Fresh Milk is pleased to share our 2023 highlights newsletter, including our work with amazing partners locally, regionally and internationally, while celebrating grants that have us bursting with gratitude and happiness!

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In Barbados, we collaborated with the Future Centre Trust on our project for the Healing Arts Initiative (a programme by UK-based organisation Culturunners), while regionally we worked on an offshoot of the Caribbean Linked residency programme with Ateliers ‘89 Punto di Beyas Arte Aruba, the BIAC-Réseaux and Campus Caraïbeen des Arts (CCA) in Martinique, and participated in the inaugural FUZE Art Expo in the Bahamas. Internationally, our relationships with Rotterdam- and Amsterdam-based partners have grown deeper through the Tilting Axis Fellowship.

We’re also beyond delighted to celebrate with all of you the most amazing news of Fresh Milk having been successfully awarded a grant for 2024-2026 by the US-based Mellon Foundation’s Arts and Culture programme in support of our operating and programming expenses.

Mellon believes that “Art and artists are essential to human connection,” and we couldn’t agree more. We go into action this year to work on elevating the local contemporary visual art community in exciting ways, continuing to support the region’s creative network, while also looking for new partners to come on board. Stay tuned for more information as we focus on the local and Caribbean contemporary visual art community with some exciting plans for the next three years!

Read the full newsletter here

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If you would like to support the work we do in Caribbean arts, go ahead and click on the donate button below! It’s very easy to support us and the artists we work with by making a donation through this PayPal link. Your contributions make our programmes possible, and gifts of any size are welcome.

Thank you for your continued support, and we’d like to express gratitude to the many artists who we have had the honour of working with across the Caribbean as we continue to find ways of celebrating and nurturing creativity.

We look forward to continuing our creative journey together in 2024, and hope for peace and the cessation of war and conflict the world over.

The BIAC in collaboration with Caribbean Linked presents “TRANS-SISTORS”

October 6, 2023October 6, 2023Leave a comment

As part of the International Biennial of Contemporary Art (BIAC) in Martinique, supported by the European fund INTERREG Caribbean, the Campus Caraïbéen des Arts (CCA) in partnership with the Collectivité Territoriale de Martinique (CTM), and Ateliers’ 89 in Aruba, the exhibition “TRANS-SISTORS” will run from October 7 to November 6, 2023, at the La Véranda Gallery of the Tropiques Atrium, Scène Nationale in Fort de France, Martinique.

This exhibition is produced under the curatorship of Elvis Lopez, Director of Ateliers ’89 and a visual artist from Aruba. Four young artists from the Caribbean: Franz Caba (Dominican Republic), Taisha Carrington (Barbados), Chamika Germain (St. Martin) and Brice Lautric (Guadeloupe), will exhibit the work they produced as part of the Caribbean Linked artist residency exchange which took place in Martinique and Aruba between April and September.

Caribbean Linked is a program of artist residencies and exhibitions offering a space to raise awareness of the region’s disparate creative communities by bringing together emerging artists from the English, French, Spanish, and Dutch Caribbean.

This exhibition, held at the Tropiques-Atrium, was born from the desire to show the general public the work made by these artists during their residency. Two of the artists, Germain and Lautric, are CCA graduates. Since the start of 2023 and as part of the BIAC, residency exchanges with international artists, and curatorial training for students in collaboration with Martinique-based institutions are being coordinated by the Campus Caraïbéen Arts. This regional exchange programme will continue through 2024.

Caribbean Linked partners with The Biennale Internationale d’Art Contemporain

March 30, 2023Leave a comment

Caribbean Linked is pleased to partner with BIAC-Réseaux, a project supported by the EU funds Interreg Caraïbes, the Collectivité Territoriale de Martinique (CTM) and Campus Caraïbéen des Arts (CCA) on an intra-Caribbean residency supporting four artists who will each embark on a 4-week residency either in Martinique or Aruba.

The jury comprising representatives from Ateliers ‘89 Punto di Beyas Arte Aruba, BIAC-Réseaux, CCA and Fresh Milk reviewed the open calls and collectively selected Franz Caba (Dominican Republic), Taisha Carrington (Barbados), Chamika Germain (St. Martin) and Brice Lautric (Guadeloupe).

Caba and Carrington are alumni of the Caribbean Linked residency programme which was established in 2012 and has supported over 60 artists, writers and curators hosted by Ateliers ‘89, while Germain and Lautric are artists with diploma issued by the CCA.

Caribbean Linked is a regional residency and exhibition organised by Ateliers ’89 in collaboration with ARC Inc. and The Fresh Milk Art Platform Inc. It is a crucial space for building awareness across disparate creative communities by bringing together emerging artists from Anglophone, Francophone, Hispanic and Dutch Antillean Caribbean islands. This partnership with Martinique-based partners provides ongoing support to the Caribbean Linked alumni by building opportunities with our colleagues in the Francophone region.

The BIAC-Réseaux project aims to strengthen cultural networks across the Caribbean through training and a chain of artistic events culminating with the BIAC, which will take place in Martinique from October to December 2023. Curated by the South African curator Tumelo Mosaka, the show will bring together renowned Martinican, Caribbean and international artists and emerging practitioners.

CATAPULT Stay Home Artist Residency Blogs – Issue 3, Vol. 3 & 4

January 10, 2021January 10, 2021Leave a comment

The CATAPULT Stay Home Artist Residency (SHAR) provides opportunities for 24 cultural practitioners from the English, French, Spanish and Dutch speaking Caribbean to be supported while safely remaining in their studios/work-spaces, each of whom will receive a $3,000 USD stipend to produce work over a two-month period.

We are pleased to share Issue #3, Volume 3 and Volume 4 of the blog posts produced by participating residents, documenting their experiences and processes during their residency. Issue #3 follows the journey of the third group of SHAR awardees: Franz Caba (Dominican Republic), Myrlande Constant (Haiti), Miguel Keerveld (Suriname), Las Nietas de Nonó (Puerto Rico), Ada M. Patterson (Barbados), Kelly Sinnapah Mary (Guadeloupe), Shivanee Ramlochan (Trinidad & Tobago) and Angelika Wallace-Whitfield (The Bahamas).

Click on the images below to read these sets of resident blogs as e-zines!

Issue 3, Vol. 3

Issue 3, Vol. 4

ABOUT CATAPULT:

CATAPULT | A Caribbean Arts Grant is a COVID-19 relief programme conceptualised by Kingston Creative (Jamaica) and Fresh Milk (Barbados) and funded by the American Friends of Jamaica | The AFJ (USA). Designed as a capacity building initiative it will directly provide financial support to over 1,000 Caribbean artists, cultural practitioners and creative entrepreneurs impacted by the pandemic and working in the themes of culture, human rights, gender, LGBTQIA+, and climate justice.

ABOUT THE PARTNERS:

American Friends of Jamaica | The AFJ has a near 40 year history of funding charitable organizations in Jamaica in the fields of Education, Healthcare and Economic Development. A registered 501 c 3 nonprofit headquartered in New York City, AFJ relies on individual and corporate contributions made by donors who believe in our work and will advocate on our behalf. Part of the AFJ’s mission is to facilitate donor directed contributions which enables donors to support registered charitable organizations aligned with their own goals for philanthropy.

Kingston Creative is a registered non-profit organization founded in February 2017. Its mission is to enable creatives to succeed so that they can create economic and social value, gain access to global markets and have a positive impact on their community.

Fresh Milk is an organisation whose aim is to nurture, empower and connect Caribbean artists, raise regional awareness about contemporary arts and provide global opportunities for growth, excellence and success. Fresh Milk supports excellence in the visual arts through residencies and programmes that provide Caribbean artists with opportunities for development and foster a thriving art community.

CATAPULT Stay Home Artist Residency Blogs – Issue 3, Vol. 1 & 2

December 1, 2020January 10, 2021Leave a comment

We are pleased to share Issue #3, Volume 1 and Volume 2 of the blog posts produced by participating residents, documenting their experiences and processes during their residency. Issue #3 follows the journey of the third group of SHAR awardees: Franz Caba (Dominican Republic), Myrlande Constant (Haiti), Miguel Keerveld (Suriname), Las Nietas de Nonó (Puerto Rico), Ada M. Patterson (Barbados), Kelly Sinnapah Mary (Guadeloupe), Shivanee Ramlochan (Trinidad & Tobago) and Angelika Wallace-Whitfield (The Bahamas).