FRESH MILK is pleased to invite you to our upcoming public event FRESH MILK XIII, which will be held on Thursday, October 24^th 2013 from 6:30 – 8:00 pm at the Fresh Milk Art Platform Inc., St. George, Barbados. See our About page for directions.

The event will feature a screening of the full length documentary Fresh Performance: Contemporary Performance Art in NYC & the Caribbean, created by New York-based, Guyanese  performance/video artist Damali Abrams, who is currently on a joint residency with Fresh Milk and Groundation Grenada.

Damali has been working with Fresh Milk since April this year on the Fresh Performance Project, which has seen her interviewing one Caribbean-based and one New York-based performance artist each month and editing the footage into a six-chapter series of short videos. Given that performance art in the Caribbean is practiced by a small number of artists, this project has opened up a critical dialogue contributing to expanding the creative arena, and offering support to performance artists who often work in isolation. The project aims to build cultural bridges between the U.S. and the Caribbean and generate understanding and community through the arts. Damali has been using her time in the Caribbean to produce a full length documentary on this subject, as well as undertaking public outreach components in both Barbados and Grenada. Her progress will be screened at FRESH MILK XIII, and a Q&A session to further the conversation will be facilitated.

Also being shown at the event will be a selection from Project 35 Volume 2, a traveling exhibition produced by Independent Curators International (ICI), New York. The exhibition is made possible, in part, by grants from the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, and the Robert Lehman Foundation; the ICI Board of Trustees; and donors to ICI’s Access Fund. Among the curators who took part in this project is Trinidadian artist and writer Christopher Cozier.

Fresh Milk will also use this event as a platform to launch two very exciting projects – our new public gallery space the FRESH MILK ARTBOARD and the Fresh Milk Virtual Map of Caribbean Art Spaces. The Artboard, which resides in a field of cows bordering a public road on the way to Fresh Milk, will be used to feature the work of contemporary artists, increasing visibility and awareness of their practice to a wide audience. Kick-starting our new public gallery space will be Barbadian artist Evan Avery, whose work was taken to Brazil as one part of the Visual Arts component of the recently held Barbados trade mission to Sao Paulo. The graphic he designed is currently displayed at the informal art space Casa Tomada in their ‘A Casa Recebe’ programme, a street facing window showcasing work from artists locally and internationally, until March 2014. Having his work running concurrently in both spaces for a period of time deepens the relationship we are building with Casa Tomada and the arts community in Sao Paulo, and we look forward to hosting pieces from Brazilian artists on our Artboard as a part of this cultural exchange.

The Fresh Milk Virtual Map is a freely accessible, interactive online cultural map of the Caribbean, which clearly delineates the existing spaces for the arts in the region, from the nineteenth century up to the present time.

This map addresses the lack of available information about Caribbean arts at the formal, informal and educational levels. The region is mapped to show arts entities, listed with links to the websites of spaces, and maintained to keep information current. This map is not only a pivotal information hub and educational tool, but a place to form new bonds and to make connections among practitioners in the Caribbean and worldwide. We would eventually like to expand the map to include our partner institutions throughout the diaspora as well. We wish to acknowledge the amazing tour de force we have in Kriston Chen who has managed and designed the virtual map project.

Finally, we are also proud to showcase some of the beautiful new publications we have purchased for the Colleen Lewis Reading Room. Our collection has continued to grow through the generosity and support of donors, funders and organizations, and as always we invite people to email us at freshmilkbarbados@gmail.com to schedule appointments to make use of this valuable resource.

Special thanks to the US Embassy in Barbados for supporting Damali’s residency and contributing to the expansion of the Reading Room; to the Maria Holder Memorial Trust for supporting the Virtual Map as well as expanding the library collection; Groundation Grenada for taking part in this collaborative residency with us; the ICI for sharing Project 35; and to Musson Realty for donating their billboard for Fresh Milk to use as an exhibition space. We are extremely grateful for all of the relationships we have formed, which assist us in carrying out our mission.