Studio Conversations With Mariam Zulfiqar And Annalee Davis

August 13, 2013May 20, 20152 Comments

Annalee Davis, Portrait of a white creole family, Barbados, circa 21st century – Now You See Me, Now You Don’t (2013). Photo credit: Mark King

Join CCA Inspire for the next installment of Studio Conversations on Thursday 15th August at 6.30pm (UK time) 1.30pm (Barbados time) when we will be catching up with curator and Royal College of Art, Curating Contemporary Art Inspire graduate, Mariam Zulfiqar to discuss her research residency in Barbados. Mariam’s research will culminate into a forthcoming exhibition that explores the impact of plant migration on the Barbadian visual and social landscape. Read more here.

We are pleased to announce that Mariam will be joined by Visual Artist, Annalee Davis who is the founder of The Fresh Milk Art Platform Inc., an artist led initiative that contributes to the discourse surrounding creative production within the informal networks of the Caribbean and its diaspora by offering a platform for exchanges among contemporary practioners. Read more here.

Questions from the audience can be sent over via the typechat facility or via web cam broadcast by visiting the Curating Conversations Chat Room.

Studio Conversations is a series of live video linked studio visits with artists and curators. These events aim to give audiences an opportunity to engage in a dialogue with internationally based artists and curators to explore how their practice might be translated within transglobal contexts. Christina Millare, a graduate of the Curating Contemporary Art Inspire MA, has programmed Studio Conversations and will be chairing the event.

About Mariam Zulfiqar:

Mariam graduated from the Curating Contemporary Art Inspire MA in 2012 during which time she was based at Art on the Underground where she continues to work in a curatorial capacity. Mariam recently curated the online Kurt Schwitters inspired project, MerzBank with Steven Bode for Film and Video Umbrella and is currently on a research residency in Barbados. Her research will culminate into a forthcoming exhibition that explores the impact of plant migration on the Barbadian visual and social landscape.

About Annalee Davis:

Photo credit: Dondré Trotman

Annalee Davis is a Visual Artist. She has been making and showing her work regionally and internationally since returning to the Caribbean in 1989. She is the founder of The Fresh Milk Art Platform Inc., an artist led initiative for exchanges among contemporary creatives supporting interactions across disciplines and contributing to an increasingly rich discourse surrounding creative production within the informal networks of the Caribbean and its diaspora. She is a part-time tutor in the BFA programme at the Barbados Community College. For more on her practice, visit www.annaleedavis.com and to view the Fresh Milk blog visit www.freshmilkbarbados.com

Caribbean Linked II: Artist Residency Programme and Exhibition

August 12, 2013May 20, 20151 Comment

Ateliers ’89 Foundation and the Mondriaan Foundation in collaboration with ARC Inc. and The Fresh Milk Art Platform Inc. present CARIBBEAN LINKED II, a residency programme and exhibition which will take place from August 25th through September 6th, 2013 in Oranjestad, Aruba.

Invited Artists include: Omar Kuwas (Curaçao), Veronica Dorsett (The Bahamas), Mark King (Barbados), Shirley Rufin (Martinique), Sofia Maldonado (Puerto Rico/US), Dhiradj Ramsamoedj (Suriname), Rodell Warner (Trinidad and Tobago), Robin de Vogel, Kevin Schuit and Germille Geerman (Aruba). The selected artists were chosen collaboratively by Annalee Davis, Holly Bynoe and Elvis Lopez.

Caribbean Linked II will be held in association with Studio O, Terafuse, Museo Arqueologico Arubano, UNOCA, San Nicolas TV, Departamento di Cultura, SVE TV, Alydia Wever Theatre Dance Company and Gang di Arte Aruba.

Most popular through Facebook and social media platforms, to be linked or to be connected is the world’s most common way to be associated right now. This residency and exhibition will present young talent while raising issues of their collective futures by discussing the survival of artists, and the sustainability of local creative communities that nurture their development and maintain their connectivity. This residency becomes a crucial space for building awareness across disparate creative communities in the Caribbean and its diaspora by finding ways to connect young and emerging artists with each other. Selected participants will engage in two weeks of open discussion and critiques, various professional workshops, visit established local artists’ studios and better understand the creative cultural industries that propel Aruban art. An exhibition of work produced during the residency will be displayed at Ateliers ’89 and will open on September 5^th.

Collaborating local artists include Alydia Wever, Ciro Abath, Evelino Fingal, Glenda Heyliger, John Freddy Montoya, Marian Abath, Nelson Gonzales, Osaira Muyale and Ryan Oduber. Collaborating partner professionals and institutions include Vivi Ruiz of the Archaeology Museum of Aruba, Lupita Giel of UNOCA and Siegfried Dumfries of the Department of Culture.

Participating institutions include:

ARC Magazine

ARC Magazine is a non-profit print and online publication and social platform founded in 2011. It seeks to fill a certain void by offering a critical space for contemporary artists to present their work while fostering and developing critical dialogues and opportunities for crucial points of exchange. ARC is an online and social space of interaction with a developed methodology of sharing information about contemporary practices, exhibitions, partnerships, and opportunities occurring in the Caribbean region and throughout its diasporas. ARC’s mission is to build awareness by fostering exchanges and opportunities that expand creative culture, within the visual arts industry across the wider Caribbean and its diasporas.

Fresh Milk

The Fresh Milk Art Platform Inc. is a Caribbean non-profit, artist-led, inter-disciplinary organization that supports creatives and promotes wise social, economic, and environmental stewardship through creative engagement with society and by cultivating excellence in the arts. The idea for Fresh Milk developed over years of conversations with other practicing artists around the need for artistic engagement amongst contemporary practitioners living and working in Barbados, with an expressed need to strengthen links with the region and the diaspora. Fresh Milk bridges the divides between creative disciplines, generations of creatives, and works across all linguistic territories in the region – functioning as a cultural lab, constantly redefining itself. The platform transforms into a gathering space for contemporary creatives who are thirsty to debate ideas and share works through local and international residencies, lectures, screenings, workshops, exhibitions, projects etc.

Ateliers ‘89

The Foundation ‘Ateliers ’89’ offers Arubans and others interested from the Caribbean region an orientation on contemporary applied art and design. Workshops in different disciplines as painting, installations, video-art, photography, drawing, fashion, theatrical-design, ceramics, animation, graphic design and history of art are organized in a spacious, open and comfortable setting. Established foreign and local artist teach at the studio’s. Every workshop culminates in an exhibition which is open to the public. Furthermore, there are special workshops and tours of the exhibitions for children and young students. Ateliers ’89 works in close cooperation with a number of art academies in the Netherlands. This way, young talents who started off in the workshops of Ateliers ’89 can easily find their way to a Dutch academy.

Fresh Performance Chapter 3: Performance & Power

July 2, 2013June 9, 2015Leave a comment

FRESH MILK in collaboration with Damali Abrams presents Chapter 3 in the Fresh Performance Project: Performance & Power

Power is a complex notion. There are so many systems of power that seem to control our destinies with so many groups feeling oppressed for various reasons. In American society, which cultural critic bell hooks describes as ‘white supremacist capitalist patriarchy’, power is held foremost by wealthy straight white men. The quality of the institutions we have access to such as healthcare, education, and employment are dependent upon our ability to appeal to those in power for whatever scraps they choose to share with the rest of us.

Thankfully there are many groups and individuals who continue to insist upon quality of life for all people, as there have been throughout history. Many artists utilize performance as a means to confront these systems and speak truth to power. However I think that Ewan Atkinson and Seyhan Musaoglu‘s work challenges systems of power in more subtle ways.

Ewan Atkinson’s work plays on the Caribbean tradition of masquerade. As in the custom of playing mas, Ewan intends to challenge the viewer to step out from the comfort zones of our day-to-day personas. Though he does not view this as a subversive act, I think that challenging our comfort zones is often a great catalyst for personal and collective transformation. Since Ewan’s use of performance is mostly in performative photographs, he is hesitant to call it performance art. Definitions and classifications can be very slippery as we saw in Chapter One of this documentary, Defining Performance. But for the purposes of The Fresh Performance Project, I am interested in art that includes performance of any kind.

Seyhan Musaoglu’s work explores the radical possibilities of sound art performance. I met Seyhan years ago when we both showed our work at Synthetic Zero events at Bronx Art Space. Later she included my work in SØNiK Fest, a festival of sound, video, interactive media, and live performance that she curates.

Seyhan and I were scheduled to meet up for her interview during the beginning of the Occupy Gezi protests in Turkey. When she told me that we had to reschedule because she was attending daily solidarity protests outside of the Turkish consulate in midtown Manhattan, I decided to film her at a protest. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to document the performance of the power of the people. Though Seyhan is quick to point out that her art is separate from her activism, her work is rooted in feminism and deconstructing elitist art world ideas. She is also a classically trained guitarist who emphasizes the importance of learning the structure of music before experimenting with creating new sounds or noise art. It was especially exciting to be able to include two examples of Seyhan’s sound art as the soundtrack for this chapter of the documentary.

– Damali Abrams

About Seyhan Musaoglu:

Seyhan Musaoglu is a multi-media artist whose work spans the fields of live performance, sound art, film and video, and 2-D media. Drawing inspiration from diverse sources ranging from science fiction imagery, to fashion, to modern dance choreography, her work investigates the gap between sound production and music composition, contemporary feminist theory, and the history of avant-garde filmmaking. She has been performing widely with collaborations celebrated internationally in genres of sound and experimental noise. She is also an innovative independent curator, and is the founder of the sound, new media & peformance festival {SØNiK}Fest. Seyhan holds an MFA from Parsons the New School for Design. Some of the venues her work has been presented at are: The Kitchen (NYC), New York Studio Gallery (NYC), Lit Lounge (NYC), Curta 8 Film Festival (Brazil), and Istanbul’s famed venue, Babylon. To see some of her work: http://www.seyhanmusaoglu.com/

About Ewan Atkinson:

Ewan Atkinson was born in Barbados in 1975. He received a BFA from the Atlanta College of Art in 1998 and is currently pursuing an MA in Cultural Studies at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill. He has exhibited in regional and international exhibitions of Caribbean contemporary art, including most recently the 2010 Liverpool Biennial, “Wrestling with the image: Caribbean Interventions” at the Art Museum of the Americas in Washington DC, and “Infinite Islands” at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. Atkinson has taught in the BFA program at the Barbados Community College for over a decade. He also works as a freelance illustrator and designer.

Connecting the Dots – Sasha Dees Reflects on her Time in Barbados

June 18, 2013May 20, 2015Leave a comment

Sasha Dees, independent curator at OAZO-AIR in Amsterdam, writes about her 2-week residency at Projects & Space in Barbados earlier this year for ARC Magazine, with particular reflection on emerging artist led initiatives including FRESH MILK, and the challenges of moving forward within the visual art industry.

Read the full article on ARC’s website here.

Marla Botterill and Conan Masterson’s Residency: Week 4 Report

June 8, 2013May 20, 2015Leave a comment

Our last week began with a trip to Harrison’s Cave. We elected to do the walking tour, the guide was patient with us and gave us ample time to shoot videos of our “little dolls”. We thought the caves were spectacular and well worth the visit. The peculiar forms, continual dripping sounds, humidity and darkness combine to create a mysterious, prehistoric ambiance. After emerging from the depths of the caves, the fresh air above was welcomed in our lungs.

We kept busy with videos the last week. Our puppets went on many excursions where we improvised performances, intuitively working with the surroundings. We reviewed all of our footage and began the editing process. This was the most tedious part, but we found it rewarding and exciting to see the puppets come to life through movement. We did not find all footage successful, but we agreed that many moments intrigued us and made us laugh such as the unexpected moments captured on camera. A lot of these snippets were edited into our short video “sketches” that we presented publicly on our final night.

On May 30^th along with Matthew Kupakwashe Murrell we presented what we worked on during our residency at Fresh Milk. We enjoyed seeing excerpts from Matthew’s play being performed by the actors. We hung our 10 completed puppets in our former studio space and projected 11 short videos. It was a crucial time for us to get some feedback on the work, as we must now digest and process what we’ve accomplished and determine a path for continued development. We were happy with the turnout and pleased to see many familiar faces and the feedback provided raised interesting questions and things for us to consider going forward, particularly in regards to the videos and the relationship between the puppets and their environment.

Our puppets boarded the plane with us and successfully made the journey north to Canada. They have already complained about the cooler temperatures and lack of ocean breeze – some even miss the singing frogs. We plan on taking the puppets out so that they may explore their new surroundings, some may need adjustments and we will likely have to make them some new friends to ease in this transition. We foresee some sweaters and toques after the summer ends. FM provided an excellent and encouraging platform for us to freely experiment with this new body of work and new partnership.

We are both thrilled with our experiences at FM. So many people welcomed us into their studios and homes, we passed many evenings in the company of new friends. We want to thank everyone who contributed to making our residency rousing and fulfilling, in particular: Annalee, Joscelyn, Ewan and the Davis’. A special shout-out as well to Rico & Mikka for their determined and steadfast companionship and protection.

We soaked up every last minute of our trip to Barbados; we are changed from our time at Fresh Milk and for us it was the first step in a collaboration we expect will continue in London, Ontario as we are both delighted and motivated by our production at Fresh Milk.

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