Tag: Residency

Versia Harris’ Residency: Week One Report

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The Fresh Milk Art Platform studio feels a lot like home. Granted, my neighborhood scenery and atmosphere is not nearly as serene, but the quietness and time spent alone in the studio seems very familiar. That and the fact that I have spent a solid amount of time at Fresh Milk for various events and workshops since its launch in 2011 makes me comfortable in the space given to me.  For the first two days I wondered whether this was a blessing or a problem. Because I was so at ease with the space and with Annalee, the Director and Katherine, the Assistant to Director, I could find my groove quickly and be able to focus on executing whatever idea I had. But then, what if I wouldn’t be stimulated to create something outside of my comfort zone because of the familiarity?

I spent four days of the week at Fresh Milk; Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. On Wednesday I stayed home and realized the comfort I felt at Fresh Milk was because of a lack of pressure. During my daily life, after everyone has left for work and school, I have the quietness and space needed to focus my attention on my animation, one that I have been working on for the past 6 months. But I also feel a slight but constant pressure to produce something, anything of value; to feel like I am ‘doing something’ after leaving Barbados Community College (BCC). This pressure, self-imposed though it may be, keeps me active at home. However, when at Fresh Milk, I do not feel that pressure. The program gives me a specific purpose; there’s the ultimate goal of producing a fresh piece of work from this. It reminds me of having a deadline, like we so often did at BCC, which is comforting in its own way. At home though, there are no deadlines, no ‘projects’; I’m basically working to keep active and current, and therefore end up putting the pressure on myself to have work ready to avoid the feeling of idleness.

This past week I have been experimenting with lino block printing and my pen drawing in animation form. I have been considering the idea of incorporating lino block prints with my animated drawing for some time now, and Fresh Milk affords me the time and mental space to do that. I am stepping away from my animation film for a while to experiment with the printmaking. After a week, my thoughts and ideas are still very unresolved and scattered, but as week two starts I am intrigued by what could happen.

Announcement of FRESH MILK’s Local Resident Artists for 2013

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FRESH MILK Local Resdiency Announcement

FRESH MILK is pleased to announce the selection of contemporary creatives taking part in its 2013 Local Residency Programme, sponsored by support received from the Arts and Sport Promotion Fund, Ministry of Finance, Barbados.

The residency programme was first launched in 2012, beginning with a short but successful 5 day local residency in March, and has since included projects with artists who have been based abroad, visiting from overseas and from other Caribbean islands.

The latest call for proposals was once again for local participants, and five artists working in a variety of media were selected for the available residency slots.

The creatives are:

  • Visual artist and animator Versia Harris;
  • Photographer Mark King;
  • Playwright and actor Matthew ‘Kupakwashe’ Murrell;
  • Filmmaker Cabral ‘LARC’ Trotman, who will be collaborating with spoken word artist Adrian Green.

The dates of these four-week long residencies are to be announced. The programme kicks off with Versia Harris, who is in residence from February 25th – March 22nd prior to embarking on her international residency at the Vermont Studio Center, USA in late March.

About the Artists:

Versia Harris

Versia Harris

Versia Harris is a Barbadian artist living and working in Weston, St. James. She graduated from the Barbados Community College BFA in Studio Art programme in 2012, with an award from The Leslie’s Legacy Foundation for the most promising student, and will be taking up a residency at the Vermont Studio Center in March 2013. She created a narrative of an original character to address the perceptions of self, as it compares its image with unrealistic standards. Her primary media includes pen and watercolour on paper. She also uses Adobe Photoshop to manipulate her drawings and create animations.

Website: http://versiaabeda.tumblr.com/

Mark King

Mark King

Mark King is a Barbados-based photographer. In 2011, he participated in a screenprinting artist in residency at the Frans Masereel Centrum in Kasterlee, Belgium. In the same year he was selected by Lucie Foundation for their E-pprentice program and paired with acclaimed photographer Roger Erickson for a six-month apprenticeship. Mark recently was artist in residence at Alice Yard  in Port of Spain, Trinidad.

Mark has called Barbados, The Bahamas, Brussels, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. home. His international experience directly informs his projects. As a constant outsider, Mark’s work examines the people he encounters during his travels as well as his relationship with an ever-changing environment.

Website: www.markkingismarkings.com

Matthew 'Kupakwashe' Murrell

Matthew ‘Kupakwashe’ Murrell

Matthew ‘Kupakwashe’ Murrell is an actor, playwright, director and poet with special skills in film, photography and singing. He has successfully completed his BA in Fine Arts, with a special in theatre arts and a minor in film. His first national play debut ‘Precious’ came in 2005, written by Sir. Hilary Beckles and directed by C.M. Harclyde Walcott. He has done several plays such as ‘Yellowman’ directed by full bright scholar, Meredith Coleman Tobias, ‘Dutchman’ directed by famed Nigerian director, Dr. Esiaba Irobi, ‘Odale’s Choice’ directed by Sonia Williams, and ‘Looking Back at Sodom’ directed by Winston Farrell, amongst many others.

 In addition to winning several awards regionally and locally, Matthew is also the founder of emerging Barbadian group Yardie Boy Theatre, which is dedicated to showcasing Barbadian/Caribbean stories. Their works are focused on social and political issues, and seek to be the voice of a generation.

Yardie Boy Theatre’s Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/backyardtheatre

Cabral 'LARC' Trotman

Cabral ‘LARC’ Trotman

Born in Toronto Canada to Barbadian parents, LARC as he’s affectionately known to most is a filmmaker, arts educator and community activist. After the year of the gun in Toronto (2005) LARC decided that it was critical to play a small role in creating safe spaces where young people could acquire skills while discovering positive outlets of expression. He started by designing and facilitating filmmaking workshops in low-income, inner-city communities where he began to link many of the current issues faced by youth to a lack of leadership/mentorship in the community. He also noticed a real lack of ancestral/family values and connections with the many gang related black youth he worked with daily. His community work intensified, spreading out to various public housing communities across Toronto from Community Centers to Elementary, Middle School to High Schools.

LARC is developing a feature documentary entitled Hidden Bruises: HIV & Violence in the Caribbean, a documentary and awareness campaign contributing to the national and regional effort to reduce the prevalence of both HIV & violence against women in the Caribbean.

He continues his arts education and filmmaking work in the Caribbean at the Errol Barrow Centre for Creative Imagination, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados; coupled with his independent company Skylarc Pictures through the First Light Project Arts Education program.

Adrian Green

Adrian Green

Adrian Green is a Gold Award winner in Barbados’ National Festival of Creative Arts (NIFCA), a three time Barbadian Slam Poetry Champion, and two time winner of the Emancipation Roots Experience Show. Green represented Barbados at CARIFESTA X in Guyana and has performed to audiences in several countries, including the USA, Ghana, Grenada, St. Vincent, Dominica, Nevis, St. Thomas and Tortola. He has released two albums of poetry, “Random Acts of Conscience,” and “Hard Ears.”

As the co-founder of Iron Sharpen Iron, Green has been instrumental in producing the longest running and most successful open-mic show in Barbados.  These open-mic shows were designed to help emerging performing artists develop and have been instrumental in the uncovering and propelling of a number of young artists to the national stage.

FRESH MILK X

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FM X flyer

FRESH MILK X will be held on Sunday, February 3rd 2013, 5:30-7:00pm at the Milking Parlour Studio, St. George (see our About page for directions).

Malaika Brooks-Smith-Lowe: Final Talk and Screening

Still shots from Malaika Brooks-Smith-Lowe's filming

Taking the platform at FRESH MILK X is Grenadian artist Malaika Brooks-Smith-Lowe, Fresh Milk’s current artist in residence. She will be screening her new short film featuring Barbadian actor and Managing Director of Mustardseed Productions Varia Williams (above).

Malaika’s Concept:

This short film will paint a portrait of a woman in her late twenties/thirties and her navigation, not so much through her life, but through her thoughts about her life.  It will be an intimate meandering through the disjointed waters of her daily internal dialogue. As Stuart Hall has written, the past “…is always constructed through memory, fantasy, narrative and myth.” The site of this interpretation of our past experiences, and those of the people around us, is always located in the present. So, our moments of “now” are constantly occupied with reinterpretations and reshuffling of our past in relation to what we are encountering anew. This film seeks to explore the complex and ever fluctuating relationships that we have with our experiences and the sense of being/ego that is built around these experiences. What snippets of society/family/relationships run through our daily thoughts? What perceptions of our past, and potential future, blur our experiencing of our present moments? How do we find a balance between a blur and a necessary reflection/planning? Can we clear space and opt for neither, for just a moment of experience without constant interpretation?

Yardie Boy Theatre Presents: Prisoner

yardie prisoner

FRESH MILK X will also feature a reading of an excerpt from the play ‘PRISONER’, written by Kupakwashe, Barbadian actor and founder of Yardie Boy Theatre, and performed by Kupakwashe and Barbadian actor/director Russell Watson.

 About Prisoner:

Set in prison, John a convicted murderer is on death row being guarded by his older and unforgiving brother Winslow. A 25 minute play full of intensity, graphic in nature and volatile in words. Prisoner is a socio-political play that rides on the themes of ‘big brother is watching’ and ‘being a brother’s keeper’.

About Yardie Boy Theatre:

Yardie Boy Theatre is a young emerging theatre group dedicating to showcasing Barbadian/Caribbean stories through the medium of theatre. Their works are very social and political and seeks to be the voice of a generation.

NB: This performance contains content of an adult nature and is not suitable for children.

There will be a talk held after the performance and screening with all the participants, where they will engage in conversation about the work and take questions from the audience. Event is free and open to the public.

Reflection on Week 2 of the Fresh Milk residency by Malaika Brooks-Smith-Lowe

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One of the most incredible aspects of this Fresh Milk residency is the solidarity. This past week not only have  I been able to engage with Annalee Davis, the Director, and Katherine Kennedy, Assistant-extraordiniare but also Holly Byone, Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ARC Magazine, was here collaborating on a grant proposal. The internet offers endless opportunities to build connections but there is something invaluable about sharing physical space with these dynamic women, who are each wells of knowledge and experience. In the midst of all the work that each of us was engaged in, we were able to find moments of pause (and venting and laughter) together. In a world that is focused on productivity, but also requires so much time out of us in order to manifest sustainable change, it can be so easy to downplay the value of taking the time to enjoy the company of the people who help to keep us going.

It has also been a blessing to collaborate with Varia Williams, a brilliant actor and Managing Director of Mustardseed Productions, as the character in the film that I’ve been creating while here in Barbados. I am not sure that I can even begin to articulate what the process of working with Varia has been like. We fell into a really natural rhythm, connecting to the film’s concept in unique ways that often overlapped. I started with an idea and went into a way more experimental direction, which only an actor with her ability to work in a more subtle and bodily way, could have carried. It has truly been a collaboration, her experience as an actor and her vibrant energy brought elements to the process that I couldn’t have conceived.

At some point before arriving here, I was considering what type of project to work on during this residency and set my sights on a narrative short film. As anyone who has ever proposed a project of any kind knows… things rarely go as planned. The more people responded to my initial concept the more I wanted to create a piece that was open and allowed people to interpret it in a way that spoke directly to their experience and so, started to feel myself drawn away from the narrative I had begun to create. Of course, openness is possible within the plot of a narrative. In fact this was recently demonstrated in the Fresh Milk space at Saturday night’s screening of A Hand Full of Dirt. Director, Russell Watson, and Producer, Lisa Harewood, engaged questions after the film and spoke about the ways that plot has connected with people across the globe in diverse audiences. As I watched the film for the first time that evening, I was struck by the nuanced way that they were able to weave together an engaging story that touched on so many things that were both unique to a Caribbean experience but also experienced in similar ways by other people as well: migration, corruption, tourism, masculinity, property ownership and cycles of violence, just to name a few. It was wonderful that an audience of people, who were mostly at Fresh Milk for the first time, were able to talk with the filmmakers afterwards about their own experiences of the film.

As for my piece, I’ve jumped head first into the pool of the experimental. Shooting is complete and the quality is incredible thanks to the equipment I rented through Andrew Jemmott at Caribbean Webcast. Now it is all about editing.

Follow Malaika on Instagram @malaikabsl