Category: International

Marla Botterill and Conan Masterson’s Residency: Week 3 Report

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JerRadIt is always a pleasure to meet artists and see their work, last week we visited a couple of studios and also spent a lot of time in our own studio at Fresh Milk; we managed a balance of work and play. We began week 3 with a jaunt to the south east coast with artists we met at Fresh Milk:  Sheena Rose and Versia Harris.  After exploring a couple of beaches we visited Sheena’s studio.  She had a number of projects to show us and her excitement is infectious.  Versia showed us a couple of her imaginative animations. We enjoyed looking at their past and current projects and hearing about their future plans and were impressed by their work ethic.  That evening the four of us went to Oistins for the famous fish market, ate an amazing meal and were joined by other FM artists Alicia Alleyne, Shanika Grimes & Mathew Kupakwashe Murrell.  It was a truly memorable day.

Joscelyn Gardner arranged our second studio visit of the week with Akyem Ramsay at Gun Hill. We had the chance to see his work already in week 1 when we toured Mervyn Awon’s collection, so it was great to see more of it.  There is always something exciting about seeing active work-spaces and a wide range of projects.  We had a morning of stimulating conversation and viewing a mix of both 2 and 3-dimensional works and his inventive tools.

Our own studio has been productive, we continue to build puppets and have started to learn more about their respective character traits.  A few of them are anxious to be introduced so we’ve included a brief description of four of them below:

Nancy Pillow:  You never know where you’ll find her, but she will find you.  She’s always watching.

Bargo:  The constant worker-bee.  Bargo longs for a moment free from work to play.  Bargo also wishes to grow in size, to fit better into the world.

Jer-Rad:  Never at work, always at play.  Really wants to become a professional beach bum.

Speight:  A self-taught dancing machine.  Currently mastering the “6:30” and “wukkin-up”

We took the puppets with us on fieldtrips outside of the FM studio as well this past week.  Joscelyn took us to St. Nicholas Abbey where we explored the buildings and grounds and shot some short videos with the puppets.  The next day we went to Bridgetown.  Jer-Rad was anxious to get to the beach (we will blame him for taking us there) so we spent a few hours at Carlisle Bay.

We also had a fun night out with Annalee and her friends.  Her dogs continue to be our daily companions and self-appointed guardians.  We find it hard to believe that the end of our residency is fast approaching.  We have grown accustomed to the sounds of the singing frogs and the heat.  We are enjoying the food & have done some “souvenir” shopping at the grocery store as we’ve become fond of Bajan pepper sauce.   A lizard visits us daily for a share of any fruit we have with us for a snack.  We’ve been given fig bananas, mangos, fresh coconuts, baked goods, meals, drinks, tours, catalogues & pendants.   The people we’ve spent time with here are generous in many other ways as well, they give you their time, share their stories and recommend their favourite places and activities on the island.  The community around FM is supportive and provides an excellent platform for the experimental way we have been working during this residency.  We have one week left.  The final week includes a visit to the caves and a presentation of our puppets and videos at Fresh Milk on the evening of May 30th where fellow resident Mathew Kupakwashe Murrell will also be reading from his play.

 

 

 

FRESH MILK XI

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fm xi flyer

 
On Thursday May 30th at 7:00pm, local and international resident artists Matthew Kupakwashe Murrell, Marla Botterill and Conan Masterson will share works produced during the recent Fresh Milk Residency programme.
 
Matthew presents a reading of an excerpt from “The Brightest Red – The Life and Death of I’Akobi Maloney” and Marla and Conan showcase their collaborative video shorts and puppets.
 
The artists will speak about their residency experiences which will be followed by a Q&A session.
 
The event is free and open to the public. For more information on the residencies, view the artists’ blog entries below, and see our About page for directions to FRESH MILK. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more updates!

FRESH MILK visits Casa Tomada

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On May 13th, 2013, founder and director of Fresh Milk Annalee Davis visited Casa Tomada is São Paulo, Brazil, to present the Fresh Milk platform and review residents’  processes and development.

Founded in 2009, Casa Tomada is an independent space for practice, research and reflections of artistic nature. Concerned with the entire process, instead of focusing exclusively on the final work of art, Casa Tomada encourages discussion about emerging contemporary art, not only stimulating the development of artistic and theoretical practices motivated by shared experience, but acting as a catalyst for experiences and connections between artists, researchers, and other independent artistic initiatives. During these years, Casa Tomada organized 8 residences, 2 in partnership with Videobrasil, and one international exchange between São Paulo and London with the Delfina Foundation. Casa Tomada has also run other kinds of programs, all based on young artistic production, connections between different spaces and interdisciplinarity.

A Performative Moment – Presentation for Northern Kentucky University

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On Thursday May 16th, FRESH MILK presented a programme to group of visiting students from the department of theatre and dance at Northern Kentucky University, USA. Presentations were made by Barbadian artists Ewan Atkinson, Sheena Rose and Shanika Grimes, local playwright, actor and artist in residence Matthew Kupakwashe Murrell, our two international resident artists Marla Botterill and Conan Masterson, and our off-site resident artist Damali Abrams who joined us via skype. All of the participants engaged in discussion with the students on performance, and the many forms it can take in the arts.

All photographs taken by Mark King.

Marla Botterill & Conan Masterson’s Residency: Week 2 Report

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Puppet3Day/Night

Above/Below

Leisure/Work

East coast/West coast

Rain/Sun

Wake/Sleep

There is a strong contrast between the night and the day here.  The contrast is not just one of light, though this contrast is severe.  In the day the sun is blazing, but the darkness falls early and quickly, cloaking the island in darkness.  Was there a moon the first week?  If there was, we didn’t see it.  The sounds and smells change; it is almost as if they are two entirely different places.  There is a mystery to this island; it is felt most keenly at night.  Perhaps we feel this contrast more being in the country and away from the lights and traffic of the city, but we feel that mystery, pulsing around us like the oceans and enveloping us in the darkness.

In conversations with the people here we’ve learned of the caves beneath us.  As fellow resident, Mathew Kupakwashe Murrell pointed out to us, the whole island is formed over limestone caves.  Is this a space where are puppet characters could come from?  Have they bubbled up from the dark, damp, mysterious caves beneath to the lush, sun-filled land above?  How long have they been here?  How have they evolved to live on this island?  They are taking on characteristics of the vegetation, animal, insect, bird and amphibian life above, but there is an unnerving quality to them, they come from that place of mystery.  In the past two weeks we have jointly created a small ensemble of puppet creatures that will continue to grow but now we must listen to them, hear their stories and take them out of the studio and allow them to explore this island where they come from.

We had our own chance to explore this week, we were taken on an island tour by Joscelyn Gardner, the love of her homeland is palpable and contagious.  A collector of stories herself, she shares a combination of local history and personal anecdotes with us.  The tour turned into a double-night sleepover at the family’s cottage on the Southeast coast, where we had a mini-vacation and also experienced the deluge of a tropical rainstorm.  The rain comes as quickly as the night, you fear it will never stop, but it can leave just as abruptly and replaced once again by the sun.  The rugged Atlantic coastal landscape is such a contrast to the manicured calm of the Caribbean west coast; Fresh Milk is conveniently located in the middle of these extremes, a rural, hilly centre point.  We want to take our puppets out into these contrasting landscapes.

The platform at Fresh Milk continues to be a hub of activity and a place of networking and interchange.  We are finding our days are becoming more productive as we begin to feel at home here. Though no matter how hard we try, we cannot wake up early enough to start the day as early as the Bajans do!  On May 16th FM hosted ‘A Performative Moment’ with Northern Kentucky University and we were happy to be included with the past and current residents of FM and to be given the opportunity to briefly present our individual and shared practice.  Even though Annalee and Katherine are both abroad, we feel very looked after by the people (and pets) of Barbados.  Winston Kellman dropped by FM one morning to return a book and see our progress so far.  We had an interesting discussion about Barbados, we focused around the night/day contrast and as he left, he wished us “many more sleepless nights.”