Announcing Kia Redman as the Barbadian resident artist at Le Centre d’Art, Haiti

September 17, 2019Leave a comment

Fresh Milk is thrilled to announce Barbadian artist Kia Redman as the recipient of a one month artist residency at Le Centre d’Art, Haiti, who we have partnered with for a residency exchange programme between Haiti and the wider Caribbean to create opportunities for women arts practitioners, supported by UNESCO’s International Fund for Cultural Diversity (IFDC).

Kia’s residency will take place October 14th – November 14th, 2019. A subsequent call for women, Haitian artists to attend a one month residency with us at Fresh Milk, Barbados will be released soon!

About Kia Redman:

Kia Redman is a creative professional living and working in Barbados. She attained her BFA in Studio Art R with first-class honours from the Barbados Community College in 2017 and has spent the time since developing her creative practice.

Kia currently works part time as a designer and videographer for Acute Vision Inc. and Bajans in Motion. She has participated in local residencies with Punch Creative Arena and Fresh Milk Barbados and taken part in local group shows and screenings internationally. In 2018 her short film Roots|Routes won six awards including Best Short Film at the Barbados Visual Media Festival.

Being born into a post-independent nation in formation, Kia’s work focuses on issues of identity, mapping culture and documenting histories. She aims to rewrite the blanket definition taught to be her Caribbean identity and discover the things unique to her lived experience.

Jungle, Digital Collage (in progress), Experimentation with combining live images with illustrations. Part of ‘A Paradise Escape?’

The Tourist, Digital Collage (in progress), Part of ‘A Paradise Escape?’

The Citizen, Digital Collage (in progress), Part of ‘A Paradise Escape?’

________

About Le Centre d’Art:

Le Centre d’Art in Port-au-Prince is an institution that works towards promoting artistic creations by Haitian practitioners on the basis of preserved heritage values. Since its creation in 1944, this atypical space with multiple missions has been at the heart of societal and artistic evolutions. As the major protagonist in the reconfiguration of the fine arts realm in Haiti, Le Centre d’Art has been paving the way for several schools and artistic movements.

Despite the destruction of the infrastructure during the earthquake of 2010, Le Centre d’Art managed to save more than 5000 works and 3000 archive files, which are today preserved and valued. Since the reopening in 2014, Le Centre d’Art has once again become an essential part of Haitian culture.

Its mission is to support artists and their creations, and to conserve and disseminate Haitian visual arts. It is a resource space for artists, art students, art lovers, collectors and researchers alike.

Open Call: Artist Residency at Le Centre d’Art, Haiti

July 24, 2019July 25, 2019Leave a comment

Fresh Milk is pleased to announce an exciting partnership with fellow arts organization Le Centre d’Art, Haiti, who have invited us to be part of a residency exchange programme between Haiti and the wider Caribbean to create opportunities for women arts practitioners, supported by UNESCO’s International Fund for Cultural Diversity (IFDC).

This segment of the programme invites women artists from Barbados or its diaspora to apply for a fully funded, one month residency at Le Centre d’Art in Haiti from October 14th – November 14th, 2019. The deadline for submissions is August 16th, 2019.

A subsequent call for women, Haitian artists to attend a one month residency with us at Fresh Milk, Barbados will be released at a later date.

See the current, full open call below, or download the PDF guidelines and application form here.

About Le Centre d’Art

Over the years, well-known Haitian artists have been revealed internationally, including Philomé Obin, Hector Hyppolite, George Liautaud, Antonio Joseph, Rigaud Benoit, Robert St Brice, Jasmin Joseph, and Préfète Duffaut.

Le Centre d’Art was the starting point for a wealth of visual creativity–upholding a considerable legacy that is today part of private and public collections, in Haiti and abroad. The establishment is apolitical, non-profit, and has gained public recognition since 1947. The governance is composed of a board of directors, an international scientific council and an executive team

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Residencies Scope

Le Centre d’Art is setting up a synergy project for artistic creation and artistic analysis in the Caribbean, thanks in particular to UNESCO’s International Fund for Cultural Diversity (IFDC). Titled Implementation of a Network for the Creation and Dissemination of Caribbean Art, the project aims to create a link between Haiti and Caribbean places of creation, and to promote the practices of Caribbean artists, especially women, to strengthen the Haitian cultural sector. For two years, artistic residencies will be set up, and will end with an exhibition and a widely distributed publication.

Theme

“The ability of humans to participate intelligently in the evolution of their own system is dependent on their ability to perceive the whole” – Immanuel Wallerstein

Toussaint L’Ouverture, Jean Price Mars, Aimé Césaire, Marcus Garvey, Frantz Fanon, Derek Walcott – long is the list of illustrious men who have shaped the Caribbean as we know it today. What about Caribbean women? University theses on the role of women are rising but they are not written for the general public. Art has the power to make accessible fundamental values and principles, which are too often convoluted. This project aims at highlighting the role of women in the construction of the Caribbean.

About the Residency

For this segment of the residency programme, Le Centre d’Art will host one Barbadian artist for one month in Haiti from October 14th to November 14th, 2019.

Le Centre d’Art will fully bear the costs of residency. The artist will be provided with a workspace, tools and supplies and housing. In addition, the artist will receive per diem to cover all food and transportation expenses throughout the residency. The ticket and the visa will also be covered by Le Centre d’Art.

Moreover, the team of Le Centre d’Art will facilitate access to public and private art collections and cultural activities. The artist will visit artists’ studios, and will give a class on a specific art technique at Le Centre d‘Art.

Le Centre d’Art is located in the heart of the Haitian capital, Port-auPrince. The artist will be housed in a neighbourhood close to Le Centre d’Art and will be able to work within the institution.

Terms of Application

Residency in Haiti, October 14th–November 14th, 2019

This call for applications to attend a residency at Le Centre d’Art in Haiti is now opened to any woman artist from Barbados or the diaspora.

The call concerns exclusively the field of visual arts (any medium). The artist may practice multiple forms of artistic production.

The submitted file must include the following documents in a single PDF document:

• The completed application form (download the document here);
• The Artist’s Curriculum Vitae, including elements describing the artist’s training, her professional career, her experiences, the history of her public exhibitions and shows in galleries (2 pages maximum);
• The residency project related to the theme (2 pages maximum)
• A selection of visuals of the artist’s works (10 works visuals maximum). The visuals must be in color and captioned to legibly specify the dimensions, materials and technique used. For videographers, a page with links to videos accompanied by a brief summary for each one.

Electronic files and any other request should be sent by email to contact@lecentredart.org and Cc judithmichel@lecentredart.org before August 16th, 2019 midnight (GMT).

Selection Committee

The decision is to be made by a selection committee composed of a member of the Board of Le Centre d’Art, a member of the executive team and a representative of Fresh Milk.

Criteria

Special attention to be paid to:

• mastery of the techniques used and the quality of execution
• the aesthetic and technical interest of the artist’s practice
• the coherence of the artist’s proposal with the theme as well as the depth of the readings and interpretations of concepts
• the originality of the works

FRESH MILK XXII Photographs

July 18, 2019Leave a comment

Fresh Milk is pleased to share images from FRESH MILK XXII: Residency Readings, hosted on Friday, July 5th, 2019.

Writers-in-residence – inaugural recipient of the Colleen Lewis Research/Writing Residency, Barbadian artist Kia Redman; participant in our international residency programme, Bahamian writer Ethan Knowles; and the 2019 ‘My Time’ Local Resident, Barbadian writer Ark Ramsay – each shared the outcomes of their residencies, giving readings of their work and engaging with the audience about their experiences over the last few weeks.

All photos by Dondré Trotman.

FRESH MILK XXII. Photo by Dondré Trotman

Ethank Knowles, Kia Redman and Ark Ramsay. Photo by Dondré Trotman

FRESH MILK XXII. Photo by Dondré Trotman

Ethan Knowles, Kia Redman and Ark Ramsay. Photo by Dondré Trotman

FRESH MILK XXII. Photo by Dondré Trotman

Jaryd Niles-Morris. Photo by Dondré Trotman

Kia Redman, Ethan Knowles and Donna Redman. Photo by Dondré Trotman

FRESH MILK XXII. Photo by Dondré Trotman

Kia Redman. Photo by Dondré Trotman

FRESH MILK XXII. Photo by Dondré Trotman

Donna Redman. Photo by Dondré Trotman

Ethan Knowles. Photo by Dondré Trotman

Kia Redman. Photo by Dondré Trotman

FRESH MILK XXII. Photo by Dondré Trotman

Joshua Clarke. Photo by Dondré Trotman

Kia Redman. Photo by Dondré Trotman

Ethan Knowles, Kia Redman and Ark Ramsay. Photo by Dondré Trotman

FRESH MILK XXII. Photo by Dondré Trotman

Annalee Davis, Katherine Kennedy and Ark Ramsay. Photo by Dondré Trotman

Ark Ramsay. Photo by Dondré Trotman

FRESH MILK XXII. Photo by Dondré Trotman

Ethan Knowles, Kia Redman and Ark Ramsay. Photo by Dondré Trotman

Fresh Milk Family. Photo by Dondré Trotman

Ark Ramsay’s Fresh Milk Residency – Week 4 Blog Post

July 18, 20191 Comment

Ark Ramsay shares a blog post about their fourth and final week as writer-in-residence at Fresh Milk. With the official residency coming to an end, the question that is asked both internally and externally looms: what is the value of this experience? Ark thinks about the tangible and intangible responses to this question, recognising that residencies are in many ways immeasurable. They allow for the sowing of seeds that bear fruit in multiple, sometimes unforseeable ways over prolonged periods of time, and give creators the too-often denied permission to deeply and unapologetically invest in their practice. Read more below:

Photo by Dondré Trotman

I am terrible at goodbyes.

I preempt the pain of separation by inducing small shocks–inoculating myself against the final disruption–so that what arrives is already marrow-sucked.

I grow nostalgic for things that have not yet ended. It’s a feeling similar to déjà vu, in that I become a passenger in my body–aware of the artifice–trying to hold onto things–knowing them to be transient. I think, I will miss this; outcome being, I do miss this.

I have never walked on stilts, but my mind is well-trained at balancing conflicting mechanisms. It tight-ropes between trying to soften the now, and trying to seal it off in amber.

This was my last week here at Fresh Milk. I did not want it to be subsumed by my familiar patterns.

I slowed down at this farm.

I spent hours sitting amongst the quiet caucus of trees that I had no formal names for.

I contemplated, watched myself in my contemplation, and eventually (growing tired of the intruding me) learned to trust in silence again. There is a deep and penetrating silence (even with the lowing of cows, and the sometimes-intrusion of mahogany pods on a corrugated iron roof) which I had missed entirely while living in Shanghai. It is the kind of silence that May Sarton claims (writing in “Journal of a Solitude”), will force one to confront the starved face at the window–starved cat, starved person–simply put: in the silence are the questions you are running from.

I wanted so badly to push forward this week. To write ceaselessly. To unearth new. To shore up old. But there was a raggedness–the bucket of myself was overflowing with Bathsheba swampies–toppling each other in their quest to be rid of me. Uninspired, tired, I wrote. I wrote what was functional and necessary. I wrote because the ‘job’ of writing must persist even if the muses are late–or never arrive at all. Because you have to go through many roughnesses to reach the roughness that matters–the thousand words that delivers up one usable paragraph. Writing too carefully, I have learnt (am learning), feeds only the overbearing perfectionist–not the nascent manuscript.

And when that was done I retreated fully to silence. I stayed at the farm until the sun set, and the unresolved work of cows was put to bed. I stayed until the St. George noise had backgrounded to a hum, and even the mahogany pods were reticent to fall. I stayed until I could not even remember what it was like to sit in my apartment in Shanghai and hear the forever-din of city life. This resolved the raggedness.

Another form of quiet came to us this week in little Roo. A three-legged rescue puppy with a penchant for nuzzling into the softest parts of someone, and sleeping.

He took up the entire day–not in his need for me–but in my curative need for him. I was reminded of a Joy Williams quote, from one of her strange short stories, “Shepherd”: many things that human words have harmed are restored again by the silence of animals.

That ‘harm’ is always soiled up in our attempts to collate worth, value, the immediate return on investment of all things. For a writer this equates to: page count, characters built, scenarios polished, contacts made, submissions finalized.

What is the payout on a month in the bush?

Why should an organization be structured to support (what sometimes looks), like an artist’s retreat (read: vacation)?

What. Is. The. Value.

I can only recount my own process. What I, in my ruminations, consider to be returns.

What a residency does (I have found out), is provide this buffer against the anxiety of production. It cuts into the noise of ‘value’, and demands that one return to the font of all things–tend the garden–not force (an unforcible) germination process. I have a friend who talks about her work by saying: it’s still cooking. And I imagine a fragrant Caribbean one-pot, full of plantains, beans and everything else in the fridge–but it’s not ready. It needs time. The insights into my work, discovered here, may take two years to prove themselves useful. A story I began writing when I was nineteen needed the addition of the Bardo Thodol (Tibetan Book of the Dead) to reach full coherency–something I only came to see when I was listening to an audio version of that text at four a.m. in Shanghai. What is given now cannot always be used now. But all things are banked, and returned to.

Without time, nothing is given.

Without a buffer against the anxiety of production. The treadmill of value. Nothing valuable is made.

At the risk of overpowering this blog post with quotations, indulge me one last time:

Yet, how do you relax without the safety net of organizations and people who understand that the process of art runs contra to the process of production (as in product; as in consumer)?

What I want to do in these final days is be an active participant in the unfolding. I do not want to sorrow an ending that has not yet ended (though this is inevitable for me). I do not want to contest the value of a thing that I know to have imbued my work with indelible value. I want simply to be here. In the silence. In the nurturing.

The thing about this writing life that I am coming to understand, is that what it takes from you–it also rewards you with.

In time.

Thank you, and goodnight

Kia Redman’s Fresh Milk Residency – Week 4 Blog Post

July 11, 2019July 12, 2019Leave a comment

Barbadian artist and aspiring writer Kia Redman shares her final blog post about her Colleen Lewis Research/Writing Residency at Fresh Milk. The last week was somewhat stressful as she prepared for her first public reading at the event FRESH MILK XXII, while also offering moments of relief through outings and interactions with her fellow residents, the Fresh Milk Team and the wider creative community. Spilling over into a 5th, unplanned week has been just the thing for Kia to comedown from the intensity of her performance, continue her research, and even embark on a new visual work to complement her written/spoken word piece. Read more below:

This last week was stressful. I spent the entire time completely dreading Friday night, when we would have to read what we wrote in front of people. It wasn’t the public speaking that bothered me. That is a necessary evil in life. I just had no idea what I would write. I tried for days, and I ran myself around in circles. Ideas would fly out of my brain, imprint themselves on a page and just as soon disappear when I scrapped them. I was embodying a clichéd rendering of writer’s block.

Eventually, I settled on a concept. I was spending a lot of time researching ‘How to Escape from Paradise’ and I knew I wanted to write something from the perspective of the island. When I thought of all the possible instances from history I could reference, there were so many players and so much turbulence and trauma surrounding them that it seemed like the island was having a series of terrible relationships. Initially, I was only going to have the island reminiscing about her past paramours, but the voices of her current lovers kept invading my mind. This is how “A Paradise Escape?” was born. I read the part of the citizen, and with the help of Ethan reading the tourist and my mother, Donna, reading the Island, we performed the piece.

A Trio of Models

Kia Redman, Ethan Knowles and Donna Redman performing at FRESH MILK XXII

While most of the week had me in a panic, the beginning was amazing. We had a town-adventure day and visited Israel Mapp at the incredible Union Collaborative space and Kraig Yearwood in the midst of setting up his installation “Retro-Future Landscapes” in Norman Centre. It is inspiring every time I witness contemporary art purposefully intertwined with everyday public life. Our adventure day was no letdown. Creativity ran rampant, in tune with the frenzied pulse of the city. The perfect day ended in much the same fashion. We sat upstairs Norman Centre, looking down at the city as we ate some delicious vegan food, family style.

Green Lime Cafe vegan lunch

Ark Ramsay, Katherine Kennedy, Kia Redman and Ethan Knowles

I couldn’t have asked for a better final week. While it did incite a massive amount of stress, it also helped me get over the mental creative block I have had for a while. There’s nothing like the threat of public embarrassment to light a fire under your ass. I’m still humming from the thrill of that experience. So much so that I’ve now found myself back at Fresh Milk for another week, keeping Ark company as they finish up their final week.

My work for this time isn’t going to be strictly literary. I loved the way the performative-like presentation of “A Paradise Escape?” left room for me to incorporate this and other future literary works into my visual practice. This is what I’ll be experimenting with in my bonus week at Fresh Milk and back in my space in the time to come. But it hasn’t all been work. The stress of the last week really made me crave curling up with a good book. Earlier in the residency, Annalee had placed a copy of Jean Rhys’ “Wide Sargasso Sea” on my desk, telling me it was one of Colleen’s favourite books. It’s certainly been on my ‘to read’ list for a while and seemed like the perfect way to end off my time as the inaugural Colleen Lewis Research/Writing Resident. The addition of the beautiful, sweetheart Roo made it impossibly better.

Puppy-sitting Roo for a day

I didn’t know how much I needed this residency until it came. The peaceful surroundings were a great escape from the bustle of my everyday life in the city, but it was the camaraderie that made it a truly unforgettable experience. Spending time connecting with Ethan, Ark, Katherine and Annalee has been healing in a way that’s as vital as it was unexpected. While I have been in the company of people who have encouraged my writing before, I have never been in a space so devoted to celebrating literature. It made me distinctly aware of how much I rely on the visual to translate my experiences, and how out of my comfort zone I was. It was great to be pushed. I’ve felt my perspectives broadening each day in the last few weeks. It almost feels like I have developed a new way of seeing…of being. I’m excited to explore this new addition to myself and see where it takes me. I’m sure it’ll be somewhere I could never imagine.

Thank you to all who made this journey possible. You are appreciated in ways I can’t express.