Dominique Hunter shares news of Fresh Milk’s small exhibition Resonance, which marks our 6th anniversary and coincides with Barbados hosting CARIFESTA XIII, in her weekly Arts & Culture column in the Guyana Chronicle.
Click here to read the full article!
Fresh Milk is pleased to welcome art historian & PhD candidate at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, Kate Keohane to the platform from August 28 – September 23, 2017.
Kate, whose research focuses on complicating the effect of globalisation in contemporary creative fields – particularly the way ‘paradises’ are framed in the cultural imaginary with reference to the use of the Caribbean landscape in global contemporary art – sees this residency as an opportunity to spend time in the region, getting a sense of one of the islands she is investigating and learning about the wider Caribbean. She will also be utilizing the collection in the Colleen Lewis Reading Room for research towards her thesis.
About Kate Keohane:
Kate Keohane is a PhD candidate in History of Art at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. As part of an international EU-LAC project which studies community museums, her work considers the staging and circulation of the Caribbean landscape in contemporary art. Through the sustained analysis of artists working from outside and within the region, and the ideas of writers and theorists of the Caribbean, including Édouard Glissant, Derek Walcott, Paul Gilroy and Stuart Hall, her thesis hopes to trouble the narrative surrounding conceptions of the ‘contemporary’ and the effects of globalisation on creative fields.
Fresh Milk is thrilled to announce that, after reviewing a number of fantastic submissions to our open call for this year’s Fresh Milk ArtBoard and having input from an advisory group of creative professionals around the region, our team has selected an image by Saint-Martin born, Martinique based artist David Gumbs to be displayed. Congratulations, David!
David Gumbs, Offscreen (still image from interactive video piece) on the Fresh Milk ArtBoard
Artist statement:
David Gumbs is a multimedia artist from the island of Saint-Martin. His research investigates the spectator’s perception and mental landscape.
David Gumbs’ artistic approach is based on a famous quotation from XVIIth century French philosopher and chemist Antoine Lavoisier: « Mass is neither gained nor lost, merely transformed ». Thus, life’s cycle, infinite scale, memory, and the Sacred, are themes that emerge from larger topics of interest such as inner/outer landscape, and offscreen. These immersed spaces reveal personal inner projections from the unconscious, thus emerging this « Mental Archeology » through spectator’s perception. His research focuses on the different feelings, emotions, and stimulations that build memory.
Discovering the Martinican and Cuban flora triggered a vivid passion for mythical forest Gods in island cultures. This was the beginning of an identity quest through the exploration of topics dealing with the offscreen of perception, and rhizome graphical macroscopic universes.
His polymorphic art reveals the interbreeding and hybridization process in the collective and individual unconsciousness in Caribbean imagination.
The presented works are from the Offscreen and the Blossoms realtime interactive and generative video series. These images are created in realtime by using fractal data and user intervention that creates and transforms the patterns on the fly. The Blossoms series was created during David’s Davidoff Art Initiative Beijing residency in 2016, where tropical flora was used as a metaphor of air purification while the random animated patterns were growing and expanding on the city walls.
About the artist:
The Blossoms interactive installation was invited to be shown as part of the Special Projects of the Jamaica Biennial 2017. The « Water & Dreams » video was selected for the Relational Undercurrents exhibition at MOLAA, and was also shown at the Digital exhibition at the National Gallery of Jamaica.
In 2016, David Gumbs was selected as the Davidoff Art Initiative artist in residence in Beijing China, where he exhibited at the World Art Museum / China Millenium Monument, and Aotu Studio independent art space.
His « Offscreen of Perception » videos have been shown at Video Islands in New York, the opening exhibition of the Memorial Acte Museum (Macte) in Guadeloupe and Transoceanic Visual Exchange (TVE) in Barbados in 2015; at the trinidad + tobago film festival – New Media, Transforming Spaces – Bahamas and the Beep Bop Boop New Media Festival – Florida in 2014; at the BIAC Biennal – Martinique and Art Bémao New media selection – Guadeloupe in 2013; at Happy Island Project Biennal – Aruba in 2012; and at the prestigious Latitudes, Paris City Hall in 2009.
He has taking part in numerous new media festivals in Europe and in France, for example the Aborescence Festival in Aix-en-Provence. David’s work is regularly shown all over the world and in the Caribbean.
(L-R) Shanice Smith & Dominique Hunter, For your Viewing Pleasure, 2017; Leasho Johnson, How to kill a soundboy, 2017; Oneika Russell, A bit of what you fancy, Detail of a still from the video, 2017
Fresh Milk would also like to announce that three pieces were selected as runners-up for this edition: For your Viewing Pleasure by Shanice Smith (Trinidad) and Dominique Hunter (Guyana); How to kill a soundboy by Leasho Johnson (Jamaica); and A bit of what you fancy by Oneika Russell (Jamaica). These pieces are featured in our small exhibition Resonance, which continues from August 28-31, 2017 in the Fresh Milk studio.
Finally, to take a look at all of the other submissions we received, check out our online exhibition of the work, celebrating the positive response we received to this call. We are so pleased to be able to share work from around the Caribbean, especially as Barbados is the host of this year’s CARIFESTA XIII festival, and encourage you to come see all of the works in person!
The Fresh Milk Art Platform is pleased to present Resonance, a showcase of works by some of the artists who have participated in residencies or projects with the organization over the last six years. Resonance opens on Saturday, August 19th, 2017 from 2-4pm with a presentation about Fresh Milk’s programming and a chance to speak with some of the exhibiting artists, and will also be open to the public on August 21st – 23rd and 28th – 31st from 10am – 4pm each day. Come and see what Fresh Milk has on display during the regional celebrations of CARIFESTA XIII, and commemorate our 6th anniversary with us!
About Resonance:
res·o·nance
noun
1.
the quality in a sound of being deep, full, and reverberating.
2.
the reinforcement or prolongation of sound by reflection from a surface or by the synchronous vibration of a neighbouring object.
When Fresh Milk began in August 2011, it was an experiment based on the hypothesis that there was a need for spaces in Barbados where contemporary artists, writers, thinkers and makers could come to conduct their own creative investigations. Six years later, the experiment continues to grow organically locally and throughout the Caribbean, constantly being fed by the artists that we engage with.
Resonance plays on the phonetically similar word ‘residence’, taking this opportunity to celebrate our local artist in residence programme among other innovative projects, as well as regional residency initiatives. There is also synergy with the definition of the word; each of the creatives that have been involved with Fresh Milk have enriched the platform, their presence and contribution continuing to impact every new endeavor we undertake and reinforcing our desire to foster prolonged relationships with artists. This showcase is less about following a theme, and more about recognizing the dynamic trajectories of the participants’ varying practices.
It’s our pleasure to feature works by Barbadian artists Simone Asia, Evan Avery, Cherise Harris, Versia Harris, Raquel Marshall, Ronald Williams, Anisah Wood and Kraig Yearwood. Additionally, we are excited that this show coincides with CARIFESTA XIII in Barbados, and are pleased to be able to include works by regional artists Dominique Hunter (Guyana), Leasho Johnson (Jamaica), Oneika Russell (Jamaica) and Shanice Smith (Trinidad) – each of whom have also been part of the Caribbean Linked residency programme coordinated by Ateliers ’89 in Aruba, Fresh Milk and ARC Magazine. We look forward to maintaining our connections with each of these artists, the many others that we have worked with in the past, and those still to come in the future.
Directions to the Fresh Milk studio can be found on the About Page of our website, and for more information email freshmilkbarbados@gmail.com.
US-based interdisciplinary artist Nyugen Smith shares his third blog post about his recently completed residency at Fresh Milk. Nyugen reflects on part of his time in Barbados and the sensitivity of some of the issues he is attempting to unpack through his work, as he begins to navigate the history of the island in conjunction with the contemporary realities and nuances of its complex culture. Read more below:
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Day 6
I pity them greatly but I must be mum,
For how could we do without sugar and rum?
-William Cowper
Every night is a time to reflect on the events of that day, yesterday, and the day before that.
Today (6/9/17) is one day short of a week that I have been here in this place where there weren’t many places for a runaway to hide. Flat land. Coral rock holding points of pressure always a reminder that one day, almost all of this, if not the highest point of this mass, will look upwards to refractions of light filtered by a mix of salt and fresh water. I see shells at my feet in places that provide an overview of flowering fields, marveling at the magic produced by the perfect length of day. There isn’t much soil here. So I’ve heard. I couldn’t help but wonder how one buries the dead. My mind ran through the file of flora and fauna my eyes have registered since landing. To think that their roots do not run deep. Or maybe they possess the strength and capacity to carve their way through the limestone floor because they must.
I wondered. Every time that I see banks of this almost rock that flank the roads I travel, I want to measure the depth of dirt that rests atop like frosting on sponge cake slices. I am curious. Six or seven inches of soil is all it takes for “white gold” to situate itself in this part of what Andrea Stuart referred to as a “European world”, to the south and west of England’s winter.
…continued on 7/6/17 post-residency…
“It’s Complicated”… is a phrase that became popular on social media platforms as a way to describe relationships between two individuals when either one or both parties dance between acknowledging the other as a romantic/committed partner and not doing so. This could be due to reasons that may or may not include external pressures, unresolved prior romantic/committed relationships, apprehension to absorb one another’s “baggage”, lingering questions regarding long-term effects on one’s social status, fear of personal sacrifices that are inevitiable for the relationship to work, and or unaddressed psychological trauma that hinders one or both parties from being able to commit to the “long-haul” together.
As a guest in Barbados, the home of 285,750 people, I quickly became aware of topics of conversation that if spoken of, would complicate the weather underground and perhaps prompt the removal of lavalier microphones with a muttering of “we’re done here…” This early awareness was not derived from my own assumptions or conclusion drawn from tangential musings, but directly spoken to me by Bajan citizens. There was no mistaking the message bottled in the words…
f-f-f-f-f-f-fear
sen-s-s-s-s-sitive
am-m-m-m-ne-e-e-e-sia
e-e-era-a-a-sure
den-i-i-i-ial
protective-v-v-ve
in-secur-r-r-r-re
sus-s-s-spicion
…these words are like the togetherness of flies on a pile of shit
bothered by strong breeze
and boots barely too close.
bothered for good reason.
if spoken (topics) they do a number of things:
they
carry a threat of a future removal of the flies’ feast
they
add pressure that spreads the feast thin over a wider area, making it easier for more to take part in the spoils
they
carry the scent across a distance simultaneously attracting more to buzz about in the mess and causes others to close off parts of themselves as to not absorb any
they
smear the pile taking with them a trail wherever they go. at least – a small sample ends up in the home of the hot stepper
Despite the words of caution and warnings, I, the guest, stepped in the pile.
I, the guest, was smearing, spreading, and stirring up the mess with the work I was doing.
There was one instance in particular where I was asked to stop.
To speak the name,
Barbados
is to spray the air
with a mist of sea salt and
the smell of green-
for bush and deep waters are never far.
To speak its name
is to swaddle the body with hospitality
and rock it with musical vibrations of the region.
To speak its name
is to draw from its wells of intellectual tradition.
But you cannot speak the name,
Barbados
without the bitter taste of
black death soaked
in the juice of Saccharum officinarum
lingering on lips
warmed by the Caribbean sun.
For sugarcane to have earned the moniker “white gold”, scientific means had to have been employed to develop and improve its quality, while maximizing its production. There were people at the helm of this scientific research. Parallel to this timeline that ensured the success and longevity of the sugarcane industry, existed a systematically constructed labor force comprised of enslaved Africans and their descendants. The success of the plantation system (slavery) in Barbados was a model for the colonies in North America. As sugarcane was and is selectively bred, enslaved Africans and their descendants born into slavery in Barbados were also bought and sold-their value determined by their physical attributes and skills. I am intrigued by the historical and contemporary societal relationships between the two and plan to investigate this and the sensitivity of these matters more in my practice.
Engaging in conversations about this, is not for the ill-prepared. Preparation is a must. Patience must be had, composure maintained and its important for all engaged parties to be present with a willingness to bridge gaps of understanding within “the complicated”. If not now… when?
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fresh milk barbados 