Tag: Residency

Versia Harris’ Residency – Week 4 Report

Leave a comment

One of the students at St. Gabriels drew a picture of Versia

This week was the wrapping up of the animation I have been doing for the past month. On Monday, I went to St. Gabriel’s Primary School to talk with the students of J4 about Walt Disney animations in a similar way to the discussion I had with the students of Workman’s Primary. The J4 students showed a keen interest in the Walt Disney films, as expected, but they also had high interest in animation making. Some of them even produced some pretty cool animated stories and flip books.

The rest of the week went relatively quietly, as I edited images and added sound to my work. Mark King started his residency this week and Aaron Kamugisha came to visit and have a chat with me about my work on Thursday.

At the start of this residency, I had set out to relax myself and experiment with something new in my animation. This process has not been without hiccups and bumps along the way. At the very beginning, I didn’t really have a concrete idea but soon progressed to having multiple ideas and not being sure which direction to take. And then, as I solidified my concept, the technical difficulties started. But all of these things were expected. I know now that the process of the animation is not easily compressed into such a small amount of time and so when the inevitable hiccups do come along it takes away from the progress of the work. But overall, I feel satisfied with what I’ve done even though I’m sure that I have just scratched the surface of a topic that could be explored a lot further and given a lot more consideration. The animation produced is a little over a minute long, in which I attempted to portray the tug of war between the physical world and the internet by presenting a series of contrasts. One of the ultimate questions arising was this: “In what ways does one realm pull our minds away from the other and to what extent?” And though I am not certain that I will continue this project in this particular way, I am glad that I did start to explore this area even if for such a short while.

This residency has been a much appreciated gauge for me in terms of experiencing how a one month long residency goes. I am about to embark on my first international residency for 4 weeks in Vermont, USA. I am aware that not all situations are created equal and the month I spend in Vermont could turn out to be completely different, but I do feel more prepared for the challenge of handling limited time.

I want to specially thank Annalee Davis, the director Fresh Milk and Katherine Kennedy, the Assistant to Director, for the opportunity and for supporting and assisting me along the way.

Versia Harris’ Residency – Week 3 Report

Leave a comment

A visit to Workman’s Primary School as a part of my Community Outreach, kick started week three of my residency. I formulated a few questions and went with the intention of having a conversation with the students of class 4 about their thoughts and feelings on Disney films and characters, and also about the prominence of television in their daily lives. It was a first for me, interacting with that number of kids in that setting; I’m not very up to date on what the kids of today are like. However, they were surprisingly pleasant and very cooperative. In between the humor and fun that I had talking to these children, the answers to my questions were a mixture of the expected and unexpected. They gave me some insight into how they saw these films and how much they actually watched TV. Granted, this was only a class of about fifteen students, a number too small to be projected across the generation but they do watch a lot more TV than I did at that age. To them, watching TV was on par, if not more desired, with going outside to play. This relates to the concept of my animation about the push and pull between the physical world and the virtual one.

Later in the week Alicia Alleyne and Shanika Grimes came to the studio, along with my usual company of Katherine Kennedy. Even though each of us was set to our individual tasks and projects, I was glad for the company and the conversations. Sheena Rose and Mark King also came out to see my progress and to give feedback.

Through the laughter, the heated discussions and the dismantling of Annalee Davis’ work – which by the way took four people, two days and a lot of effort – this week also brought me some challenges with my work. Technological malfunctions are inevitable. But the despair of a program breakdown is magnified when it is your primary source of work. Obviously, working with technology for at least a year and half now, I expect it to malfunction or an important program to suddenly stop working, and yet after all this time it doesn’t get any less frustrating, especially when it hinders progress within the short period of time that I have. In any case all is restored and the animation continues.

Still from one of Versia's new animations

Versia Harris’ Residency – Week 2 Report

1 Comment

Still shot of Versia Harris' work so far

Yay for week two at Fresh Milk! This week was my adventure week. I spent a lot of time outside, either working or exploring with happiness in my every step. And in between the swing set, the creepy but gorgeous gully, electric wires, dead chickens, being followed by cows, the feather finding and hill climbing, I got closer to a concrete idea for the residency. In fact, the back and forth between my investigations on the computer and my explorations outdoors is what solidified it for me. I began to see my computer as not only a passage way to a worldwide network of communication and activity, but also as some sort of cocoon or cage. In other words, it connected me to a virtual world of business and recreational interaction and also the “world” of my creation; my animations. But, at the same time, being connected through the computer meant I was disconnected from my surroundings and the environment I was in. I realized that just as the screen offered so many possibilities of interaction and exploration, so did the physical world. The work that I have been producing during the week is centered on these ideas. The lino block prints that I have been doing within the animation have been yielding results that I am pleased with.

Onward to week three.

FRESH MILK Announces its International Residency Opportunity

1 Comment

FRESH MILK's International Residency Announcement

On the heels of our recently begun Local Residency Programme for 2013, FRESH MILK is pleased to announce the launch of its International Residency Opportunity, inviting artists worldwide to apply to spend 1-3 months developing their work on the Fresh Milk Platform in Barbados. Expanding the platform to include international creatives allows FRESH MILK to increase its networking capabilities, embracing those working in the English, French, Spanish and Dutch Caribbean as well as those functioning beyond the region, widening our possibilities to build even larger conversations and facilitate more dynamic collaborations. FRESH MILK is delighted to be part of a global community, allied with creative minds on the ground and in the ‘cloud,’ opening up all kinds of amazing possibilities for us to connect through the arts. There are currently openings for residencies in April, May, June, and September, October, November for 2013. Applications can be submitted on an ongoing basis.

The establishment of the international residency included registering with the Res Artis worldwide network of artist residencies, an association of over 400 entities – the largest network of its kind. FRESH MILK is honoured to not only be a part of such a vital association, but also to be one of the only Caribbean organisations listed on their database. View FRESH MILK’s profile on Res Artis here.

For additional information, including costs, accommodation options and the full application procedure, visit our newly added International Artist Residency Opportunity page.