Category: Barbados

‘Victoria’ at Bathsheba

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Installed at Bathsheba

Photograph by Llanor Alleyne

Fresh Milk  and Adopt A Stop continue the Fresh Stops collaborative project this month with Mark King‘s piece titled ‘Victoria‘. 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. ‘Victoria‘ by Mark King has been installed at Bathsheba St. Joseph. Thank you to Adopt A Stop for partnering with us to produce this beautiful bench!

The other participating artists  include Evan Avery, Matthew Clarke, Versia Harris,  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.

Photograph Llanor Alleyne
Photograph Llanor Alleyne
Photograph Llanor Alleyne
Photograph Llanor Alleyne
Photograph Llanor Alleyne
‘Victoria’ by Mark King installed at Bathsheba. Photograph by Peter Sandiford.
‘Victoria’ in process
‘Victoria’ in process

Artist Statement: Victoria

“Victoria” serves as a temporary spatial reference anchor that alters a cherished space. The bench thus acts as a marker that activates the environment lending a different perspective to the passer by and participant.

Biography

Mark King

Mark King is a multidisciplinary Barbadian artist who explores archetypes and social norms. Interested in notions of topography and megalography, Mark makes coded, often satirical work that highlights social phenomena. The son of a former diplomat, mark has called several places home. Growing up in the Bahamas, Belgium and the United Sates has left Mark with a unique perspective that directly influences his artistic practice.

Mark holds a Masters of Fine Arts degree in Photography from the Academy of Art University is San Francisco, California. In 2011 the Lucie Foundation handpicked Mark for their apprenticeship programme. During the same year he participated in a screen-printing residency at Alice Yard in Port of Spain, Trinidad. In  2013, he participated in two residencies – Fresh Milk in Saint George, Barbados and Ateliers 89’ in Aruba for the Mondriaan Foundation’s Caribbean Linked II. Last year he released his first monograph, ‘Plastic’ through MOSSLESS publishing at The Newsstand in New York. Plastic has gone on to The 2013 New York Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1, The 8Ball Zine Fair, the 2013 I Never Read Art Book Fair in Basel, Switzerland, and The 2014 LA Art Book Fair in the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. In July – August of 2014, Mark’s work was on display as part of the International Artist Initiated project (IAI) hosted by the David Dale Gallery & Studios as part of The Glasgow 2014 Cultural Programme, which took place alongside this year’s Commonwealth Games.

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.

Caribbean Digital 4-5 December 2014, A Small Axe Conference

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Artwork (detail) by Rodell Warner

Small Axe presents Caribbean Digital, a unique two-day conference in which they intend to engage critically with the digital as practice and as historicized societal phenomenon, reflecting on the challenges and opportunities presented by the media technologies that evermore intensely reconfigure the social and geo-political contours of the Caribbean and its diasporas. Presenters will consider the intersection of digital technology, new media, and Caribbean studies in a series of wide-ranging panel discussions. The conference will be preceded by a one-day researchathon dedicated to the construction of a comprehensive bibliography of and on the work of Kamau Brathwaite. They look forward to engaging with you – live or online!

The transformation of the academy by the digital revolution presents challenges customary ways of learning, teaching, conducting research, and presenting findings. It also offers great opportunities in each of these areas. New media enable oration, graphics, objects, and even embodied performance to supplement existing forms of scholarly production as well as to constitute entirely original platforms. Textual artifacts have been rendered literally and figuratively three-dimensional; opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration have expanded exponentially; information has been made more accessible and research made more efficient on multiple levels. Scholars are called upon, with some urgency, to adapt their research and pedagogical methods to an academic climate deluged by a superabundance of information and analysis. This has created opportunities for open-ended and multiform engagements, interactive and continually updating archives and other databases, cartographic applications that enrich places with historical information, and online dialogues with peers and the public.

The need for such engagements is especially immediate among the people of the Caribbean and its diasporas. Information technology has become an increasingly significant part of the way that people frame pressing social problems and political aspirations. Moreover, the Internet is analogous in important ways to the Caribbean itself as dynamic and fluid cultural space: it is generated from disparate places and by disparate peoples; it challenges fundamentally the geographical and physical barriers that disrupt or disallow connection; and it places others and elsewheres in relentless relation. Yet while we celebrate these opportunities for connectedness, we also must make certain that the digital realm undermine and confront rather than re-inscribe forms of silencing and exclusion in the Caribbean.

Fresh Milk will be participating in Session 7 – Trans-Caribbean Creative Praxis at 3:45 EST / 4:45 pm Barbados time. Fresh Milk presenters include Amanda Haynes and Annalee Davis. See full schedule.

Lauren Craig and Annalee Davis in Conversation

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Photograph by Rachelle Gray

Lauren Craig (left), Annalee Davis (right) – Photograph by Rachelle Gray

Fresh Milk‘s Founding Director, Annalee Davis sits down for a chat with recent Fresh Milk resident artist, Lauren Craig. Lauren is  a London based multimedia visual artist who developed ‘floral installation” to describe her creative practice.  During their conversation, Lauren spoke about some of the projects she has been working on in the UK including her work for the British museum and the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology. In addition, Lauren shares her collaborative work with British women of colour as they develop the Women of Colour Index and ‘X Marks the Spot’,  in contribution to an archive at the library at Goldsmiths University in London. Below are  photographs that Lauren produced while on her residency at Fresh Milk.

Lauren Craig and Annalee Davis In Conversation Part 1

Lauren Craig and Annalee Davis In Conversation Part 2

 

For more on Lauren’s residency and the continuation of her ‘Cleanse’ project, read Lauren’s exchange with Llanor Alleyne here: http://bit.ly/1EvPQdF

Lauren Craig’s Biography

Lauren Craig is a social entrepreneur and artist researcher based in London. She has designed systems and living business models that have challenged large corporations in areas of racism, minority and women’s rights. Her art and entrepreneurial activity tackle big questions around ethics, equality, sustainability and community engagement in the cut flower industry whilst delivering practical floral alternatives locally, through her organization ‘Thinking Flowers?’

As an entrepreneur, Lauren is involved with social issues such as environmental destruction, London street crime and equality, aiming to promote positive change through ethics, sustainability and engagement. She has developed therapeutic methods using photography to document and tackle street crime and runs a pioneering ethical florist. Additionally, she has founded ‘Field’ – an innovative pop-up community retail space in Brixton Village, pioneered urban green waste schemes and floral donations services whilst campaigning for human, working and women’s rights further afield. She is currently setting up the Field Foundation, which will work to reconnect people with the creative cultural industries.

Her recent work includes ‘Petal Tank’, an experimental film featuring collage of autoethnographic darkroom photography, poetry and sculpture. (Tate Modern Tanks, 2012) ; An artist residency at the Women’s Art Library at Goldsmiths College, University of London (2013-2014) ; Sculptural Garden, collaboration with Paul Jones, Royal Collage of Art for Space Station 65, London (2014) ; ‘Sense and Sensibilities’ at Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2014) ‘Modern Measures – Holding, Pouring, Stirring’ at The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in London as part of University College London Museums & Collections (2014). Collaboration with visual arts and research collective ‘X Marks the Spot’, initiated at Studio Voltaire 2011, engages with the archive of photographer Jo Spence to explore concepts of class, race, gender and wellbeing.

Fresh Stops: Mark King Up Next!

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Mark King's 'Victoria' is revealed next.

 Fresh Milk  and Adopt A Stop continue the Fresh Stops collaborative project this month with Mark King‘s piece titled ‘Victoria‘. 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. ‘Victoria‘ by Mark King will soon be revealed at a location near you.

The other participating artists  include Evan Avery, Matthew Clarke, Versia Harris,  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.

‘Victoria’ in process
‘Victoria’ in process

Victoria

“Victoria” serves as a temporary spatial reference anchor that alters a cherished space. The bench thus acts as a marker that activates the environment lending a different perspective to the passer by and participant.

Mark King

Mark King

Mark King is a multidisciplinary Barbadian artist who explores archetypes and social norms. Interested in notions of topography and megalography, Mark makes coded, often satirical work that highlights social phenomena. The son of a former diplomat, mark has called several places home. Growing up in the Bahamas, Belgium and the United Sates has left Mark with a unique perspective that directly influences his artistic practice.

Mark holds a Masters of Fine Arts degree in Photography from the Academy of Art University is San Francisco, California. In 2011 the Lucie Foundation handpicked Mark for their apprenticeship programme. During the same year he participated in a screen-printing residency at Alice Yard in Port of Spain, Trinidad. In  2013, he participated in two residencies – Fresh Milk in Saint George, Barbados and Ateliers 89’ in Aruba for the Mondriaan Foundation’s Caribbean Linked II. Last year he released his first monograph, ‘Plastic’ through MOSSLESS publishing at The Newsstand in New York. Plastic has gone on to The 2013 New York Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1, The 8Ball Zine Fair, the 2013 I Never Read Art Book Fair in Basel, Switzerland, and The 2014 LA Art Book Fair in the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. In July – August of 2014, Mark’s work was on display as part of the International Artist Initiated project (IAI) hosted by the David Dale Gallery & Studios as part of The Glasgow 2014 Cultural Programme, which took place alongside this year’s Commonwealth Games.

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.