Transoceanic Visual Exchange Caribbean

September 25, 2015October 13, 2015Leave a comment

A survey of film and video works in the Caribbean, Africa and Aotearoa, Transoceanic Visual Exchange (TVE) aims to negotiate the in-between space of our cultural communities outside of traditional geo-political zones of encounter and trade. The three spaces involved – Fresh Milk (Barbados), Video Art Network Lagos (Nigeria) and RM (New Zealand) – first met as participants of International Artist Initiated (IAI), a programme organized and facilitated by David Dale Gallery, Glasgow, in July 2014. TVE intends to build upon these relations and open up greater pathways of visibility, discourse and knowledge production between the artist run initiatives and their regional communities through this laterally curated exhibition project, taking place in Barbados, New Zealand, Nigeria and online.

TVE Caribbean will launch at 7pm on October 14, 2015 at Bagnall Point, BIDC Conference Room, Pelican Village in Bridgetown, Barbados as part of the Barbados Visual Media Festival (BVMF). The exhibition will also be open to the public at that location on October 17, 28 & 30 and features works by:

Versia Harris (Barbados), Katherine Kennedy (Barbados), Michèle Pearson Clarke (Trinidad & Tobago / Canada), Romel Jean Pierre (Haiti), Nick Whittle / Alberta Whittle (Barbados), Rebecca Ann Hobbs (Aotearoa), Ngahuia Raima (Aotearoa), Louisa Afoa (Aotearoa), Nkechi Ebubedike (Nigeria) and Lambert Mousseka (Democratic Republic of the Congo).

There will be additional special screenings taking place at Fresh Milk, The Errol Barrow Centre for Creative Imagination (EBCCI) as part of their Film Club Screenings and Barbados Community College (BCC):

October 16, 6pm – Fresh Milk, St. George
Rebecca Ann Hobbs – Mangere bridge 246 / Otara at Night (Aotearoa)

October 22, 7pm – Errol Barrow Centre for Creative Imagination
Darcell Apelu – Slap (Aotearoa)
Akwaeke Emezi – Ududeagu (Nigeria)
Carlo Reyes – Viernes Santo (Dominican Republic)

October 29-30, 10am-4pm – Morningside Gallery, Barbados Community College
Olivia McGilchrist – Riva Mumma (Jamaica)
David Gumbs – Offscreen (St. Martin)

RSVP to the event on Facebook here.

For more information please visit www.transoceanicvisualexchange.com, or email Natalie McGuire at tveproject.caribbean@gmail.com.

Special thanks to the Barbados Film and Video Association (BFVA), EBCCI, BCC and Stansfeld Scott Inc. for making these screenings possible, and to Versia Harris and Katherine Kennedy for designing the logo, digital space and flyers.

Re: Controversy around Bench in the ‘Fresh Stops’ Project

September 20, 2015September 27, 2015Leave a comment

There has been some recent controversy in the local Barbados media surrounding one of the benches commissioned by Fresh Milk and Adopt A Stop as part of our collaborative Fresh Stops Project.

‘Alpha’ by Ronald Williams, featured on a bench currently located in Independence Square, Barbados

Fresh Milk and Adopt A Stop have been involved in a dynamic partnership since 2014, creating opportunities for young Barbadian contemporary visual artists to produce new artworks in public spaces. To date we have commissioned five artists to produce images for benches which have been popping up around the island, including sites at River Bay, Bathsheba, Hunte’s Gardens, the Errol Barrow Centre for Creative Imagination (EBCCI) and Independence Square. The final bench in this current series is set to be released soon, and will be placed at the Barbados Community College (BCC). You can see more about the innovative project here.

The article published in the Nation Newspaper on Friday, 18th September, 2015.*

In the Friday, September 18th edition of the Nation Newspaper, there was an article referring to one of the benches featuring artwork by BCC Graduate, Ronald Williams, expressing concern about the nature of the images in the piece. Since being a student of the BFA programme at BCC, Ronald has been producing a body of work looking at stereotypical representations of black culture. Here is his statement for Alpha, the piece on the back of the bench in question:

Alpha attempts to question traditionally dominant Western beauty standards. It injects a black consciousness alongside, and at times instead of, the established images found in Classical Greek, Renaissance and Baroque eras.

Fresh Milk is also currently showing Ronald’s work in our public gallery space called the Fresh Milk ArtBoard.

Ronald Williams, Alpha, 2015.

We have been in touch with the Nation in order to clear up this matter. The artist and representatives from Fresh Milk and Adopt A Stop are happy to discuss the work and the project further to generate a healthy discourse around contemporary art in Barbados.

*Please note that the bench was not, as stated in the newspaper article, donated by Massy United Insurance, and that they are not affiliated with the project.

Open Call: Fresh Milk International Residency 2015 or 2016

August 18, 2015August 19, 20151 Comment

FRESH MILK is seeking proposals from artists working outside of Barbados to apply for our international residency programme in late 2015 or Spring 2016. Available dates for the residencies to take place are between November 2 – 30, 2015 and February 29 – March 25, 2016.

This residency aims to support visual artists, writers and curators by offering a peaceful working space for a minimum of 4 weeks for creative production, the opportunity to interface with contemporary practitioners living and working in Barbados, access to the on-site Colleen Lewis Reading Room, the chance to broaden understanding of the work being produced locally and regionally in the Caribbean, and to strengthen international networks and relationships. For more information on the residency, application process and associated costs, please visit our International Residency Opportunity page.

The deadline for applications is October 2, 2015.

To see the blogs kept by our past International resident artists, click here.

Colección Cisneros shares the debate ‘The Tropical: Resistance or Cultural Tourism?’

July 21, 2015July 21, 2015Leave a comment

Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, a platform for debate concerning the immense contributions of Latin America to the world of art and culture, shares the online debate ‘The Tropical: Resistance or Cultural Tourism?‘ featuring input by Fresh Milk‘s Founding Director Annalee Davis.

Leandro Cardoso Nerefuh, Churrasco Tupinambá, 16th Century (Variable dimensions). Part of the Arquivo Banana [Banana Archive].

About the debate:

The “tropical” has helped to increase visibility in the global art market for contemporary art produced in Latin America (particularly from the Caribbean, Central America, and Brazil). Its vibrant, colorful, and extravagant iconography can be easily read by a broad audience. On one hand, the tropical can empower a worldview that is different from the “western” mainstream that dominates the global art world. On the other, it can be accused of reproducing an exotic colonial gaze that has historically constructed the tropics as only a place of desire and leisure. Has the tropical become a contemporary aesthetic trend that continues to primitivize the “Other”? How has the Latin American art market boom contributed to promoting a particular form of legibility for practices made in tropical climates? Can the tropical be a useful artistic strategy today or is it condemned to banality?

Join the debate here.

Moderators: Carla Acevedo-Yates and Cristiana Tejo Participants: Mario García Torres, Moacir dos Anjos, Annalee Davis and Leandro Nerefuh

Annalee Davis. Photo credit: Charles Phillips of Monochrome Media

About Colección Cisneros:

The Colección Cisneros website was created to offer a forum for information about, a platform for debate concerning, and a spark for the ignition of interest in the immense contributions of Latin America to the world of art and culture. The site’s inspiration and launching point is the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros (CPPC), but its ambition is discovery, and its mission is to weave a multi-lingual, virtual network for people and ideas. Founded in the 1970s by Patricia Phelps de Cisneros and Gustavo A. Cisneros, the CPPC is based in New York City and Caracas. Its mission is to enhance appreciation of the diversity, sophistication, and range of art from Latin America, and to advance scholarship of Latin American art. The CPPC achieves these goals through the preservation, presentation, and study of the material culture of the Ibero-American world—ranging from the ethnographic to the contemporary.

Contemporary And shares ‘A Splash of Fresh Milk’

July 14, 2015Leave a comment

Contemporary And (C&), a platform for international art from African perspectives, shares an interview with Fresh Milk about the work we are doing alongside other Caribbean creative spaces and artists both regionally and throughout the diaspora.

Click here to read the full interview.