In the third week of her Fresh Milk residency, British artist and filmmaker of Caribbean heritage Helen Cammock faced challenges both health and footage-wise. Despite this, she managed to visit Bulkeley Sugar Factory, Portvale Museum and Harrison’s Cave while continuing to conduct research, reflecting on these varied locales and the histories of the island that are often simultaneously visible and invisible. Read more below:

This week…

I have lost my best bit of footage – the kind you can only hope will happen when everything just comes together – the slip of a hand and it’s gone.

I have been ill for a few days with what we think might be the Zika Virus – all over rash, fever, sore eye sockets, joints and muscles.

But earlier in the week I did film at Bulkeley sugar factory…

…and Portvale sugar museum…and I spoke for a long time with a worker at Portvale who talked me though the whole sugar refining process with the love and knowledge of a scientist. He told me how he’d wanted to be an artist, but his father couldn’t afford to put him through college. He had sadness, regret (and a suspicious fire in his eye as he looked over me, my college education and my expensive equipment) but he said he loved the sugar refining process and spoke of it as a painter sees or an author writes. He said that although the sugar industry was an extension of the colonial machine, he still loved to see the chemical processes involved in the building of sugar crystals – getting the balance right with the extracting and condensing water and felt proud that he felt master of this process.

I have driven and navigated across the island without getting lost.

And the Museum library has continued to offer up interesting information about the Silver Men of the Panama Canal…it has all brought me back to thinking about how historically. so much we revere has been built by invisibles…there’s too much left unsaid, unseen and unacknowledged. So much stolen, appropriated and fabricated.

We visited the screening programme run by Andrew Millington at the Errol Barrow Centre for the Creative Imagination (EBCCI), a branch of the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus and watched a film that gave insight into a man’s journey to connect with his ancestral history, and in so doing, gave insight into the history and contemporary experiences of the Maroons of Jamaica. On the way home we discussed the significance of legacy and impact of access/lack of, to knowledge about personal, community and cultural legacy.

Harrison’s Caves…

And I sat in the quiet unsubstantiated safety of the library and started to think more about Appropriation – why, when who and how…

Fresh Milk resident artist Helen Cammock shares her second blog post about her time in Barbados, which has uncovered a wealth of information and material for her practice. This week included an artist talk at Barbados Community College, a photography workshop at Workmans Primary School, visits to the Barbados Museum, St Nicholas Abbey and Morgan Lewis Windmill, revisiting Animal Flower Cave and even witnessing the moments immediately following the birth of a foal. Read more about the impact of these experiences below:

Knock, crash, trip, battery, tripod, shoes
in our lumber you had arrived
An hour of licking and falling, licking and falling again
we saw you experience the world you had rushed to be a part of

Then there was the artist talk at Barbados Community College – focus, questions and trying to share something of what I want to say with my work.

Then there was the Workman’s Primary School photography workshop – two groups of excited and charming class 3 students. A whistle- stop on portraits, communicating with images and unrivalled enthusiasm finished off with two short dances to Beyoncé to conclude. The school was welcoming and very open to working with artists – a refreshing experience.

Next I walked in the torrential rain to the Barbados Museum Library where I nearly succumbed to an onset of hypothermia due to the highly emphatic air conditioning.

Books, letters, newspaper cuttings, more books and a conversation with a Canadian trying to track someone from his home town from the 17^th Century. I am now a member of the historical society there and will return as much as I can before I leave – jumper firmly in hand.

Then there was a return to Animal Flower Cave – down inside the cave again and with a coastal shoot up high on the windy windy cliff tops of the North Point which taxed my bending tripod to its limits.

And then I focussed on Sugar – the journey had begun in the library and led me to St Nicholas Abbey Grind, Morgan Lewis Windmill and the old disused mill here on Walkers Plantation. I photographed and filmed, machinery, architecture, process, and details. I met a mill operator who had been a mental health social worker in Hackney where I live and we chatted about London and the life change required to move back to Barbados, the place of his birth. With another mill worker I discussed the throwing of Mahogany and Sycamore seeds as helicopters when children – different trees, different countries, same concept. He lamented the creativity and simplicity of such games and wondered whether his children even knew what the mahogany seeds looked like…

Then I have sat all week – in my room, in the studio, on the beach with the books from the Colleen Lewis Reading Room that have triggered my thoughts about Sugar, The Panama Canal and Legacy.

On Thursday I’ll film Bulkeley sugar factory and on Friday, Portvale Factory and museum.

Then I’ll begin to consider how to develop a conversation with all this imagery. Where it will lead I don’t know yet, but I know that my head is full of smells, thoughts, conversations and newness that will begin to find a juncture with all the practice, cultural, personal and theoretical concerns I have brought with me here.