Profile: Fresh Milk, Barbados – by Mariam Zulfiqar

April 4, 2014May 20, 2015Leave a comment

Mariam Zulfiqar interviews Fresh Milk’s founding director Annalee Davis, getting some insight on the motivation behind the organization, some of its current and upcoming activities, challenges around its sustainability and the vision for Fresh Milk’s future. Read more below:

The Fresh Milk Studio. Photograph by Mark King.

Annalee Davis’ practice deals with a number of social issues around race, identity and migration. Her artworks have been exhibited nationally and internationally in group shows and Biennials.

The artist started Fresh Milk in 2011, the only contemporary art organisation in Barbados. The organisation offers a platform for international dialogue between artists, curators and writers working in the field of contemporary art and collaborates with organisations across the globe to provide national and international residencies for artists and curators.

Offering a Library in the form of the Colleen Lewis Reading Room, a project space for artists and curators, and a programme of screenings and talks, Fresh Milk provides a platform for critical discourse to expand and support contemporary art production in Barbados.

I spoke to Annalee Davis during my two-month curatorial residency in Barbados about Fresh Milk and the challenges faced by artists in Barbados and the wider Caribbean.

45_The Fresh Milk Studio - Photo by Annalee Davis, 2012

The Fresh Milk Studio Space. Photograph by Annalee Davis.

MZ: What made you decide to start Fresh Milk and what type of space were you hoping to create?

AD: I’ve been teaching since the early 90s at Barbados Community College (BCC), off and on, for about 10 years. When I returned to Barbados from Trinidad a few years ago I realised that the attrition rate for our students was almost 100%, meaning that within a year of graduating almost none of the graduates were making art. There were no formal spaces for artists and as a result graduates were starting to find other jobs and their practice was dwindling. I felt that a support mechanism was needed to allow them to continue making work. I also felt that expanding the critical arena in Barbados was important and wanted to contribute to this.

The notion of creating a nurturing space was important. Given the traumatic history of the Caribbean, it’s not a region that necessarily connotes being nurtured. So I often think of Fresh Milk as both a nurturing environment and an act of resistance. Offering a space that is safe for people to experiment and innovate, and to gather, talk, think and make, is an act of resistance. So that’s the impetus out of which it came.

MZ: It’s interesting that you use the word nurturing because in my discussions with artists, one of the areas we discussed is their frustration in the lack of structural support for the arts in Barbados. Does Fresh Milk receive any support, financial or otherwise, on a Government or official level?

AD: Fresh Milk received small grants from the Maria Holder Memorial Trust, and the Art and Sport Promotion Fund which falls under the Ministry of Finance. This allowed us to hire an assistant for a couple of days a week and host four local residencies. We are currently in conversation with the Ministry of Culture and the Art and Sport Fund to see whether we can request a yearlong subvention. We are also keen to develop relationships with the National Cultural Foundation. We have had support from the US Embassy in terms of bringing in two artists from the US in support of their residency on the platform, contributing to the expansion of the reading room, and ascribing a Dewey decimal system to the collection so it can function more professionally. We are trying to develop partnerships across a number of different sectors to contribute to sustainability in the arts.

We’ve been able to demonstrate some measure of success by putting a real dent into that attrition rate as we work with at least 50% of recent graduates. So if the state continues its funding of the BFA programme, Fresh Milk offers the type of support necessary post graduation. In that respect it becomes a partnership where collaborators are working towards similar goals.

Photo by Dondré Trotman.

MZ: In terms of global partnerships with contemporary art organisations and practitioners, who are you working with?

AD: The Barbados Government hosted a symposium in April called e-Create, inviting people from the visual arts and music industries in Brazil to Barbados. Fresh Milk presented a platform of young artists to the delegates and that started a relationship with Videobrasil, a 30-year-old institution in Sao Paulo founded by Solange Farkas. My trip to Brazil cemented a relationship with Casa Tomada, an informal network in Sao Paulo similar to Fresh Milk. We are in conversation with a curator at the Perez Art Museum in Miami (PAMM) regarding collaborative programming. We have been invited by an artist-run space in Glasgow, The David Dale Gallery to present a project in July 2014. Glasgow is hosting the 2014 Commonwealth Games and the Gallery has invited six informal spaces from Cyprus, Nigeria, New Zealand, India, Canada and Barbados to collaborate.

We also have a very close relationship with ARC Magazine, a significant publication showcasing the work of Caribbean practitioners in the region and the diaspora. We work together to create opportunities for creatives and generate awareness of their practice. It’s all really happened because of the Internet! That’s how we are beginning to foster relationships with entities in the Dutch Caribbean including the IBB in Curaçao and Ateliers‘89 in Aruba.

From left to right: Alison Sealy-Smith (NCF), Katherine Kennedy (Fresh Milk), Thereza Farkas (Videobrasil), Diandra Martins (Casa Tomada), Flora Leite (Brazilian artist), Tainá Azeredo (Casa Tomada), Andrea Wells (NCF), Shanika Grimes (Barbadian artist) in Sao Paulo for the ‘fresh casa’ project – Photo by Simone Codrington

MZ: Fresh Milk’s location on a dairy farm is quite unusual. Can you tell me about how the space was created?

AD: It actually was my studio – I built it 7 years ago at my house located on a dairy farm dating back to the mid 1600s. I decided, stupidly, to marginalise myself outside of my own studio and use that as a space for Fresh Milk. The name obviously connects to our location on a dairy farm and the notion of Fresh Milk supporting young practitioners with fresh ideas, fresh work, fresh thinking, fresh collaborations. It is also connected to the idea of women turning their blood into milk to nurture their young. At first I felt concerned that the location was rural and not centrally located, but what I’ve since learned is when resident artists come, they exhale, absorb the environment – and feel ‘ahhh’….it’s a moment of calm. Located under a grove of mahogany trees surrounded by grass and cows, the quiet space allows focus and inspires reflection.

MZ: You also provide a reading room, named after Colleen Lewis. Can you tell me how the reading room came around?

AD: Colleen was my best friend who succumbed to breast cancer in September of 2006. She was a collector and an art history graduate. She had a library that she gave to me, and I wanted to keep her memory alive. She was an extraordinarily generous person, and I wanted to find a way to build on her collection and make it publicly available. Now I want to expand, acquiring publications that are not available at BCC or the University of the West Indies. We are filling a void by offering publications related to critical thinking and contemporary practice.

We also want a younger audience. We would like to work with art teachers at secondary schools to integrate critical discourse into their curriculum. Students at that level have to do research papers and we want to offer our reading room and work with students and teachers, in support of their work. We welcome workshops and events that involve sharing the books, talking about artists and inciting inspiration.

The Colleen Lewis Reading Room. Photo by Annalee Davis.

MZ: So, in a sense the reading room offers a platform for skills’ development for young people, where they see the work of emerging artists like Sheena Rose on your wall, who is now doing residencies worldwide. So you’re trying to create that bridge between school and BFA, and BFA level onwards.

AD: Right. And also challenge what they would normally see. Some years ago when I was teaching, my students were talking about Braque and Picasso as though this was current. The documents we select for the reading room reflect the most contemporary, cutting edge art production. Students should be exposed to current practices all over the world today, from Europe or North America, to Africa, Asia and Australia.

MZ: How big is your team?

AD: It’s very small. Katherine Kennedy is my dream assistant! We also have a board that meets periodically consisting of Ewan Atkinson, Simone Mangal, Yasmine Espert, Holly Bynoe and Natalie McGuire. We also have volunteers: Kriston Chen, Dondré Trotman, Sammy Davis, Alicia Alleyne and Versia Harris.

MZ: What are the challenges that artists from Barbados are currently facing nationally and internationally?

AD: I think issues around sustainability. It seems as though it’s paramount in everyone’s mind. We don’t have a fully developed creative industry including formal arts institutions, museums, galleries, auction houses, biennials, prizes, fairs, collectors, curators, historians and dealers. Artists often multi-task by writing, documenting, promoting and creating opportunities. It’s the challenge of functioning outside of a developed creative economy. Also, trying to create visibility around your work can be tough, which is why the Internet has changed so much for a lot of us by providing visibility.

MZ: Fresh Milk is very active online, how useful has an online presence been for you?

AD: It changed everything. It’s made so much more possible. My most common meetings are on Skype with people all over the world. Fresh Milk is being approached for all kinds of projects as a result of our online presence.

Alberta Whittle, performance still from ‘Hustle de Money a performance by Bertie aka Big Red aka General outta Glitter Zone’, 2012. Photo by Dondré Trotman.

MZ: Who are the artists that you have hosted at Fresh Milk?

AD: This year we had Mark King who generally works in photography but started the residency breaking out of that and doing drawings that were influenced by Origami, working with algorithms and fractals inspired by the North American ‘banking bubble’ and financial crisis. He started doing some really interesting work and experimented for the duration of the residency. We want to encourage resident artists to step outside oftheir comfort zone and not be pressured to have a final product at the end, to really challenge their practice. Prior to that we had Versia Harris, an animation artist, followed by a playwright Matthew Kupakwashe Murrell. We’ve had two Canadian artists, Conan Masterson and Marla Botterill, who worked collaboratively making puppets and video shorts. Malaika Brooks-Smith-Lowe, a photographer and video maker from Grenada worked with local actress Varia Williams to produce an experimental four-minute video short. Alberta Whittle was here for two months last November/December and she worked with traditional fete or party posters that you would see in the urban landscape, produced her own posters and closed with a performance work.

We have also supported off site projects including Fresh Performance with NY based Damali Abrams who has produced six videos linking Caribbean based and NY based performance artists speaking about their practices as well as Caribbean Linked II– a project in collaboration with ARC Inc., Ateleirs ’89 in Aruba which saw ten artists from the region spend two weeks in Aruba on a residency project.

MZ: How have people responded to Fresh Milk?

AD: For the first event, I imagined we would get an audience of 10 or 20 people. Over 100 people came – I didn’t know most of them. A lot of young people were interested to see what was happening. I think the time is right, there has been a lot of interest and we are being observed with great interest globally through our online presence.

Audience at Fresh Milk X – Photo by Dondré Trotman

MZ: How has running this organisation affected your practice?

AD: That’s funny! What practice? I’ve done a couple of pieces in the last 2 years and I’ve just spent the last 6 weeks trying to get back into the studio. It’s slowed down my own production, but it’s been absolutely fantastic and completely worth it. I felt really isolated and I wanted to have a more rigorous and stimulating environment to work in.

MZ: And a DIY approach has made it happen?

AD: Yeah for sure. I think partly it’s the absolute fear of growing older and feeling that nothing is changing, so let’s do something about it!

MZ: In terms of the future, how do you see Fresh Milk developing as an organisation?

AD: What I would like to do is make myself completely irrelevant within Fresh Milk. The organisation needs a young fresh team to run it. The baton should be passed on and my hope is that Fresh Milk becomes a sustainable entity in its own right. And then I’ll get to spend more time in my studio.

Written: August 2013

* Since our conversation, Fresh Milk has launched their online interactive map which is available here.

Article commissioned by Curating Contemporary Art Department, Royal College of Art

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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.

A Review of FRESH MILK XIV

April 1, 2014May 20, 20151 Comment

Art historian and writer Jessica Taylor reviews Fresh Milk’s last event, FRESH MILK XIV, which took place March 20, 2014 at The Milking Parlour Studio.

Photographs by Dondré Trotman.

Chief curator at the Pérez Art Museum Miami, Tobias Ostrander, giving his presentation. Photo by Dondré Trotman.

The inaugural event held at the Fresh Milk Art Platform for the year 2014 brought together two interesting discussions concerning the production and exhibition of artworks within a global context. The first of these took up the role that artists’ residencies play as valuable sites of artistic growth and production, but also as sites that encourage cultural mobility and the negotiation of difference, where artists are able to freely adapt to new spaces and perspectives. These talks were conducted by three local artists – Mark King, Nick Whittle and Versia Harris – who have participated in multiple residencies within the region and internationally. This was followed by a presentation from the Chief Curator at the Pérez Art Museum in Miami, Tobias Ostrander, who explored the notion of a new regional museum. Reinforcing the emphasis that Fresh Milk places on the importance of cross-cultural collaboration, the speakers at FRESH MILK XIV provided audience members with an expanded view of Caribbean regionalism, intending to provoke greater consideration of the need to work across geographical boundaries in order to develop relationships with other institutions across the globe.

British-Barbadian artist Nick Whittle delivering his presentation. Photo by Dondré Trotman.

The audience during Nick Whittle's presentation. Photo by Dondré Trotman.

For Barbadian and British artist Nick Whittle, the problem with residencies is that eventually they come to an end. This notion of the artist residency as a safe space in which to experiment, explore, develop and even make mistakes resounded throughout the presentations given by the three speakers. For artists, a residency is an opportunity to produce work in a space away from their usual environment and obligations, often accompanied by other artists, and thus creates a community of reciprocity. Since there is not one specific model, residencies offer different environments and different creative frameworks.

Nick Whittle, Queen Emma Bridge, Curacao, 2013

Nick recently attended a residency at the Instituto Buena Bista (IBB) in Curaçao. The language barrier that Nick experienced inspired him to take up the issue of exclusion in his works, which acquired the form of nesting boats made from large sheets of Dutch newspaper. With the words “this is not my land, not my island” written on his back, Nick staged a live performance in Curaçao in which he sat in a long newspaper boat on a bridge, forcing viewers to consider what his presence in that context meant historically and geographically. Subsequently, Nick has produced a short film with his daughter, artist Alberta Whittle, extending these themes of exclusion and belonging, presence and absence, forced encounters and cultural dislocations.

Versia Harris presenting at FRESH MILK XIV – Photo by Dondré Trotman.

Versia Harris giving her presentation. Photo by Dondré Trotman.

Versia Harris, a Barbadian artist, was able to trace both the transformation of her artistic style and the development of her confidence towards her production process through her experiences at four artist residencies. Beginning at Fresh Milk, she saw this opportunity as a test run for her first international residency at the Vermont Studio Center, where her intention was to focus on printmaking because of the facilities available at the Center. By the time Versia finished her next residency at the IBB in Curaçao, her work had taken a fascinating turn, experimenting with the incorporation of photographs and live footage into her animations.

Versia Harris, Fantasy Land Seperation, 2013

In Trinidad, under the guidance of Christopher Cozier, co-director of Alice Yard, Versia began to revise pervious animation projects, and through the process of re-editing was able to produce a multi-screen installation on the exterior walls of the Alice Yard building. This creation of a strong, new work from fragments of older works was an impressive manifestation of Versia’s development as an artist during her time at the four residencies, and stands as a testament to the importance of reflecting on progress over time, and anticipating what is to come from this young artist.

Mark King giving his presentation. Photo by Dondré Trotman.

Mark King giving his presentation. Photo by Dondré Trotman.

While Versia’s development was first and foremost aesthetic and stylistic, artist Mark King’s development was intrinsically based in the theory behind his works. Although trained in photography, Mark felt that the medium was limited in its ability to communicate the issues that he wanted to address. While attending residencies at Alice Yard, Fresh Milk and Ateliers ’89 in Aruba, Mark used the mediums of photography, drawing, installation, sculpture and collage to respond to what was happening around him. Inspired by geometric forms and the practice of origami, Mark has created a series of beautiful and complex line arrangements on paper that are the result of algorithms made from books on the 2009 economic crash, overall banking history and culture, memoirs, autobiographies, and financial industry related news articles.

Work by Mark King from the CABTW series, (2013 – ongoing) exhibited at FRESH MILK XIV. Photo by Dondré Trotman.

Underlying these intricate and delicate designs is a strong criticism of the CEOs who were responsible for the financial crisis, and he recognizes an interesting connection between the uncertainty of the shape that the algorithms take when converted into the vectors that make up his work and the uncertainty of the stock market. In this series, and in his installations in Aruba, Mark has altered familiar structures in ways that enabled him to respond to social norms in coded and often satirical ways, free from the restrictions of one specific medium.

Chief curator at the Pérez Art Museum Miami, Tobias Ostrander, giving his presentation. Photo by Dondré Trotman.

Chief curator at the Pérez Art Museum Miami, Tobias Ostrander, and Fresh Milk Director Annalee Davis. Photo by Dondré Trotman.

The value of attending multiple artists’ residencies as part of a larger process of artistic development comes from the global reality of our contemporary art world. Residencies, both regional and international, should be seen as part of a wider network of institutions that stands to connect artists and foster cultural exchange. This dialogue was continued by Tobias Ostrander, who spoke of his work as chief curator at the Pérez Art Museum Miami, which opened December 2013 in a new building designed by Herzog & de Mueron. Given that Miami functions as a transitory space between North, South and Central America and the Caribbean, the addition of this large-scale museum to a quickly maturing city, previously best known for the temporary art fair Art Basel, positions Miami as an interesting space in which to explore the possibility for a long-term relationship between the Pérez Art Museum and Caribbean art institutions.

Speaking of a larger project of “strategic regionalism,” intended to increase the dialogue between these regions over time, Tobias emphasized the importance of seeing this a process of resolution, rather than a quick solution to the lack of visibility that Caribbean artists experience. Recognizing the curatorial issues inherent in exhibitions like Caribbean: Crossroads of the World, which will be shown at the Pérez Art Museum this year on a smaller scale than was shown in New York in 2012, Tobias positions this exhibition as a potential starting-point for dealing with these issues, and the first stage in a greater project of collaboration.

Underlying the discussion was a distinct frustration that ultimately exhibitions, like residencies, are temporary. The challenge that we face now is how to extend the wider horizons afforded by these events to effect meaningful change to the infrastructure within which Caribbean artists work on a daily basis.

FRESH MILK XIV. Photos by Dondré Trotman.

Cherise Ward, winnder of the 2014 Fresh Milk 'My Time' Local Residency. Photo by Dondré Trotman.

Work by Mark King from the CABTW series, (2013 – ongoing) exhibited at FRESH MILK XIV. Photo by Dondré Trotman.

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About Jessica Taylor:

Jessica Taylor

Jessica Taylor recently graduated from McGill University with an undergraduate degree in Art History and Philosophy and hopes to begin a graduate degree in Curatorial Studies in 2014. Her focus is contemporary Caribbean art.

A Review of FRESH MILK XIII

December 13, 2013June 9, 2015Leave a comment

Art historian and writer Jessica Taylor reviews Fresh Milk’s last event, FRESH MILK XIII, which took place October 24, 2013 at The Milking Parlour Studio.

Photograph by Mark King.

The Fresh Milk Art Platform Inc. continues to provide a space for contemporary artists to develop projects and exchange ideas in a creative and engaging environment, as evidenced by the most recent public event Fresh Milk XIII, which was held at the Fresh Milk site on October 24^th 2013.

While outlining a number of projects that have been ongoing at Fresh Milk, the event included a screening of a full-length documentary made by resident-artist damali abrams. damali, a New York-based Guyanese performance artist, showcased a documentary that she had produced during her joint residency at Fresh Milk and Groundation Grenada for the month of October 2013 as part of The Fresh Performance Project. The documentary featured footage from interviews that she had conducted with six Caribbean-based and six New York-based performance artists over a six-month period prior to beginning her on-site residency.

Watching damali abrams' documentary Fresh Performance: Contemporary Performance Art in NYC & the Caribbean. Photograph by Mark King.

Entitled Fresh Performance: Contemporary Performance Art in New York City and the Caribbean, damali’s documentary is less about the specific performance works of the twelve artists that she interviewed but is instead more about the artists’ conceptions of performance art as a practice within the context of their work. In the first few minutes of the film we are introduced to differing considerations of what performance art is from the twelve artists, which for the viewer emphasizes the interpretive nature of performance art and its malleability as an art form. damali has paired the video interviews with still images of the live performances of each artist, which creates an intriguing juxtaposition of interview as performance, and performance as documentary.

Zachary Fabri, New York-based performance artist in Fresh Performance: Contemporary Performance Art in NYC & the Caribbean. Photograph by Mark King.

Michelle Isava, Trinidadian performance artist in Fresh Performance: Contemporary Performance Art in NYC & the Caribbean. Photograph by Mark King.

The role of documentation in performance art is fairly ambiguous given that some artists have denied any documentation of their work (claiming that it shall not exist outside of the moment of its performance) and others rely on documentation to preserve their performance (normally for exhibition purposes). damali complicates this ambiguity even further by turning an act of documentation into a performance itself. For her, the documentary is as much a performance as the works that we see in the still images shown in the documentary. The result of this is that as viewers, we are experiencing the binary of watching a live performance art piece by one artist in which she interviews other artists about their practice and calls on them to recollect past performances. This play with documentation and temporality demonstrates that performance can be something direct but not necessarily something that is easily understood by the public.

Screening damali abrams' documentary Fresh Performance: Contemporary Performance Art in NYC & the Caribbean. Photograph by Mark King.

Despite the drastic differences amongst the various pieces discussed, several common threads surfaced throughout the interviews, such as the importance of the audience, the role of spontaneity and interaction, and an appreciation of the unpredictable nature of performance art. This overarching notion of the role of the public sparks many questions for me. Can we have cross-cultural notions of performance art? Does a Barbadian audience approach damali’s work differently than a New York audience? Given that all of the artists interviewed deal with issues of identity, how do their audiences inform and interpret these issues based on their geographical location? Of course these questions remain unanswered, but I believe that is exactly what damali is trying to show us.

Audience members at FRESH MILK XIII. Photograph by Mark King.

Barbadian artist Shanika Grimes, one of the featured artists in the Fresh Performance documentary. Photograph by Mark King.

Ultimately, damali is offering these artists a chance to both explore and explain what performance art means to them, while forcing her audience to ask themselves the same questions. Her exploration of the medium through the words of these twelve artists initiates a much-needed discussion of the role that performance art has to play in the Caribbean, and simultaneously links it to performance art in New York. The connections that damali is making between the Caribbean and New York through the dialogue that she maintains with the twelve artists are unique, given that performance art is practiced by such a small number of Caribbean artists. Perhaps the most telling sign of this was not only in the words of the Caribbean artists on the screen, but even more so in the responses given by the audience members attending Fresh Event XIII. After the screening damali was met with questions from young art students who had either never heard of performance art or had never considered it in great detail, but who will now hopefully perpetuate this important discussion.

Independent Curators International (ICI) shares Project 35 Volume 2. Photograph by Katherine Kennedy.

Work by Bahamian artist Heino Schmid in Project 35 Volume 2. Photograph by Mark King.

In addition to damali’s documentary, there was also a screening of Project 35: Volume 2, which is a travelling exhibition produced by Independent Curators International (ICI) and included a piece by Bahamian artist Heino Schmid, selected by Trinidadian artist and curator Christopher Cozier. Subsequently the director of Fresh Milk, Annalee Davis, took to the floor to present to the audience a series of other projects that had been in the works at Fresh Milk over the past few months. The first of these was the Fresh Milk Artboard, which was erected at the bottom of the road leading to the Fresh Milk site as a new public gallery from which the work of contemporary artists will be showcased. The first work to be displayed on the Artboard was designed by Barbadian artist Evan Avery, who had also previously designed a graphic work to be installed in the front window of Casa Tomada’s ‘A Casa Recebe’ in Brazil, which exhibits the work of both local and international artists.

The relationship between Fresh Milk and Casa Tomada is just one example of the cross-cultural exchange that Fresh Milk is encouraging and that we are beginning to see more and more in the arts of the region and further afield. In light of this, Annalee also presented the Fresh Milk Virtual Map of Caribbean Art Spaces. This resource is an online map indicating the existing art spaces across the region, which also includes links to the websites of these spaces. Working to circulate information regarding arts in the Caribbean, this map not only offers a regional view of how these spaces have manifested themselves across the Caribbean but will hopefully help to facilitate greater connectedness between these institutions. Finally, Annalee directed the audience’s attention to the addition of new publications to the Colleen Lewis Reading Room, located on the Fresh Milk site.

The Fresh Milk Artboard showcasing work by Evan Avery. Photograph by Annalee Davis.

Demonstrating the exciting new Fresh Milk initiative, our Virtual Map of Caribbean Art Spaces. Photograph by Mark King.

Fresh Milk XIII, which marked the platform’s final public event for 2013, fittingly brought together several of the elements integral to Fresh Milk’s mission; regional and international collaboration, experiment and exchange, knowledge of the contemporary arts, and increased visibility of Caribbean art all came into play. Moving forward, it is imperative to find the best way to activate these resources that Fresh Milk has made available, and continue to nurture the relationships built with artists such as damali and institutions such as ICI. In this way Fresh Milk will continue to evolve not only as an organization, but as an entity facilitating change by inspiring new ways of thinking, reaching new audiences and stimulating the public’s sensibility as we move towards intellectual and creative growth.

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About Jessica Taylor:

Damali Abrams’ Residency: Week 4 Report

November 1, 2013June 9, 20151 Comment

Damali Abrams. Photograph by Mark King.

This residency has brought me to a new level of possibility in my work. I am extremely grateful that I’ve had this opportunity. Every single moment has been a chance to learn and grow and be inspired. In Barbados and Grenada I absorbed more natural beauty than I ever thought possible. I have also seen the value of being part of new (to me) conversations in new (to me) places. I have learned a lot about myself and my limits and my strengths. I am filled with an incredible amount of inspiration and I am excited to see how it all manifests in my work.

Fresh Performance: Contemporary Performance Art in NYC & the Caribbean, the documentary that I came to this residency to complete, came out very differently from what I expected (but I expected that as well). During the last two weeks of the residency, the video took a huge turn. Its form completely transformed. When I was in Grenada, I found myself editing out huge chunks of the film. Things that just weren’t moving me in the same way that they had before. It became clear to me that if I was no longer finding it interesting, there was no way I could expect an audience to care. I began to leave in only the portions of the interviews that clearly explained the importance of performance to these particular artists. I wound up cutting about two-thirds of the piece. It went from about 90 minutes to roughly 30 minutes. Then I had to rearrange the clips so that the words of all of the artists I interviewed flowed together. It wasn’t until I got back to New York that I realized that the project had taken shape based on the conversations and experiences I had during the residency (which I think must be the entire point of a residency anyway).

Damali during the screening of her documentary. Photograph by Mark King.

The final presentation far exceeded my expectations. People in the audience were excited and inspired and said that they learned a lot about performance art from the documentary. I had been feeling pretty wrung out trying to get it done on time, and felt good that my intentions had come across clearly to the audience even though I view it as a work in progress. The audio was not as smooth as I would have liked but the next day I sent it to someone to have it cleaned up, because I have an opportunity to show Fresh Performance again very soon.

The documentary will be part of an exhibition called Face Time: New Portraiture Now opening on Friday November 8, 2013 at Ground Floor Gallery in Brooklyn. I am excited to see how it is received in a gallery setting where people are just seeing bits and pieces of it versus the sit-down screening that we had at Fresh Milk. Also, how will the New York art audience’s response compare to the Barbadian art audience? The questions that led to this project about art in the Caribbean and in New York are even more intriguing to me after this experience. I want to continue to find ways to keep that conversation going. Especially since many of us in New York are either born in the Caribbean or are part of the Caribbean diaspora, it seems like a natural discussion to continue having.

damali abrams addressing the audience at FRESH MILK XIII

Screening damali abrams' documentary Fresh Performance: Contemporary Performance Art in NYC & the Caribbean

I cannot thank Fresh Milk and Groundation Grenada enough for allowing me this opportunity to travel through art and connect with so many artists and creatives. I felt completely supported and because they were willing to believe in my work and invest in me, I feel more confident in my work as well. And thank you to the twelve amazing artists who were willing to share their time and their processes with me. I would also like to thank the U.S. Embassy Bridgetown for funding this residency.

– Damali Abrams

Versia Harris’ Residency at the IBB – Final Update

October 30, 2013May 20, 2015Leave a comment

Barbadian artist Versia Harris blogs about her residency at the Instituto Buena Bista (IBB) in Curacao, where she recently completed her stint in their International Project Space programme for the month of October, 2013.

The End…

Friday marked the end of my five week residency at the IBB in Curacao. A truly wonderful experience filled with ups and downs. I am flying away from this island but I will hold it in my little heart pocket with all other things that I am fond of.

The two weeks of workshop with the students were the most challenging part of the residency, but it was also one of the highlights of my stay. It was physically draining and it delayed my other work. It challenged my patience but it also opened my eyes to what teaching entails. It’s more than just passing knowledge and advice, it’s also caring enough to push the students, especially when they don’t want to or feel like they can’t do something. At times I felt like I am still too selfish to pour this amount of time and energy into mentoring someone. And yet watching them produce their own animations and then seeing the finished products made me happy and proud to have been able to teach someone something new.

Work produced by IBB students out of their animation classes with Versia Harris

The last two weeks were the most productive. Before coming to Curacao, I had just finished my second animation and was now searching for a direction or at least a starting point for my next video. When I started to work I was drawn to the same kinds of images that I had created for my previous animations, i.e. the open landscape and the small room, devoid of almost all furniture. So I decided to place a version of myself in the images to see what could be revealed to me. The scenes became not just environments, but more about my attitude towards dealing with fantasy. And in creating these images, I thought about the construction of fantasy and how reality and fantasy constantly inform each other – and so the video became an experiment about the layering of fantasy and reality. Two projectors were placed facing each other with a screen in the middle. A different video played on each one, but because they were projected onto the same surface it was viewed as one video. In preparing for this I was forced to use new computer programs and to learn new ways of producing video.

The exhibition at the end was a culmination of my digital prints and video, and the students animations. They also opened their studios for the viewers to walk through and observe their other works.

I fell in love with the Curacao landscape and no amount of pictures or videos is enough for me to have when I leave. The IBB is a great place with great people managing it and also passing through it. I immensely appreciate the challenges I faced here, and I am inspired by the things I loved.

Thank You IBB!

To view footage of Versia’s final exhibition and presentation at the IBB, click here.