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!

_____________________

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

_____________________

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.

Caribbean Linked VI – Live Conversation I

August 8, 2021Leave a comment

The regional residency Caribbean Linked VI, co-managed by Ateliers ’89 (Aruba), The Fresh Milk Art Platform (Barbados) and ARC Magazine is conducting all of its programming and support virtually this year, with live public conversations between the artists taking place on Wednesday, August 11th and Tuesday, August 31st. As usual, the residency’s programming supports creatives across the French, Spanish, English and Dutch speaking Caribbean.

The first conversation will feature Taisha Carrington (Barbados), Akley Olton (St. Vincent and the Grenadines), Susana Pilar (Cuba), and Sarabel Santos-Negrón (Puerto Rico).

Watch the conversation on live on YouTube on August 11th from 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm AST/EST at the link above!

For more information, please visit the Caribbean Linked website.

Caribbean Linked VI Launches Virtual Edition

July 20, 2021Leave a comment

The regional residency Caribbean Linked VI, co-managed by Ateliers ’89 (Aruba), The Fresh Milk Art Platform (Barbados) and ARC Magazine will be changing its focus this year in light of the severe impacts that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought upon the lives of artists regionally. Caribbean Linked VI will be conducting all of its programming and support virtually from July 30^th – August 31^st, 2021, with live public conversations between the artists taking place on Wednesday, August 11th and Tuesday, August 31st from 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm AST on each day. As usual, the residency’s programming supports creatives across the French, Spanish, English and Dutch speaking Caribbean.

Participating artists for Caribbean Linked VI include Claudio Arnell (Saint Martin), Taisha Carrington (Barbados), Romelinda Maldonado (Aruba), Akley Olton (St. Vincent and the Grenadines), Susana Pilar (Cuba), John Reno Jackson (Cayman Islands), Sarabel Santos-Negrón (Puerto Rico), Samuel Sarmiento (Aruba/Venezuela) and Béliza Troupé (Guadeloupe).

This residency will allow the participants to be exposed to the practices of other emerging Caribbean artists, providing an opportunity to strengthen regional connections and cultural understanding. This edition of Caribbean Linked is being conceptualised as a bridging year, with participating artists still scheduled to meet physically in August 2022 at Ateliers ’89 in Oranjestad, Aruba.

Samuel Sarmiento, Caribbean Linked VI 2021 participating artist. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Now more than ever in light of COVID-19, it is critical to mitigate isolation and use available technologies to advance creative production, critical thinking and engagement. This preliminary remote encounter is focused on provisioning artists with dedicated studio time to make new works, while reinforcing the value of Caribbean artists’ practices and enabling their growth and development.

The writer in residence for the virtual edition will be Ethan Knowles, an emerging scholar and writer from The Bahamas currently studying in Rome, Italy. This year’s specially invited curators will be Sofia Olascoaga, an academic curator at MUAC (Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo – UNAM) in Mexico City, where she coordinates Campus Expandido an academic programme of critical theory, and Miguel A. López, former chief curator of TEOR/éTica turned independent curator living and working in Lima, Peru.

Dominique Hunter, Caribbean Linked IV 2016 participating artist. Photo courtesy of David Knight Jr.

‘La Linea en la Memoria’ by Irvin Aguilar, Caribbean Linked V 2018 participating artist. Photo courtesy of Sharelly Emanuelson.

The month long residency will be supported by the generous funding provided by BankGiro Loterij Fonds, Mondriaan Fonds and UNOCA.

For more information or to request interviews with any of the participating artists, please contact the Caribbean Linked Team at caribbeanlinked@gmail.com, and visit our website caribbeanlinked.com to learn more about all editions of the Caribbean Linked residency programme.