Category: Contemporary Art

Fresh Milk welcomes Mother Tongue to the Platform

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Fresh Milk is pleased to start the new year by welcoming Tiffany Boyle & Jessica Carden of the Mother Tongue curatorial project as our first international residents for 2015. They will be on the platform from January 26 – February 20. Read more below:

A Thousand of Him, Scattered: Relative Newcomers in Diaspora, Stills: Scotland's Centre for Photography | April - July 2014 | Yael Bartana | Richard Fung | Kiluanji Kia Henda | Bouchra Khalili | Maud Sulter | Milja Viita. Group Exhibition with accompanying events programme and publication in partnership with TrAIN: Transnational Research Centre for Art, Identity and Nation [UAL].

A Thousand of Him, Scattered: Relative Newcomers in Diaspora, Stills: Scotland’s Centre for Photography.

Mother Tongue  focuses on specific issues that are of ongoing significance for their research into northern Scandinavia and West African cultures. Although they have some knowledge of the Caribbean through the work of writers, diasporic artists and having exhibited work with connections to the region in the past, this exploratory research and writing residency with Fresh Milk will be their first visit to Barbados and the wider Caribbean.

During their stay, they will conduct a range of studio visits, archival research, meetings, interviews, etc, as initial groundwork, and as a way of grasping and getting to terms with a locale very different to their home territory of Scotland.

Previous residencies undertaken by Mother Tongue have proven to be equally intensive and productive periods of research, which have led to a number of subsequent projects. Their time at Fresh Milk will allow for the building of long term links and relationships with artists, writers, thinkers and institutions in Barbados, creating the potential for further collaborations regionally and internationally.

About Mother Tongue:

mother tongue

Tiffany Boyle (left) and Jessica Carden (right)

Mother Tongue is a research-led curatorial project formed by Tiffany Boyle and Jessica Carden, in response to individual periods of investigation in northern Scandinavia and West Africa. Our practice in exhibition-making intersects with research interests – including, but not limited to – (post)colonialism, language, heritage, ethnicity, whiteness, indigenousness, migration, movement, sexuality, and technology.

Since 2009, we have produced exhibitions, film programmes, discursive events, essays and publications in partnership with organisations such as the CCA: Centre for Contemporary Art Glasgow; Stills: Scotland’s Centre for Photography; Transmission Gallery; Africa-in-Motion Film Festival; Malmö Konsthall; and Konsthall C Stockholm, and undertaken residencies with HIAP in Helsinki, the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala, and CreativeLab at CCA Glasgow. ­Mother Tongue participated on the 2011/12 CuratorLab programme at Konstfack, and we are currently both undertaking individual PhD’s – Tiffany at Birkbeck and Jessica at TrAIN: Research Centre for Transnational Art, Identity and Nation, University of the Arts London. In 2015, Mother Tongue will continue to collaborate with Variant magazine, Framework Scotland and the Creative Futures Institute at UWS on the ongoing discussion series, ‘Curating Europes’ Futures.’

Kara Springer’s Residency – Final Blog Post

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One of Fresh Milk’s resident artists from December, 2014, Barbadian-born, Toronto-based industrial designer and visual artist Kara Springer, shares her final blog post reflecting on her residency and the different ways reorienting herself in Barbados has forced her to consider her practice:

Slide 14 - Foul Bay

Back in cold Toronto now, it’s bittersweet to reflect on our time in Barbados.  It was both nourishing and profoundly productive to have the freedom as well as all of the constraints of our experience there.  The constraint of too little time, of learning and relearning the landscape, of moving ourselves and these project materials around, of building under the hot hot sun.  In the end it was the uncontrollable elements that became the most interesting part of the experience, and of the work itself.

Six 4 x 4 x 4 ft structures, set in the East coast seascape were violently destroyed overnight (by unknown human hands, a truck). Bound and let float in the sea, another form was taken down by the waves, the pieces violently ripped apart, scattered in the ocean, and then re-collected, reassembled again on the beach.  There was something satisfying in connecting the human destruction to that of the sea. It reminded me that we’re built this way – to both build and destroy, to come apart.  It was helpful too in offering new directions for me and for my work.

The last images are from our last night at Fresh Milk.  The structure is made from those re-collected pieces – with not quite enough time, and not quite enough materials (useless screws, too damaged to be reused), the structure couldn’t quite stand on the uneven ground of this former plantation, now dairy farm and gathering place for artists. Christian steps in so I can at least capture an image of what it might have been. And then as it caves in on itself, I find this other more interesting form, that pushes against my compulsion to be precise and orderly in my making. This residency was in many ways a collection of happy accidents – wrong turns that opened up new and unexpected paths, and constraints that pushed me to think in new ways about freedom.

FRESH MILK XVII Video

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Check out our video from FRESH MILK XVII, which took place on December 19, 2014 at The Fresh Milk Art Platform, Barbados.

FRESH MILK XVII was our last public event for 2014, and featured visual artist Kara Springer and poet / critical writer Christian Campbell speaking about their residency experiences, Katherine Kennedy sharing news about her three month fellowship at Akadamie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, Germany and Natalie McGuire addressing TVE – a Transoceanic Visual Exchange between Barbados, Nigeria and New Zealand.

Thanks to Sammy Davis for shooting and editing this video!

Season’s Greetings from FRESH MILK: 2014 in Review

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FM christmas greeting v2 test

The FRESH MILK Team has grown in strength and numbers in 2014 – we would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank all of our contributors, volunteers, artists and many fantastic supporters for all you have so generously given this year. We are truly blessed.

We look forward to engaging with you all in the coming year, and will continue to do our best to give back to our community by creating more points of opportunity and encounter for creatives in Barbados, the Caribbean and further afield.

As ever, we give you all our deepest gratitude and warmest wishes for the season, and invite you to take a look at…

2014 in review

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merry christmas-02 (1)

Fresh Stops: Versia Harris Up Next!

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Versia Harris Up Next

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’ in process
‘At the Side of Something’ in process
‘At the Side of Something’ in process
‘At the Side of Something’ in process
‘At the Side of Something’ in process
‘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

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.