Category: Residency

FRESH MILK begins the New Year with Malaika Brooks-Smith-Lowe

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Happy New Year from FRESH MILK!

The Fresh Milk Team would like to wish you all a happy and prosperous 2013, and we look forward to your continued support – we have an exciting year ahead!

Kick-starting our programming this year, we are very pleased to welcome Malaika Brooks-Smith-Lowe to the platform, where she will be our artist in residence between January 10th – February 4th.

Malaika Brooks-Smith-Lowe

Biography

Malaika Brooks-Smith-Lowe is a Grenadian contemporary artist/activist and co-founder of Groundation Grenada Action Collective. Her interdisciplinary approach to social change also includes yoga instruction at Spice Harmony Yoga Studio, which she runs with her family, and agricultural development and education work through The Grenada Goat Dairy Project. Malaika’s artistic inquiry is fueled by her engagement with community along these varying but interlinked pathways. Her photography and film work has been exhibited in the Grenada, Barbados, Trinidad and the United Kingdom. Malaika’s work has also been published in ARC Magazine and Caribbean Beat.

Concept

This short film will paint a portrait of a woman in her late twenties/thirties and her navigation, not so much through her life, but through her thoughts about her life.  It will be an intimate meandering through the disjointed waters of her daily internal dialogue. As Stuart Hall has written, the past “…is always constructed through memory, fantasy, narrative and myth.” The site of this interpretation of our past experiences, and those of the people around us, is always located in the present. So, our moments of “now” are constantly occupied with reinterpretations and reshuffling of our past in relation to what we are encountering anew. This film seeks to explore the complex and ever fluctuating relationships that we have with our experiences and the sense of being/ego that is build around these experiences. What snippets of society/family/relationships run through our daily thoughts? What perceptions of our past, and potential future, blur our experiencing of our present moments? How do we find a balance between a blur and a necessary reflection/planning? Can we clear space and opt for neither, for just a moment of experience without constant interpretation?

Please view the gallery below to see some of Malaika’s work. We look forward to hosting her here at FRESH MILK!

Photographs from the Artist Talk with Anna Christina Lorenzen and Alberta Whittle

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On Saturday December 15th, 2012 our resident artists Anna Christina Lorenzen and Alberta Whittle gave a presentation on both of their individual practices, in addition to their emerging collaborative projects. These new works in progress have seen them playing with the intersections they have found in their own work, as well as responding organically to new environments and surroundings.

Alberta Whittle is a Barbadian artist who returned home to take up a residency at Fresh Milk. Whittle’s work has undertaken some shifts to concentrate with greater intensity her research on hypersexuality in the Barbadian context. Focusing on the fete posters imagery of aspirational life styles and of men and women, she is interested in how these posters become a form of self-portraiture.

Anna Christina Lorenzen is a visual artist from Norway/Germany, who was a founding member of the studio collective, Bergen Atelier Gruppe (BAG). Through the historically and culturally universal medium of drawing, Lorenzen explores the seemingly never-ending cycle of visual representation of the body and the physical representation of the visual image of the body.

Lorenzen and Whittle met in Cape Town earlier in 2012 during a residency program at Greatmore Studios. They uncovered many parallels and meeting points in their individual practices. Whilst in South Africa, they began collaborating in generating performative situations and documenting these actions through photographic stills and video footage.

Thanks to Anna and Alberta for a very engaging talk, and we look forward to seeing how your work continues to evolve!

Artist Talk with Anna Christina Lorenzen and Alberta Whittle

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On Saturday December 15th at 5:00pm, our two artists in residence Anna Christina Lorenzen and Alberta Whittle will be giving an artist talk at FRESH MILK. The presentation will consist of three segments:

Jeans vs Leggings

Alberta Whittle – Presentation on her most recent work at Fresh Milk

Alberta Whittle is a Barbadian artist who returned home to take up a residency at Fresh Milk. Whittle’s work has undertaken some shifts to concentrate with greater intensity her research on hypersexuality in the Barbadian context. Focusing on the fete posters imagery of aspirational life styles and of men and women, she is interested in how these posters become a form of self-portraiture.

Anna Christina Lorenzen

Anna Christina Lorenzen  – Presentation on her practice and her participation in the artist-initiated Norwegian art scene

Anna Christina Lorenzen is a visual artist from Norway/Germany, who was a founding member of the studio collective, Bergen Atelier Gruppe (BAG). Through the historically and culturally universal medium of drawing, Lorenzen explores the seemingly never-ending cycle of visual representation of the body and the physical representation of the visual image of the body.

Dutch Blue, 2012 - A collaborative work in progress by Anna Christina Lorenzen and Alberta Whittle

Collaboration

Lorenzen and Whittle met in Cape Town earlier this year during a residency program at Greatmore Studios. They uncovered many parallels and meeting points in their individual practices. Whilst in South Africa, they began collaborating in generating perfomative situations and documenting these actions through photographic stills and video footage. Discovering commonalities in their creative processes and concepts, they are developing a collaborative body of work at Fresh Milk.

 

The talk is free of cost, all are welcome!

 

Alberta Whittle Blogs about her Residency with FRESH MILK

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Take a look at Alberta Whittle’s blog about her residency with FRESH MILK! Get some insight into her concepts so far, as she prepares for a performance at the upcoming event FRESH MILK IX on November 29th, 7pm.

‘Since I started the residency programme at Fresh Milk, I have been researching the relationships between hypermasculine, hyperfeminine and homoerotic imagery within Hip Hop/Dancehall culture, focusing on dress, body modification, costume and styling. Researching the emergence of new models of personhood, I want to investigate the complex signifiers for  contemporary sexuality.’ – Alberta Whittle

Follow her blog at http://albertawhittlenavigation.blogspot.com/

FRESH MILK Off-Site Residencies – Shanika Grimes and Versia Harris

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FRESH MILK is still supporting two recent graduates of the Barbados Community College, Shanika Grimes and Versia Harris, as they undertake Off-Site Residencies with us.

We have been acting as liaison between the artists and their review panels, who send them feedback on a regular basis in order to assist them in the shaping of their practices as they strive to keep producing work post-graduation.

To keep up with their artwork and activities, visit their artist blogs at:

Shanika Grimes – http://mirrormirrormylove.tumblr.com/
Versia Harris – http://versiaabeda.tumblr.com/