Tag: Caribbean

Open Call: The Fresh Milk ArtBoard

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The Fresh Milk Art Platform, Barbados, shares a regional open call for Caribbean visual artists to submit digital pieces for consideration to be displayed on our Fresh Milk ArtBoard. In an effort to generate interest in work by contemporary artists and share it with the public, Fresh Milk uses the ArtBoard as a ‘public gallery’, as it is located by a busy road on the outskirts of the active dairy farm that houses our studio. The successful applicant will receive a fee of $1,000.00 BBD ($500 USD) for their work.

Requirements:

  • Artists must be citizens of the Caribbean
  • Artwork must be sent as a digital file (JPG, PNG, PDF, TIF or PSD)
  • Artwork must be very high resolution, and able to be printed clearly at the size 89” x 89”
  • The work, a statement about the proposed work (no more than 350 words) and a bio (no more than 250 words) should be sent to freshmilkbarbados@gmail.com. This can also be done via WeTransfer or Dropbox
  • Please keep in mind that the Fresh Milk logo and signage for the ArtBoard will be incorporated along the left side of the 89” x 89” design, as seen in previous Fresh Milk ArtBoard editions

The deadline for submission of works is July 21, 2017. The selected piece will be on display from August, 2017, which coincides both with Fresh Milk’s 6th Anniversary as well as the hosting of the regional festival CARIFESTA XIII in Barbados, and will be on display for a minimum of 6 months.

 

Letitia Pratt’s Residency – First Blog Post

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Bahamian writer Letitia Pratt shares her first blog post about her Fresh Milk residency. Letitia speaks of feeling a particular, loaded spiritual energy in Barbados, which she is responding to in her work while also conducting research around Caribbean myths and folklore, finding that she is being influenced in unexpected ways. Read more below:

This Fresh Milk Residency that I was awarded is truly an invaluable opportunity, and I am immensely grateful to be here. When I received the acceptance letter, I knew its weight would be something that haunted me if I decided to let this residency slip through my fingers. So I prepared to make this trip, driven by the…feeling that this June, this residency is where I am supposed to be.

As I landed in Barbados late Sunday afternoon, I was immediately overwhelmed by the spiritual energy of this place. It was bright and rushed over me like rain water. I came here intending to write poems of a woman and her lover, but I am letting the piece run away with the aura of this island. I let it go freely, allowing the words to find themselves on their own, and soon, my protagonist began to show herself to me.

The poetic narrative that I am writing centers around a Hag Woman (or the Ole-Higue, the Soucouyant, the Loogaroo) that my grandmother told me stories of just to frighten me as a child. Prior to my arrival here, my research on this character focused primarily on what the legend meant to Bahamian women in particular. However, as she found her words, the character began to reflect the feminine resistance to the silencing that patriarchal religions (read: Christianity) have enforced on African women over centuries of colonization. I began researching the religious origins of her story and discovered that the Hag character is a woman who holds great spiritual power. It is appropriate, then, that I write of this woman in a place that is enveloped in great spiritual energy.

The misogyny reflected in the relationship between the woman and her lover, then, intensifies if one considers the religious (read: Christian) demonization of the feminine. The Hag Woman’s reputation reflects the effort of the patriarchy to proclaim that non-Christian feminine religious symbols and people (i.e. cats, witches) are inherently evil. Presently, I am still researching the religious role of the Hag character in African religion, and every so often, Katherine or Annalee would silently place a book on Caribbean myths and religions beside me as I am lost in thought about the Hag Woman and her words.

Katherine and Annalee have been so helpful and accommodating during my welcome here that I hardly realized that the week went by. I am thankful for their support and really admire the artistic community that they have created here at Fresh Milk. Hopefully, the wisdom that I gain here from them both, the other artists, and the spirits of this place will be reflected in the piece as I write.

Open Call: TVE 2017 – Deadline Extended

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Deadline extended until July 20, 2017

Fresh Milk and Footscray Community Arts Centre are pleased to welcome submissions of recent film and video works – screenings, installations, new media and expanded cinema – by contemporary artists, to be included in the second edition of Transoceanic Visual Exchange (TVE), a series of programmes taking place this year between Barbados and Australia. Submitted works must have been completed in the last five years and must be made by artists practicing in the Caribbean, Oceania and their diasporas.

TVE will be a collection of recent artists’ films and videos from each region. However, the final shape and content of the programme will be informed by a community curatorial process, which aims to involve and promote discussion within the wider arts communities of each participating initiative.

Working between the Caribbean, Oceania (Pacific Islands) and their diasporas, TVE aims to negotiate the in-between space of our cultural communities outside of traditional geo-political zones of encounter and trade. TVE intends to build relations and open up greater pathways of visibility, discourse and knowledge production between the regional art spaces and their communities.

Submission Requirements:  

  • Must be work from artists practicing in the Caribbean, Oceania (Pacific Islands) and their diasporas

  • Must be work that has been completed/made in the last five years.

  • Can be films of any length (shorts, experimental, features and video artworks)

  • Can be in any language (films originally produced in regional languages are welcome)

  • Multiple submissions are welcome

  • Must be accompanied by a description of the work (500 words max), a bio (200 words max) and detail of any technical requirements i.e. audio, installation, equipment required, preferred setting etc.

  • Works must be in the form of mp4 files no larger than 10MB, or private Vimeo / Youtube links

  • Works must not have been submitted to the previous edition of TVE

Deadline for submissions: July 20, 2017

Please send Caribbean submissions to: tveproject.caribbean@gmail.com

Please send Oceania submissions to: tveproject.oceania@gmail.com

For more information on TVE and its first iteration, visit the website transoceanicvisualexchange.com

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About Fresh Milk:

Fresh Milk is an artist-led, non-profit organisation founded in 2011 and based in Barbados. It is a platform which supports excellence in the visual arts through residencies and programmes that provide Caribbean artists with opportunities for development, fostering a thriving art community.

Fresh Milk offers professional support to artists from the Caribbean and further afield and seeks to stimulate critical thinking in contemporary visual art. Its goal is to nurture artists, raise regional awareness about contemporary arts and provide Caribbean artists with opportunities for growth, excellence and success.

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About Footscray Community Arts Centre:

Footscray Community Arts Centre (FCAC) is a community-engaged, contemporary arts centre working with local, regional and international communities.

We collaborate with artists, communities and organisations to build capacity, create opportunities and drive social change. We are the place where important conversations happen: we then action; we cultivate; we deepen.

Digital copies of RA: Representing Artists now housed on the Fresh Milk website

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The quarterly Barbadian and Caribbean arts newsletter RA (Representing Artists) was produced in the early nineties, spearheaded by a group of Barbados-based artists who saw the need to create a forum for more critical writing around contemporary arts in the region.

As part of her Tilting Axis Fellowship that has seen her travel to arts spaces throughout the Caribbean, Jamaican writer and curator Nicole Smythe-Johnson has digitized all six editions of this newsletter to make them available for public access on the Fresh Milk website. This inaugural curatorial fellowship is supported by the British Council.

With so many ongoing conversations about the development and future of Caribbean art today, it is important to know the history of spaces and what has laid the foundations for these discussions. Over the last 24 years, how have things changed? What has remained the same? We hope that these texts can be a source of inspiration, evaluation and critique, both for the state of the creative environment then and for encouraging productive discourse moving forward.

Edited by: Annalee Davis
Designed by: Arthur Atkinson (Issues 1-4) and Kristine Dear (Issues 5 & 6)

Contributors: Annalee Davis, Allison Thompson, Ras Akyem, Ras Ishi, Christopher Cozier, Nick Whittle, Alison Greaves, Roger Lipsey, Ken Corsbie, Dominique Brebion, Stan Kuiperi, Marianne de Tolentino, Dennis Tourbin, Petrona Morrison, Gayle Hermick, Geoffrey MacLean, Elizabeth Barnum and Sharen Carmichael

Click here to access the full issues on our Projects Page.