Tag: Versia Harris

Exhibition by Versia Harris at the IBB

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Instituto Buena Bista, Curacao in collaboration with Fresh Milk and Barbados Community College (BCC), has the pleasure to announce that Barbadian Artist Versia Harris will be exhibiting on October 25th 2013.

Versia Harris together with British/Barbadian artist Nick Whittle is residing at the IBB as part of the IBB’s Junior/Senior exchange program and our efforts for an exchange project and collaboration with the BCC. Nick unfortunately had to take sudden leave for family matters, but he plans to return to finish his residency in the near future.

Versia Harris (1991) is a Barbadian artist living and working in Weston, St. James. She graduated from the Barbados Community College with a BFA in the Studio Art program in 2012, with an award from The Leslie’s Legacy Foundation for the most promising student. She recently completed her second local residency at The Fresh Milk Art Platform and her first international residency at the Vermont Studio Center in Vermont. Versia explains that in her work she explores the fantasies and experiences of an original character. The character is introduced to Walt Disney animations, and consequently layers what she desires from these animations onto her life, especially her physical self. Her relationship to the world around her changes, as she compares her reality and the fantasy of Disney Animated stories. She struggles with her perception of self being in complete contrast with the Disney princesses.

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Sparked by her interest in storytelling, she created the character and story to generate a comparison between Walt Disney iconography and her reality. Despite the fabricated narrative, she addresses issues that intrigue her such as how one can be influenced by media and the process of comparing oneself to another of unrealistic standards. You can follow the artist on Tumblr or on Twitter @versiaharris

Versia also provided an animation workshop to the students at the IBB. Students were asked to work in groups of two to create their own character and make a short hand-drawn animation. Using Photoshop as a manipulation tool, students made short animations ranging from feel-good themes all the way to more dramatic subjects. The final results will also be presented during the night of Versia’s exhibition.

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We invite you to come and meet artist Versia Harris, experience her work and be transported to her amazing world of manipulated pen-drawn animations.

Date: Friday, October 25th 2013
Time: starts at 7p.m. sharp
Place: Instituto Buena Bista

For more information on the exhibition or the IBB please visit our website or call us weekdays at +5999 736 3605 and don’t forget to follow us on Facebook.

Versia Harris’ Residency at the IBB, Curacao

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Barbadian artist Versia Harris blogs about her residency at the Instituto Buena Bista (IBB) in Curacao, where she is taking part in their International Project Space programme for the month of October, 2013.

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My impression of The Instituto Buena Bista when I first walked through their offices, studios and expansive garden, was that it is a place that supports art experimentation of all kinds. Whether it is audio, video, photography, new media or mixed media, etc, they have rooms and equipment that make these things possible. Scattered everywhere is artwork, both finished and unfinished. The place immediately put me at ease and also made me excited about creating new work.

The IBB courtyard

The IBB courtyard

Most of the first week was just about settling in and getting familiar with Curacao life but by the end of it, I started to flesh out some of the  ideas rolling around in my head.

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The second week commenced my teaching at the Institute.  I opted to demonstrate to the students how I produce my animations so that they could then produce their own. Tutoring so many people is an entirely new experience that came with its ups and downs. On the one hand, most of them are quite receptive and have come up with some nice ideas of what to animate. On the other hand, students will be students. I found it difficult at first to deal with some of the excuses as to why they didn’t do this or that, the very late submissions or complete absences that kept me repeating myself. The experience is exciting and rewarding yet frustrating and exhausting, but it is something that I’m glad I got the opportunity to do.

Outside of my lessons some of the students and I have been discussing and exchanging ideas. I’ve started to toy with some live action video, something I have almost no experience in. It hasn’t gotten very far so I’m not sure how I feel about it yet, but I’m looking forward to what the rest of the time reveals to me about this medium.

Video stills from Versia Harris' work in progress

To keep up with Versia’s progress, follow her blog at versiaabeda.tumblr.com

FRESH MILK’s Presentation for the e-CREATE Barbados Symposium 2013

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Annalee Davis introducing FRESH MILK

On Friday April 12, FRESH MILK gave a presentation to the visiting delegation of professionals involved in the Brazilian creative industry as part of the e-CREATE Barbados Cultural Industries Symposium and Showcase 2013. The symposium was a three and a half day initiative organized by the National Cultural Foundation (NCF), Barbados which featured seminars, discussions, and networking opportunities focused particularly on introducing local creatives to the thriving contemporary arts markets opening up in São Paulo, Brazil.

The visiting arts delegates included curator and cultural producer Bel Gurgel, head of marketing and sales at Galeria Millan in São Paulo Vivian Gandelsman, Program Director of Videobrasil Thereza Farkas and Founding Director of Urbanflo Creative Consultancy in the UK Jenni Lewin-Turner. They were greeted at the FRESH MILK studio to freshly baked banana bread and coffee, and then shown to the gallery space to view a few pieces on display before the presentation. Founder of The Fresh Milk Art Platform Annalee Davis introduced the organization, speaking about its mission to support production and excellence in the contemporary arts, notably by giving young emerging talent a nurturing space to create, make connections and circulate innovative ideas. She also shared information and images from FRESH MILK’s programming so far, and some of its upcoming plans.

A few artists who have been involved with FRESH MILK then had the opportunity to present their work, showcasing firsthand some of the local and regional talent being supported. Performance and visual artist Shanika Grimes, visual artist and Assistant to Director at FRESH MILK Katherine Kennedy, artist and photographer Janelle Griffith, artist, educator and board member of FRESH MILK Ewan Atkinson and photographer and fine artist Mark King, who recently completed his residency on the platform, all spoke articulately about their work, while Annalee introduced the work of artists Sheena Rose, Grenadian artist/activist Malaika Brooks-Smith-Lowe and Versia Harris in their absence. This diverse range of work from gifted artists rounded off  a morning which encompassed what FRESH MILK stands for:  building connections within an inclusive environment in the hopes of broadening our community, and creating opportunities for Caribbean talent in the global arts arena.

We would like to thank the NCF and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth for making this event possible, and all of the visiting delegates for coming out to see what Barbados has to offer. We are very excited about the possibilities which have arisen from e-CREATE Barbados, and look forward to strengthening the bonds formed with all of you through reciprocal exchanges in the future.

Photo credit: Mark King, 2013

Versia Harris’ Residency – Week 4 Report

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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

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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