is vital, there are many facets to education but with illustration comes imagination, it’s one thing to conceive of implementation of green technology, it’s another to see it incorporated in a unique and appealing way – water tanks, reforestation, solar panels, wind turbines, vertical gardening etc. A visually dynamic piece that captures the embrace of potential for the possible. I myself have felt futility and despair as I think of a small island’s role in the face of climate change. Paying the debt to nature of an industrial world is a daunting one, and one need only watch the news to see the first signs of what’s to come. But we are still here, we are still alive, and while we live there are concrete steps we can take to prepare to survive and thrive in the face of what is to come.

About Versia Harris:

Versia Harris

Concept sketch (side panel) of Versia Harris’ proposed work for one of the bus shelters

Barbadian artist Versia Harris received her BFA in Studio Art in 2012. She has done a number of residences in the Caribbean and North and South America and has exhibited in London, China, Nigeria, Moscow, Michigan and Aruba. She was awarded a Fulbright Laspau Scholarship in 2017 and received her MFA at Cranbrook Academy of Art, Michigan USA in May, 2019, where she also earned a Mercedes-Benz Financial Services New Beginnings Award. In 2022, Versia took part in Documenta15 with Alice Yard and exhibited in Grimmwelt Museum in Kassel, Germany. She continues to exhibit internationally, while teaching at The Barbados Community College.

Excerpt from her proposal for the bus shelter:

Human beings and nature are inextricably linked, as our well being and mental health is supported by the outdoors and green spaces. The pandemic and the volcanic eruption, that forced us indoors, darkened our lives and our skies, was inevitably going to create a sour period of time and recovery. The isolation caused by social distancing, left cold, many physical connections often taken for granted and the volcanic eruption exacerbated the separation by forcing us to close our windows … The work I am submitting for this project is about going through the layers and portals of the mind, that is also the mirror to the outer scape. A journey that can seem like turmoil, as if being in a hole deep in the earth, looking up at an unreachable sky, or being overwhelmed by a a great wave; to constantly look up and out for hope and light. What do we see and feel when we look up? What do we see when we look in. With what what eyes do we look out? I hope that my bench will be a place of wonder and refection for the sitters. To see the portals of their own mind reflected back at them as an invitation to stay reverent to the outdoors while connected to the call and lure of their mysterious inner worlds.

About Amelia Rouse:

Amelia Rouse

Concept sketch (side panel) of Amelia Rouse’s proposed work for one of the bus shelters

Amelia Rouse is a self-taught artist from Barbados. Her practice incorporates drawing and digital collage. She likes to explore nature, humans, technology and urban decay in her art, and is inspired by sci-fi, surrealism, afrofuturism and life in Barbados by the sea.

Excerpt from her proposal for the bus shelter:

Although I have always loved the beach, swimming and diving, I enjoy hiking, parks and gardens and feel many persons around Barbados do too. I would like to spread my love for nature and the plants within it by combining nostalgic stories and ink illustrations. When I go hiking, I like to take as many pictures as possible of the plants and animals I see. But recently I have just been going out into my garden to take photos of trees, fruits, bees, anything in the natural world that interests me that day. I think documenting the nature around me helps me to engage with it more … I decided to illustrate two pieces, depicting in the outdoors using an old poem and a story I heard from several friends and my parents. To pay tribute to many tropical plants, fruit and flowers we enjoy here in Barbados, I collected references and took photos to use as part of the illustrations. I hope these pieces inspire persons of all ages to go outside more, hike, picnic and enjoy the benefits of Barbados flora and fauna.

ABOUT THE Project PARTNERS:

CULTURUNNERS produces cross-cultural campaigns, exhibitions and journeys, promoting peace-building & sustainable development through art. Launching at MIT in 2014, CULTURUNNERS’ first project was a multi-year artists’ road-trip broadcasting between the United States and the Middle East. It has since grown to encompass large-scale cultural exchange and diplomacy projects, an artist-led media platform, artists’ spaces and partnerships with institutions around the world.

Fresh Milk is an artist-led, non-profit organisation founded in 2011 and based in Barbados. It is a platform which supports excellence in the visual arts through residencies and programmes that provide Caribbean artists with opportunities for development, fostering a thriving art community.

Fresh Milk offers professional support to artists from the Caribbean and further afield and seeks to stimulate critical thinking in contemporary visual art. Its goal is to nurture artists, raise regional awareness about contemporary arts and provide Caribbean artists with opportunities for growth, excellence and success.

The Future Centre Trust is a non-governmental organisation focused on raising awareness of environmental impacts to Barbados and the planet with a vision to be “a catalyst for sustainable living today and tomorrow”. It is the main executing entity for the Barbados Trailway Project – a paved bicycle and pedestrian path located primarily on right-of-way lands of the former Barbados Railway.

This network of multi-purpose walking, hiking, running and cycling trails will provide year round recreational access for both locals and visitors, considerably expanding much needed public green space on the island.

For the past 25 years, Adopt A Stop has provided regional and international companies with a unique opportunity to display their products and services on bus shelters and benches in Barbados. The concept for Adopt A Stop was created by Barbadian Barney Gibbs while studying at Cambridge University. The project was then introduced to the island in 1993 as a socially-conscious way to provide a much-needed amenity. The priority was tropical designs constructed with local materials, placed at prime locations to give maximum impact.

The traveling public has embraced the project. The medium provides popular seating and shade for users; while increasing traffic rates mean drivers and passengers are frequently stopped in front of sponsor’s signage.

Jury Report: Tilting Axis Fellowship 2023

July 14, 2022Leave a comment

In Fall 2019, Het Nieuwe Instituut joined forces with Tilting Axis to offer a Fellowship to one mid-career or established applicant based in the Caribbean. Barbadian multi-disciplinary designer and architect Israel Mapp has been selected as the recipient of the Tilting Axis /Het Nieuwe Instituut Fellowship 2023. Israel Mapp will begin the Fellowship at Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam starting February 2023 and will continue his research and activities through July 2023.

See the announcement on the Tilting Axis website here.

Barbadian multi-disciplinary designer and architect Israel Mapp

Procedure

The fellowship is supported by Het Nieuwe Instituut as lead partner and host, and will include collaborations with its partners, the Amsterdam Museum, De Appel, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and Kunstinstituut Melly. By the deadline for the application on May 27th 2022, Het Nieuwe Instituut and Tilting Axis received 9 eligible entries in response to the open call, from eight territories in the Caribbean region: Barbados, Cuba, Curaçao, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Suriname, The Bahamas, and Trinidad & Tobago.

All the proposals were reviewed by a committee composed of the following members:

Aric Chen, Artistic and General Director, Het Nieuwe Instituut
Setareh Noorani, Researcher, Het Nieuwe Instituut
Iyawo (Holly Bynoe Young), Sour Grass and Tilting Axis co-founder
Annalee Davis, Visual Artist, Founding Director of Fresh Milk, Sour Grass and Tilting Axis co-founder
Jessy Koeiman, Curator Collective Learning, Kunstinstituut Melly
Mark Raymond, Director of the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa
Huib Haye van der Werf (Interim Director), Director at De Appel
Inez van der Scheer, Junior Curator of Contemporary Art, Amsterdam Museum
Charl Landvreugd, Head of Research and Curatorial Practice, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

Submissions and interviews were evaluated based on their ability to present a clear proposal outlining their thinking, projected investigation, and how the fellowship would expand and enrich their practice. Four candidates were shortlisted and invited to an online interview with members of the selection committee on 22nd June 2022. Following the interviews, the committee selected Israel Mapp as the recipient of the 2023 fellowship. The other shortlisted candidates were Dayana Trigo Rames (Cuba), Jorge Pablo Lima (Cuba) and Miguel E. Keerveld (Suriname).

General Comments

The members of the jury were impressed by the spirited and dynamic nature of the projects, as well as the ambition of the applicants. The set of applications showed a variety of working methodologies and media, ranging from installations and architectural designs to the role of curating as an artist and various forms of social, political and symbolic public engagements and activism.

The jury was pleased to have received applications from applicants based across three linguistic territories of the Caribbean. Submissions responded to urgent themes including the climate emergency, colonialism, social consciousness, material cultures and architectural innovations found in nature, histories and literature.

The shortlisted projects investigated the nature of pathology in design, knowledge building within collective and co-creative practices, the role of architecture within ecology and embodied knowledge along with exploring non-extractive material considerations in the era of climate emergency.

Comments on the Selected Proposal

Israel Mapp’s proposal “Above Oceans” was supported unanimously during the interview process because of its considerations around material cultures and their connection to tangible and intangible heritages. The clarity expressed along with his poetic, empathetic and human-led explorations made his exchange with the jury memorable. In addition, Mapp was able to expand on his idea of creative placemaking in a meaningful way connecting several of his unique interests to the strengths of each partner institution.

This opportunity to engage in more intimate and nuanced ways with partner institutions is something that is very attractive to the legacy of the Fellowship. His inquiries and curiosities deal with the very real eco-challenges that are being faced by every Caribbean nation. “Above Oceans” points to material culture as praxis and identity and the urgency around forming community and institutional support using generative, open and humanist value systems.

His ambition includes embracing new learning through the introduction of labs which will create a growing reference library and continued opportunity to develop resources that can bring more wholeness and unification to the creative landscape of Barbados through exchange and co-ideation/co-creation. Collectively the jury was thrilled by Mapp’s interest in reworking clay, fibres from native flora, and limestone found in colonial architectural forms, and in re-presenting these materials in ways that will engage in an ethos connected to a regenerative circular design, that will involve creating more adaptive spaces that embody unlearning and transformation for these urgent times.

On receiving the news that he had been awarded the fellowship, Mapp shared this statement with the jury:

“Above Oceans is not the beginning, it is a point along an exploratory journey for me recognizing and acknowledging how landscape influences Barbadian identity. I truly enjoyed developing the “Above Oceans” proposal for the Tilting Axis Fellowship. It was a process of introspection and discovery working towards an alignment of love, joy, my talents and interests, and the needs of community.

I am equally thankful for the Tilting Axis | Het Nieuwe Instituut Team for taking the time and effort to consider, analyze and inquire with interest about Above Oceans. Receipt of critical feedback from one’s peers has always been an empowering experience for me. It often provides multiple and diverse perspectives that one would have not considered, drills down to the details that matter and ultimately adds more value and depth to the initial idea. Good design comes about when good questions are presented. This process with The Jury was insightful, and inspired me to review, refine and develop the proposal with the view to implement in Barbados. They asked great questions.

I am extremely grateful for and accept this gift and opportunity to continue and expand the work I have been doing in Barbados to which the fellowship will provide. It is also one of meaningful exchange, exploration and discovery; experiences that I value and contribute greatly to my work. My practice calls for experimentation and the exploration of the possibilities; working in the creative environment of Rotterdam will be an excellent observatory and laboratory.

The next six months will be critical in the planning of the fellowship beginning 2023. In addition to having access to the resources of Het Nieuwe Instituut, the partnering organisations and building new relationships, I look forward to taking opportunities for research and development, and collaborations towards approaches in architectural-product design routed innately in Barbadian material culture and a parallel track on understanding the development and operations of creative clusters. I look forward to sharing the fellowship and its fruits with my peers across the ocean.”

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Above is a selection of images from Mapp’s work which features:

Architecture: Urban Renewal Project Union at Beckwith Creative Cluster, Bridgetown.
Product Design Homewares: CartoGraphs – surface design of recovered Sukabumi stone tiles and Hot Tea clay tea pot product development.
Product Design Fashion: Flotsam+ Jetsam : Rescued Ocean Objects Reimagines and Hot Tea.