Fresh Performance Chapter 6: Intuition & Vision in Performance

October 2, 2013June 9, 20151 Comment

FRESH MILK in collaboration with Damali Abrams presents Chapter 6 in the Fresh Performance Project: Intuition & Vision in Performance

Being an artist means being able to trust one’s intuition. Intuition may be viewed as an abstract concept. Some may even think it is nonsense, the kind of foolishness that intellectuals or sensible people do not discuss. Since artists are often dismissed as senseless dreamers, intuition is risky territory for us to cop to. Contemporary art is about research and rigor, strong concepts and aesthetic concerns. Of course all of these elements, as well as technique and skill are crucial to the work. Yet that does not diminish the importance of intuition.

Growing up I remember hearing my mother exclaiming in frustration, “I should have followed my mind!” anytime she ignored her intuition and faced negative consequences. This always stuck with me and as a result I try to follow my own intuition as much as possible, especially when it comes to making art. My practice is very research-based and I love to read and write about a project extensively before, during and after creating it. But at some point I have to surrender to my muse and follow the art wherever it takes me.

Suspecting that other artists might approach their processes similarly, I interviewed Brooklyn-based artist Maria Hupfield, who is a member of Wasauksing First Nation, and Jamaican artist Olivia McGilchrist. Both use their own bodies to explore issues of culture and race in order to address universal concepts such as connectivity and alienation. They both also utilize costumes and props in creating the scenarios in their performances. These artists begin with a clear concept, an ideal vision of how their performances will manifest. But at some point they let go and allow the performance to carry them in order to create change by furthering dialogue about pertinent issues in their respective communities.

Maria Hupfield is a multi-disciplinary artist who creates the objects that she uses in her performances along with bodily gestures and her voice. These tools facilitate her performances, which are part of what she deems “new conversations.” However there is simultaneously a timeless as well a futuristic quality to her work. I met with Maria in her studio in an industrial area of Brooklyn. In performance, Maria is bold and confident. Yet in casual conversation she is soft-spoken and very careful about her thoughts and words. Talking with her it became clear that she applies the same careful consideration to her work so that by the time she arrives in front of an audience she can embody that sense of confidence and clarity.

Olivia McGilchrist was born in Jamaica to a French mother and a Jamaican father. She spent most of her life in Europe and suddenly had to return to Jamaica two years ago. This is the impetus for her alter ego “Whitey.” This work is not only about Olivia’s experiences of whiteness in Jamaica. She hopes to raise questions about whiteness in the Caribbean context. Olivia is using performance to help process these heavy personal as well as societal concerns.

This is my final posting for my six-month off-site residency with Fresh Milk. I am so grateful to Fresh Milk and all of the amazing artists that I have had the opportunity to speak with and learn from during this time.

What I did not reveal is that the six chapters of the Fresh Performance Project were based on the chakras, which are energy centers throughout our body. There are seven that people tend to focus on and I used these as the template for this project, inspired by the work of performance artist Linda Montano.

The first chakra is the root chakra and it is the place of grounding. So chapter one was about defining performance art in order to ground the project.

The second chakra is the sacral chakra and concerns sexual matters and chapter two focused on gender and sexuality.

The third chakra is the solar plexus and is our power center so of course chapter three was about performance and power.

The fourth chakra is the heart chakra and is all about love, as was chapter four.

The fifth chakra is the throat chakra and governs communication. Chapter five discussed how performance communicates.

The sixth chakra is our third eye, which is the space of intuition and here we are at chapter six: intuition and vision.

The seventh chakra, the crown chakra, is about Divine connection and oneness. Instead of a seventh chapter, this chakra will be represented by a full-length documentary bringing together all of the artists I have interviewed over the last six months. The intention of Fresh Performance was to learn about the connections and differences amongst artists working with performance in NYC and those in the Caribbean. I have learned a tremendous amount, not only about performance art and contemporary Caribbean art, but also about kindness, generosity and the ways in which we are all connected.

For the next four weeks I will be in residence at Fresh Milk as well as Groundation Grenada completing this project. I will contribute weekly blog posts to FreshMilkBarbados.com documenting the experience. Please also check out damaliabrams.tumblr.com for less formal updates.

Thank you so much to all of the artists who have participated and a huge thank you to Fresh Milk and Groundation Grenada! Also, thank you the U.S. Embassy for funding this amazing residency. I am infinitely grateful for this opportunity.

– Damali Abrams

About Olivia McGilchrist

Born in Kingston (Jamaica) in 1981 to a French mother and a Jamaican father and educated in France and the U.K., Olivia McGilchrist moved back to Jamaica in 2011 after completing a Photography M.A. at the London College of Communication (2009-2010). Since this sudden return, her current practice has incorporated her body, remapping it within the tropical picturesque through photographic tableaux and multi-layered videos. She has indulged her alter-ego Whitey in her appropriation of this space of utter difference, Jamaica, by exploring trans-location and physical expressions of emotional states in the search for her cultural identity. McGilchrist was recently awarded the prize for Best New Media artist at the 2013 trinidad+tobago film festival.

About Maria Hupfield

Maria Hupfield (born 1975) is from the Georgian Bay region Ontario, Canada and currently based in Brooklyn New York. She is of Anishnaabe (Ojibwa) heritage and a member of Wasauksing First Nation. Hupfield holds an MFA in sculpture from York University, Toronto. She recently participated in: A Conversation on Performance Art: Women Redrawing/Performance, organized by The Feminist Art Project at SOHO20 Chelsea NY; (2013) Wave Hill’s Winter Workspace Program, Glyndor Galley, Bronx, NY; and (2012) Artist Leadership Program, National Museum of the American Indian Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC. She has performed at ACCOLA GRIEFEN GALLERY, Chelsea NY, Grace Gallery, Brooklyn NY and (2012) 7a*11d International Performance Festival, Toronto ON. Hupfield’s work is currently in the traveling exhibitions Beat Nation and Changing Hands III.

Hupfield’s work was featured in the 2011 winter edition of Black Flash Magazine on performance photography and in the North Edition of Fuse Magazine winter for the collaborative artist project “From the Moon to the Belly” with Laakkuluk Williamson.

Fresh Milk and Groundation Grenada welcome Damali Abrams

September 30, 2013July 18, 2019Leave a comment

FRESH MILK and Groundation Grenada are pleased to have NYC-based, Guyanese performance artist Damali Abrams visit our platforms as artist in residence for the month of October, 2013.

Damali, who has been working with FRESH MILK on The Fresh Performance Project which features interviews with Caribbean-based and NYC-based performance artists, will spend three weeks in Barbados and one week in Grenada. In addition to editing a full length documentary around Fresh Performance and producing her own work, Damali will also be conducting workshops and community outreach projects in both islands.

This exciting residency not only marks the first official collaboration between FRESH MILK and Groundation, but will also expand the cultural arena for both NY based and Caribbean based creatives, contributing to critical discourse around performance art.

Fresh Milk and Groundation Grenada wish to engage with the Caribbean diasporic art community in the New York area as well as a wider U.S. audience, and projects of this nature are unique in that they reverse the trend of Caribbean based artists wanting to find relevance for their work in a North American context. In this instance, it is a U.S. based artist who is keen to see how her work resonates within the Caribbean environment.

Given that performance art in the Caribbean is practiced by a small number of artists, this project will contribute to expanding a critical and creative community by offering support to performance artists who often work in isolation. Finally, the project will build cultural bridges between the U.S. and the Caribbean and generate understanding and community through the arts.

Damali will share the outcome of her residency at a public event to be held at FRESH MILK on October 24th. More information on this to follow!

Special thanks to the US Embassy in Barbados for supporting this project.

Casa Tomada Promotes ‘fresh casa’

September 12, 2013May 20, 2015Leave a comment

Participating artists include Shanika Grimes and Katherine Kennedy from Barbados, and Flora Leite from Brazil. As well as a week of taking part in a mentoring programme and interacting with the Brazilian arts scene, the three artists will be presenting their work at Casa Tomada on Friday, September 20th at 7:00 pm.

Additionally, Barbadian artist Evan Avery has designed a graphic to be installed as an adhesive decal as a part of Casa Tomada’s ‘A Casa Recebe‘ project – a street facing window which presents works by visual artists working in Brazil and internationally. This work will be on display until March 2014.

Thanks to the Arts and Sport Promotion Fund, The Ministry of Finance, Barbados for supporting this project.

Fresh Performance Chapter 5: How Performance Communicates

September 6, 2013June 9, 2015Leave a comment

FRESH MILK in collaboration with Damali Abrams presents Chapter 5 in the Fresh Performance Project: How Performance Communicates

I think that art is above all a form of communication. As much as I derive great pleasure from the mere act of making, no work feels complete to me until I share it with someone else. For artists who utilize performance, that communication has the potential for deep levels of intimacy. Performance can include one’s voice and body and energy with a sense of immediacy not always available through other mediums, as well as extreme vulnerability.

Both Zachary Fabri and Michelle Isava use performance to communicate their personal experiences. Zachary’s work largely pulls from the Black experience in the U.S. while Michelle’s work explores her concerns a as a young Trinidadian woman. A lot of Michelle’s work is very raw and visceral as she places her body in various scenarios, combines herself with technological machines, lays her body on the ground and interacts with the landscape. Zachary inserts his body in spaces throughout various New York City communities in order to make political statements. Sitting on a street corner or running down the block with helium balloons tied to his knee-length locs, leading visitors through exercises in popular museum lobbies or pushing himself down the streets of Alphabet City in a milk crate on wheels.

Ironically or (aptly?), I had more communication problems trying to schedule interviews with these two artists than with any of the prior chapters. Whether it was travel or just the usual drama of life, it was a feat trying to find a moment when I could speak with Zachary and Michelle. However, when we were finally able to connect, both conversations were fruitful and informative. I was curious about the way that these artists consider communication with viewers throughout their creative processes. It was interesting to hear Michelle talk about the differences between performing in Trinidad, Venezuela and Germany. Of course the same gesture can communicate very differently in different cultures. Zachary spoke about the way that viewers of different races experience his work and the ways that affects his practice.

I continue to learn through this project that artists turn to performance when what they seek to communicate will not manifest through any other form. In grad school I learned that in order to be effective, art has to have the intention to communicate something specific, something beyond that pleasure of making. Both Zachary and Michelle have powerful intentions that they communicate very clearly through their work and I hope that I have been able to communicate that as clearly through this video.

– Damali Abrams

About Michelle Isava:

Michelle Isava (born 1985) holds dual nationality from Trinidad & Tobago and Venezuela. She is a conceptual artist who straddles across different mediums and genres to place the priority on message and experience. She experiments with drawing, painting, installation and video because she believes the message should decide the mode of expression. Her interests lie in the body as an object, and what it has the potential to reveal or betray about the subject.

About Zachary Fabri:

Zachary Fabri was born in Miami, Florida in 1977. His mother is Jamaican and his father is Hungarian. In 2007, he received his Master of Fine Arts from Hunter College in combined media. His work mines the intersection of personal and political spaces, often responding to a specific environment or context. Zachary’s work has been exhibited at Sequences Real-time Festival, Reykjavik, Iceland; Nordic Biennale: Momentum, Moss, Norway; Gallery Open, Berlin; the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art, New York; the Jersey City Museum, and El Museo del Barrio, New York, The Studio Museum in Harlem, and The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. He is a recipient of the Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art in 2011 and was awarded a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in interdisciplinary work in 2012. Recent solo exhibitions include Third Streaming in New York City and Real Art Ways, in Hartford, Connecticut. He lives and works in Brooklyn.

The NCF and Fresh Milk in collaboration with Casa Tomada present ‘fresh casa’

September 4, 2013September 3, 2013Leave a comment

The National Cultural Foundation (NCF) and the Fresh Milk Art Platform Inc., in collaboration with Casa Tomada of Sao Paulo, Brazil present fresh casa which will take place in Sao Paulo from September 14^th – 21^st 2013. The project has three goals. Firstly, two young Barbadian artists, Shanika Grimes and Katherine Kennedy will participate in a mentoring programme hosted by Casa Tomada and focussing on the professionalization of artists, which will see the presentation of their art work as the focus of their one week intensive residency experience.

Grimes and Kennedy will be mentored by Brazilian arts professionals including professors, curators and critics, who are regularly engaged with Sao Paulo based creatives who focus on Performance Art, Sculpture and Installation. In addition, the young Barbadian artists will interact with Brazilian artists currently working out of Casa Tomada. At the end of the week, the Barbadian artists will make an oral presentation about their practice to a local Brazilian audience.

Secondly, Barbadian artist Evan Avery will design a graphic to be installed as an adhesive decal into Casa Tomada’s ‘A Casa Recebe’ – a street facing window which presents works by visual artists working in Brazil and internationally.

Thirdly, in a programme designed collaboratively by Fresh Milk and Casa Tomada for senior officials at the NCF, the artists will visit contemporary art spaces and meetcritics, gallerists and curators, allowing both the officials and the artists to gain an understanding of the contemporary art space in Sao Paulo. For example, they will attend the opening of ‘30 x bienal- Transformations in Brazilian art from the 1^st to the 30^th edition’ at Parque Ibirapuera, the home of the Sao Paulo Bienal. Visits to contemporary commercial galleries, informal artist led initiatives, as well as museums, will form part of the dynamic programme.

Finally, a tour of Videobrasil will be coordinated for NCF delegates and the young artists. Videobrasil was present at the recently hosted e-Create symposium in Barbados last April. They are dedicated to the fostering, dissemination and mapping of contemporary art, as well as the public cultural promotion and exchange between artists, curators and researchers. Videobrasil devotes special attention to the production of the geopolitical South and supports an active network of international corporations which now include working with Barbadian entities to open up opportunities for Caribbean creatives.

Delegates from the NCF include the Chief Cultural Officer, Mrs Andrea Wells, Corporate Communications Specialist Ms Simone Codrington and Senior Business Development Officer, Ms Alison Sealy-Smith. fresh casa is funded by the Art and Sport Promotion Fund, Ministry of Finance, Barbados.

About Shanika Grimes:

Shanika Grimes completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Barbados Community college in 2012, while juggling the birth of her now two year old son. She displayed a proficiency in the arts from a very young age despite the pull of the business oriented society in which she lives. Shanika works in a variety of two dimensional formats and has more recently extended her practice to the realm of performance art, which is documented and presented through video or photography. She has acquired several gold and silver awards and a nomination for the Prime Minister’s award at Barbados’ national fine arts competition NIFCA. She focuses on an examination of self, which she uses as a catalyst for a barrage of ideas including, but not limited to, gender, culture and relationships.

In January 2013, she took part in a residency at Alice Yard, Trinidad, where she was paired with Trinidadian performance artist Michelle Isava and produced work individually and collaboratively.

Shanika Grimes - Still from Residency at Alice Yard

About Katherine Kennedy:

Katherine Kennedy is an artist and writer. She graduated from Lancaster University, UK with a degree in Creative Arts; her combined major of Fine Art and Creative Writing helped develop her keen interests in both visual and literary pursuits. She has won multiple awards for her artwork and writing in her home Barbados, and has exhibited internationally in London. Since returning home, she has remained immersed in creativity, completing a local artist residency, contributing to ARC Magazine by writing for their online forum and assisting the Editor-In-Chief, and working with the Fresh Milk Art Platform as Assistant to Director. Her visual practice is heavily tied to a sense of place, and often deals with interplay between found organic and inorganic objects, used as a way of asserting cultural identity in different environments.

Katherine travelled to the Instituto Buena Bista (IBB), Curaçao in November 2012 to take part in a two week collaborative project between the IBB and Fresh Milk, and undertook a residency at The Vermont Studio Center in May 2013.

Katherine Kennedy - Stalks installed on a brick wall

About Evan Avery:

Evan Avery is a young, Barbadian artist and a 2012 graduate of the Barbados Community College, receiving a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts. His primary medium is acrylic paint; working with flat, bright colours, he creates compositions with his original characters ‘the Miniis’, which he uses to represent himself or others, as well as events or things of significance in his life. He says there is “no right or wrong way” to read his work, as he wants the viewer to exercise their own imagination in their interpretation: “The best part about being given an image without a story is in making your own. I create the work for me; it’s up to you to make it yours.”

Evan hopes to create a business, transferring his characters and ideas onto clothing and other objects as a means to share the ‘Miniis’ with people all over the world. “Miniis make people smile, and at the end of the day, that’s what matters.”

About Casa Tomada

Created in October 2009, Casa Tomada is an independent spaced dedicated to practice, investigation and reflections of artistic nature. The project emerged from the desire to build a space that was a convergence point among the various fields in arts, discussing the hybridism of languages in the contemporary artistic processes. Focused in all the process of production and not just the final artistic product, Casa Tomada encourages the debate of young contemporary art, not only stimulating the development of artistic and theoretical work motivated by the shared experience, but acting as a catalyst space of experiences of connection among artists, art thinkers and other independent initiatives. Casa Tomada’s projects include:

Open Studio: Semester program for young artists and researchers (art criticism, curatorship and art history focus). The program proposes interchange among artists and art thinkers, stimulating one another in their own art production.

The House Hosts: A program that stimulates the interchange of independent art spaces and promotes the broadcasting of artistic publications. It has the objective enhance the relationship networks of these artistic centers with independent ones.

Portfolio’s Cycle: Annual program in which young artists and researchers currently performing in Sao Paulo are invited to present their portfolios taking advantage of the informal infrastructure of Casa Tomada for an open discussion.

About 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.

About the NCF

The National Cultural Foundation (NCF) is a statutory body established by an Act of Parliament in 1983. Its mandate is to oversee the cultural landscape of Barbados.

Mission: To fuel the development of culture through training, research and the creation of opportunities in cultural industries.

The Role of the NCF: The NCF’s two major roles are: developmental and commercial. In its developmental role, the Foundation uses culture as a tool for national development, fostering and supporting the various art forms and new cultural products. In its commercial role, the Foundation is responsible for the promotion, production and hosting of cultural festivals and associated events.