Fresh Stops: Versia Harris Up Next!

December 12, 2014May 21, 2015Leave a comment

Fresh Milk and Adopt A Stop continue the Fresh Stops collaborative project this month with Versia Harris‘ piece titled ‘At the Side of Something‘. In an attempt to bring art into the public space, six artists were commissioned to produce original artwork for benches that will appear at varied locations around the island. ‘At the Side of Something‘ by Versia Harris will soon be revealed at a location near you.

The other participating artists include Evan Avery, Matthew Clarke, Mark King, Simone Padmore and Ronald Williams. This project creates visibility for the work of emerging creatives, allowing the public to encounter and interact with their pieces in everyday life, generating interest and inviting dialogue about their practices.

‘At the Side of Something’ in process

At the Side of Something.

‘At the Side of Something’ attempts to embody a moment of solitude; a figure stands alone and somewhat out of place in a large forested area with only his reflection for company. It aims to capture the feeling of being alone while surrounded by so much.

Versia Harris

Photograph by Omar Kuwas

Artist Versia Harris lives and works in the country of her birth, Barbados. She received her BFA in Studio Art in 2012 and was awarded The Lesley’s Legacy Foundation Award, an annual prize given to the top graduate. She participated in her first residency with Projects and Space in 2011 and has since completed a residency with another local organization called Fresh Milk, followed by a residency at the Vermont Studio Center, and residencies at the Instituto Buena Bista, Curacao and Alice Yard, Trinidad in late 2013. In 2014, Versia’s work was featured in the IV Moscow International Biennial for Young Art themed ‘A Time for Dreams’. She was also apart of the follow up exhibition ‘MOMENTUM_InsideOut screening of ‘A Time For Dreams’, Berlin. Her animation ‘They Say You Can Dream a Thing More Than Once’ was awarded ‘Best New Media Film’ at the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival, 2014. Versia tackles perceptions of fantasy in contrast to the reality of her invented characters.

About Adopt A Stop:

The Adopt A Stop project provides socially beneficial advertising in the form of bus shelters, benches and outdoor fitness stations at prime sites around Barbados. They embrace solar lighting, local materials and tropical design in keeping with their goal of environmental sustainability.

TVE Open Call

December 9, 2014May 21, 20151 Comment

TVE (transoceanic visual exchange) is making an open call in search of recent artists’ films and videos to be included in an exchange between Fresh Milk (Barbados), RM, (Auckland) and VAN Lagos (Nigeria).

Fresh Milk, RM and VAN Lagos, are pleased to welcome submissions of recent film and video works – screenings, installations and expanded cinema – by contemporary artists, to be included in programmes for exchange between Barbados, Auckland and Lagos. Submitted works must have been completed in the last five years and must be made by artists practicing in the Caribbean, Africa or Polynesia.

The foundation of this transoceanic visual exchange (TVE) will be a collection of recent artist’s film and video from each region. However, the final shape and content of the programme will be informed by an open workshop process, which aims to involve and promote discussion within the wider arts communities of each arts initiative.

Working between the Caribbean, Africa and Polynesia, TVE aims to negotiate the in-between space of our cultural communities outside of traditional geo-political zones of encounter and trade. Fresh Milk, VAN Lagos and RM first met as participants of International Artists Initiated, a programme organized and facilitated by David Dale Gallery, Glasgow, in July 2014. TVE intends to build upon relations established during this initial encounter and open up greater pathways of visibility, discourse and knowledge production between the artist run initiatives and their communities.

Submissions:

Must be work from artists practicing in the Caribbean, Africa or Polynesia.
Must be work that has been completed/made in the last five years.
Can be films of any length (shorts, experimental, features and video artworks)
Can be in any language (films originally produced in regional languages are welcome) with English subtitles.
Multiple submissions are welcome
Must be accompanied by a description of the work (500 words max), a bio (200 words max) and detail of any technical requirements i.e. audio, installation, equipment required, preferred setting etc.
Works must be in the form of mp4 files no larger than 10MB, or private Vimeo / Youtube links

Deadlines for Submission: 16th February 2015

The exchange will occur in June 2015

Please send submissions and enquiries to the region in which you are practicing:

Caribbean: freshmilkbarbados@gmail.com
Polynesia: taarati@rm103.org
Africa: info@vanlagos.org / vanlagos.org@gmail.com

About the Spaces

The Fresh Milk Art Platform Inc. is a Caribbean non-profit, artist-led, inter-disciplinary organization that supports creatives and promotes wise social, economic, and environmental stewardship through creative engagement with society and by cultivating excellence in the arts. Fresh Milk bridges the divides between creative disciplines, generations of creatives, and all linguistic territories in the region. It functions as a cultural lab, fostering critical, creative practices through local, regional and international programming. The platform transforms into a gathering space for contemporary creatives who are thirsty to debate ideas and share works through residencies, lectures, screenings, workshops, exhibitions, projects etc.

The Video Art Network, Lagos (VAN, Lagos) is a Lagos based New Media art organization, established by the collaborative efforts of artists Emeka Ogboh, Jude Anogwih and cultural producer Oyindamola Fakeye. The organizations objectives are to develop educational and public programmes that promote and create new media art awareness in Nigeria. This is realized through curated screenings and exhibitions of both established and emerging New Media artists.

RM is an artist-run space, project office and (gradually developing) archive. Based in Auckland, New Zealand, RM is a gallery that places the work of local emerging artists alongside more seasoned practitioners. RM seeks to engage with the practices, discourses and modes of presentation that aren’t well-supported or easily accessible in Auckland. Though we might look like a white cube, we are more interested in the potentials of an empty room – a space to gather, to think, to talk, to make, to share… Established in 1997, RM is the country’s longest running artist-run-space. The co-directors are Eleanor Cooper, Melanie Kung, Ziggy Lever, Fleur Sandbrook, Taarati Taiaroa, and co-founder Nick Spratt. Previous incarnations of the rm project have included rm3, rm212, rm401 and rm103.

Kara Springer’s Residency – First Blog Post

December 8, 2014May 21, 20151 Comment

One of Fresh Milk’s current resident artists, Toronto based industrial designer and visual artist Kara Springer, shares her first blog post about her time working in Barbados:

One week into our residency at Fresh Milk, and I’m already longing for more time here. It’s such a gift to have access to the beautiful Fresh Milk studio and library. Christian and I are exploring the island in my uncle’s car, scouting locations for my installation series, tentatively titled Repositioned Objects. Lately I’ve been thinking about my preoccupation with decay and erosion, which is in some way or another present in all of my work. It’s this very particular thing in the Caribbean – the way that structures can come apart, and literally crumble; the elements are always intimately and intensely present. I built the 6’x6′ cube below in a burned-out shop in Bridgetown this week. The shop is in the midst of being rebuilt so I had this brief window of time (24 hours) to build, photograph, and ultimately disassemble the piece. I was immediately drawn to the industrial quality of the space – carrying the traces of what it used to be and the questions of how it fell into disrepair, even in its current state of being prepped for re-construction.

Repositioned Objects Series. Photograph by Kara Springer.

In contrast, two weeks ago, just as the temperature dropped below freezing in Toronto, I installed the form below, which was originally inspired by a roti hut, in an industrial parking lot at Keele & St Clair. I had to trek into the store nearby every 10 minutes or so to thaw my hands as I put it together. This residency is affording me a really valuable space to think through what it means to be of and from many different places, and the translations that are negotiated in the in-between.

FRESH MILK XVII

December 4, 2014May 21, 2015Leave a comment

Join us on December 19th, 2014, from 6:30 to 8pm for FRESH MILK XVII. Visual artist Kara Springer and poet / critical writer Christian Campbell will speak about their residency experiences; Katherine Kennedy will share news about her recently completed three month Fellowship at Akadamie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, Germany while Natalie McGuire will join us by Skype to speak about TVE – a Transoceanic Visual Exchange between Barbados, Nigeria and New Zealand.

It’s the last Fresh Milk event for 2014. We’ll close out the year with a Pot Luck. Bring food, drink and good cheer!

This event is free and open to the public.

Visit https://freshmilkbarbados.com/about/ for directions to Fresh Milk

Kara Springer

Kara Springer

Kara Springer is an industrial designer and visual artist. Born in Bridgetown, Barbados, she currently lives and works between Toronto and Detroit. Her interdisciplinary practice explores the intersections of the body and industrial modes of production through sculpture, photography and designed objects. Kara completed an Hon.B.Sc. in Life Sciences from the University of Toronto concurrent to a B.Des. in Industrial Design from the Ontario College of Art & Design. She received her M.A. in New Media and Contemporary Technology from ENSCI Les Ateliers in Paris in 2007. Her work has been exhibited at the Frankfurt Museum of Applied Arts in Germany, the Politecnico di Torino in Italy, the Cultural Center of Belem in Portugal, and is currently included in the 2014 Jamaica Biennial.

Christian Campbell

Christian Campbell is a Trinidadian-Bahamian poet and cultural critic. His widely acclaimed first book, Running the Dusk (Peepal Tree Press, 2010), won the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize and was a finalist for the Forward Prize for the Best First Collection, among many other awards. Running the Dusk was also named one of the best books of 2010 by the Caribbean Review of Books,Horizon Review and Poetry International. In 2015 Running the Dusk will be translated into Spanish and published as Correr el Crepúsculo by Ediciones Santiago in Cuba. His poetry and essays have been published widely in journals and newspapers such as Callaloo, The Financial Times, The Guardian, Small Axe and Wasafiri. He studied at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and currently teaches at the University of Toronto.

Katherine Kennedy

Katherine Kennedy (Born April 4, 1990, Barbados) graduated from Lancaster University, UK with a degree in Creative Arts (2008-2011) after winning a Barbados Government Scholarship for tertiary education. Her combined major of Fine Art and Creative Writing developed her interests in visual and literary pursuits. She has won awards for her artwork and writing in her home Barbados, and exhibited locally and internationally. She currently works as the Assistant to Director with both The Fresh Milk Art Platform, an artist-led initiative and residency programme, and ARC Magazine for contemporary Caribbean art. Her visual practice is heavily tied to a sense of place, and uses interplay between found organic and inorganic objects to assert cultural identity in different environments.

Katherine travelled to the Instituto Buena Bista (IBB), Curaçao in November 2012 to conduct ‘Creatives in Conversation’, a collaboration between the IBB and Fresh Milk. She received a full fellowship from the Reed Foundation for a residency at The Vermont Studio Center in May 2013. In September 2013, she took part in ‘fresh casa’, a short, intensive mentorship programme at Casa Tomada, São Paulo, Brazil.

Natalie McGuire

Photograph by Dondre Trotman

Natalie McGuire is a Barbadian Art Writer who has recently completed her MA at The University of Auckland, NZ, with a thesis deconstructing Caribbean diasporic representation in museums. She is on the board of the Fresh Milk Arts Platform in Barbados, the committee of the West Indian Society in Auckland, and has contributed to publications such as ARC Magazine and AICA Southern Caribbean. Recently she has given papers on Caribbean visual language in digital art mediums at the Small Axe Caribbean Digital Conference and Otago University’s Space Race and Bodies conference.

Fresh Milk featured in BimROCK

December 2, 2014June 25, 2015Leave a comment

Photograph by Bim ROCK Magazine

The premiere issue of BimROCK Magazine is out. Thank you to Kishmar Shepherd, Publisher of BimROCK and Rachelle Grey, Editor-in-Chief for featuring the Fresh Milk Art Platform Inc. in this, their inaugural issue. Thanks also to Versia Harris, Ronald Williams and Lauren Craig for lending their voices to the feature. See the full feature and magazine here: BimROCK Issue 1.

Click here to read the feature.