Reading Room Open Day – Saturday May 5th, 2018

Fresh Milk invites you to come check out our Reading Room Open Day, this Saturday, May 5th 2018, anytime between the hours of 10am-4pm!

The Colleen Lewis Reading Room at Fresh Milk is a mini-library of about 3,000 items, including books, films, journals, magazines etc. While there is a focus on contemporary arts publications, we also have a great selection of design, craft, fiction, non-fiction and history books among others. Our bibliography can be browsed online here.

Our team is working hard to improve how we share this material with creatives and researchers in Barbados. As practitioners ourselves, we know just how useful access to quality info about regional and international art worlds can be – whether for research, professional development or inspiration.

The aim of this open day is to create a space for dialogue; to not only run ideas we have had for the library by the public, but to really learn about the desires and needs of creative communities and find out if or how they can benefit from this resource.

Directions can be found on the ‘About Page‘ of our website. We hope to see you pass through to browse the collection and chat with us then!

 

Fresh Milk welcomes Daisy Diamond to the Platform

Fresh Milk is pleased to welcome US-based visual artist Daisy Diamond to the platform from April 30 – May 25, 2018.

In addition to broadening her knowledge and understanding about contemporary arts in Barbados and the Caribbean, Daisy is also extremely interested in the history of Jews in Barbados since their arrival in the mid-1600s. As an Ashkenazi Jew herself, she is invested in researching the refugee experience of Jews who migrated to the island and investigating the historical and cultural impact, including their contributions to the cultivation of sugar in Barbados, their roles in the painful history of slavery, and current heritage preservation projects. She hopes to make paintings exploring similar themes from reconstructionist Judaism: community, engaging with contemporary socio-political environments, and forming new progressive outlooks on traditional ideas and texts.

About Daisy Diamond:

Daisy Diamond is a painter, animator, and student originally from Philadelphia who values interdisciplinary and intersectional collaborative exploration. She is currently pursuing a BA in Studio Art from Bates College and spent this past year as a visiting student at Rhode Island School of Design. While she is a resident at the Fresh Milk space, she plans to research the history of Judaism in Barbados and the relationship between ritualistic sacred practices and artistic creation.

Announcing the Fresh Milk ‘My Time’ Local Resident Artist 2018 – Ronald Williams

Fresh Milk is very pleased to announce Barbadian artist Ronald Williams as the Fresh Milk ‘My Time’ Local Resident Artist for 2018. Congratulations Ronald!

Ronald’s one-month residency runs from Monday April 30th to Friday May 25th, 2018. Ronald will focus on issues currently affecting Barbadian society, exploring how the glamour associated with materialism, drugs and violence breeds a certain vanity, with a particular focus on the poorer “ghetto” class.  Inspired by the Vanitas paintings of the 17th century, he will work on contextualizing similar themes in today’s society, looking at decadence, insecurity, swagger & pretension, and their connection to religion/spirituality.

About Ronald Williams:

Ronald Williams is a digital artist, born, raised and working in Barbados. His digital collages; created through the manipulation of photographs, print and online media as well as computer generated images, investigate race, class and culture; particularly representations of ‘blackness’.

Since earning his BFA in Fine Arts from The Barbados Community College, Williams has participated in various local, regional and international group exhibitions.

Tilting Axis Curatorial Fellowship 2018 Open Call

As a direct outcome of the Tilting Axis meeting held at the National Gallery of the Cayman Islands in May 2017, the University of Texas at Austin’s (UT) Art Galleries at Black Studies has come together with Tilting Axis to offer a Curatorial Fellowship to an emerging curator living and working in the Caribbean.

This Fellowship opportunity focuses on curators living and working within the Caribbean region, and is both research and practice-led, and mentor-based. The Fellow will receive a maximum of USD$5,500 towards a fee, travel, accommodation and living costs. The Fellowship is supported by University of Texas at Austin’s (UT) Art Galleries at Black Studies.

This Fellowship includes round-trip airfare from any country within the Caribbean to Austin, Texas, where the Fellow will have access to private accomodation, in the award-winning home of Susanna and Richard Finnell, local collectors, for a period of four weeks. During this timeframe, the Fellow will be able to view and work with the University of Texas at Austin’s (UT) Art Galleries at Black Studies’ Collection along with the LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies Collection, and the campus libraries.

This Fellowship also includes access to the 800-piece private Christian-Green Collection comprised of Afro-Caribbean and Afro-American art works, with a dedicated focus on works from Haiti. The Fellow will also have access to the Christian-Green’s Reading Room and will be mentored by Lise Ragbir, the Director of the Art Galleries at Black Studies at UT, with whom he/she will work to produce a fully funded exhibition in the Warfield Center’s Idea Lab Gallery, in the Fall of 2019.

Application Process:

Proposals will be judged by an international jury consisting of curators, academics, and museum professionals, after which shortlisted candidates (3) will be invited for an interview via Skype.

The Fellow will be selected on the basis of a letter of interest stating how this opportunity and access to collections and archives would inform and develop their curatorial practice, and why they think they would be a good candidate. The proposal should be no longer than 1000 words, and can be submitted to: tiltingaxis@gmail.com.

Please enclose CV and two references.

The Fellowship will be conducted over a four week period in either the Fall semester of 2018 or the Spring semester of 2019. Exact dates to be determined in consultation with the mentor.

The submission deadline for applications is May 18th, 2018, and the Curatorial Fellow will be announced at the upcoming Tilting Axis 4 meeting in the Dominican Republic on May 31st – June 2nd, 2018.

Jurors will be:

  • Lise Ragbir, the Director of the Art Galleries at Black Studies at The University of Texas at Austin
  • Eddie Chambers, Professor in the Department of Art and Art History, University of Texas at Austin
  • Holly Bynoe, ARC Magazine, The National Art Gallery of the Bahamas and Tilting Axis co-founder
  • Tobias Ostrander, Senior Curator, PAMM
  • Mario Caro, board member of Res Artis, Tilting Axis partner
  • Annalee Davis, Fresh Milk Barbados, Tilting Axis co-founder
  • Natalie Urquhart, Director, The National Gallery of the Cayman Islands
  • Sara Hermann, Visual Arts Consultant, Centro Cultural Eduardo León Jimenes
  • Joel Butler, Visual Arts and Exhibitions Coordinator, Centro Cultural Eduardo León Jimenes

 

Fresh Talk: How The Lotus Blooms in the Swamp – Prospect New Orleans Triennial Finds Beauty in Troubled Water

Fresh Milk and Fresh Art International are collaborating to present Fresh Talk: Caribbean, a series of podcasts about creativity in the 21st century with a Caribbean focus.

In this episode, you are invited to explore Prospect New Orleans, the Crescent City’s triennial of contemporary art. Titled The Lotus in Spite of the Swamp, the fourth iteration evokes the musical character of New Orleans and the surrounding natural environment—the bayous, lakes and wetlands near the mouth of the Mississippi River.

Voices in this episode: Prospect.4’s artistic director Trevor Schoonmaker, former executive director Brooke Davis Anderson, artists Quintron and Miss Pussycat, Paulo Nazareth, Sonia Boyce, Rusty Lazer, Darryl Montana, Davia Nelson of the Kitchen Sisters, and more!

Click here to listen to the full podcast.

About Fresh Art International & Fresh Talk:

Mission: To inform and inspire a world of followers, Fresh Art International’s team shares conversations, commentary, news, and views about contemporary art.

Launched in October 2011, Fresh Art International is an evolving independent media outlet with a global point of view. Our website is the virtual platform for Fresh Talk: Conversations About Creativity in the 21st Century, our signature audio podcast. The site welcomes up to 3,000 monthly visitors. Averaging more than 9,000 feed hits monthly, we welcome new friends and followers every day: Facebook (3,000+ Likes and Friends) and Twitter (5,000+ Followers).

For Fresh Talk, independent curator Cathy Byrd meets with contemporary artists, curators, designers, architects, composers, writers, filmmakers and other cultural producers. Listen to conversations directly on this website, download episodes, or subscribe to the series on iTunes and Stitcher. Fresh Talk is also accessible through Public Radio Exchange at prx.org.