Artists in Residence: Ruben Cabenda and Annemarie Daniel

Sunday 28 September, 6-9 pm  |  Granderson Lab

Freedom for a community would not be limited to rejecting a language, but it would be the creation of a free language, enriched by and built from the imposed language".(...) What is needed here, for one and for all communities burdened by the weight of history and those divested of, is in fact not a language of communication (abstract, emaciated, "universal" in the way we know it) but rather, a possible (and regular) communication between mutually liberated opacities, differences, languages...

—Edouard Glissant

Artists Ruben Cabenda and Annemarie Daniel, from Paramaribo, Suriname, are currently in residence at Alice Yard.

In 2023, Cabenda produced the animation Töngö Sondi, a short film that explores the biblical Tower of Babel as a metaphor for Caribbean history. This work was created as part of The Caribbean Digital Virtual Artist's Residency with Alice Yard.

On the night of Sunday 28 September, as their residency comes to a close, the two artists will present new and recent works in progress, including Töngö Sondi, in collaboration with North Eleven, in a digital media installation at Granderson Lab in Belmont.  

All are invited.

...

Artist Bios:

Ruben Cabenda (b.1989, Paramaribo, Suriname) is a contemporary artist known for his provocative animations that explore the intersection of slavery and identity. Cabenda’s practise also spans other media including installation, sculpture, painting. Cabenda obtained his bachelor's degree in fine arts at Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam (2014). His curiosity for animation grew from 2nd year of the BFA program. The possibility of highlighting or portraying a subject, thoughts, emotions, stories through animation is very fascinating for Cabenda. He won the Gerrit Rietveld Fine Arts Academy Prize for his graduation presentation. After his study Ruben started teaching at the Nola Hatterman Academy (Suriname). In 2018 he switched to the general education system and is currently a drawing teacher in high schools. In his autonomous practice he draws his inspiration from the possibilities that exist to become better as a person, and artist. His curiosity of his origins brought him to focus on the theme of identity and slavery. How the past is connected to the present and how that influences the descendants of the slaves. Through his work he wants to instigate and increase awareness and provoke positive thought and empowerment in his (white and black) audiences ‘today’.

Cabenda’s art has been exhibited in Europe at galleries, museum such as Catharijneconvent (NL), world première IDFA Doclab (NL), also in the Transoceanic Visual Exchange (TVE), Fresh Milk, Barbados (2024). In 2023 Cabenda was the winner of Caribbean Digital Virtual Artist's Residency, Alice Yard, Trinidad and in 2024 he won the IDFA Immersive Grant (NL). 

Annemarie Daniel, born April 17, 1975, in Paramaribo, Suriname. Annemarie Daniel developed an interest in art through a high school assignment where she had to draw a stair using perspective methods. She started drawing everything she could laid her hands on. After high school Annemarie studied Mathematics in Paramaribo and became a teacher. It was there where her passion for creativity became stronger to pursue a career in art.

While working as a mathematics teacher she was attending the Nola Hatterman Academy (Suriname). Annemarie received  a four-year scholarship to study at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy (Netherlands). In 2014 she graduated with a Bachelor Degree in Fine Arts and since then has participated in art residencies and exhibitions.

Because of her cultural background she began to explore the field of body modification. The maroon tribe (Saramaccaners ) she belong to, used to practice scarification on women and men. Her mother is the living proof of this practice. Her mother has scars on her face, lower back and Abdomen. Her mother had to deal with issues such as how people from the city looked down at her mother as an outcast and she had been called names.

Annemarie Daniel is a multidisciplinary artist that investigates slavery, identity, cultural inheritance, scarification that deal with the change of the human body and mindset. In her works she  tries to depict the principles visible such as pain, vulnerability, weakness, beauty, strong, cultural  belonging to a group that are connected to the past, present and future.

A State of Passion // Screening introduced by Richard Fung

Saturday 6 September, 6:30 pm // 
Granderson Lab, 24 Erthig Road, Belmont, POS

The documentary film A State of Passion (2024; dir. Carol Mansour and Muna Khalid) is a powerful, unsparing portrait of British-Palestinian surgeon Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, and his efforts to force the world to confront the truth about the horrific violence unfolding in Gaza. In October 2023, at the start of Israel’s bombing campaign, he travelled to Gaza to work in the emergency rooms of Gaza’s Al Shifa and Al Ahli hospitals. After 43 days working round the clock under constant bombardment, Abu-Sittah emerged to find himself as a face of Palestinian resistance.

Forced by the destruction of hospital facilities and his own deteriorating health to return to the UK, Abu-Sittah reunited with his wife and children, but continued his campaign to keep the world’s attention focused on the ongoing genocide. A State of Passion follows him on his journeys across the Middle East and Europe, bearing witness both to the overwhelming horrors he encounters and his quest for justice in circumstances that seem impossible.

This free screening, open to all, is introduced by Trinidadian Canadian filmmaker Richard Fung and supported by Trinbagonians for Palestine, fLim club, and IGDS IGNITE. Educational materials and activities, including Palestinian cola, will be available before the screening.

UN|FOLD

Saturday 9 August, 2025, from 4 to 8 pm
Granderson Lab 

 

Launched in 2024 by Alice Yard in collaboration with SPEC*, UN|FOLD is a small publishing fair where DIY/micro-publishers, zinemakers, and artists experimenting with print media can show, swap, and sell their work.

The first edition of UN|FOLD was held on 27 July, 2024, with a subsequent “making day” (Cut, Paste, Stamp, Draw) on 7 September, 2024.

UN|FOLD brings together publishers, writers, and artists in Trinidad and Tobago exploring small-scale, non-commercial publishing strategies and formats — zines, chapbooks, pamphlets, posters, postcards, broadsides, and more. We are interested in the aesthetics and the ethics of the hand-made, the durability of the analogue, the possibilities of the gift/barter economy, and the freedoms offered by occupying one’s own means of production.

UN|FOLD 2025 includes projects by the following participants/exhibitors:

Argotiers Press
Andre Bagoo
Celina Besson
Christopher Cozier
Lesley Garcia
Michelle Isava
Lloyd Best Institute of the Caribbean
Neala Luna
Shannon Mohammed
Renee Rampersadsingh | AnugrahaYogaTT
Candice V. Sankarsingh
Mahrinna Shareef
Terry Singh
SPEC*
Portia Subran
Raquel Vasquez La Roche
Toof Press

Keep in touch:
aliceyard.org / @aliceyardinsta / helloaliceyard@gmail.com
@spec.zine / spec.zines@gmail.com

Lara Dahlmann: Swamp Nights

Thursday 30 January, 2025, from 6.30 pm
Granderson Lab

 

Lara Dahlmann has been artist in residence at Alice Yard since the end of December 2024, working from Granderson Lab. On the evening of Thursday 30 January, she will present the results of her five-week creative and research residency, Swamp Nights.

She writes:

During my first visit to Trinidad in 2000, I was invited on a boat tour through the Caroni Swamp. That moment, as we slowly drifted past the mangrove forest, touched me and also left a lasting visual impression. The strange, almost dance-like beauty of the aerial roots is still vivid in my mind. In my artistic works, I engage with my surroundings, responding with site-specific installations. In this process, I have discovered paper as a sculptural element, both two- and three-dimensional. Over time, the drawings have gained autonomy, transitioning into cut-outs.

The tropical subject has always been metamorphic, meaning it is in constant change — a cycle of creation and decay. At Granderson Lab, I have used the space and time to create a site-specific installation that stages a dreamlike unreal state that, for me, interprets the melancholy and utopia of the tropical context.

All are invited. The installation can also be viewed from Friday 31 January to Sunday 2 February, by arrangement with the artist.

The evening will also include a reading of new creative work by writer Hassan Ali.

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Lara Dahlmann lives and works in Hamburg. She studied at HAW Hamburg and received a travel grant from the DAAD to Trinidad. Her artistic development includes residencies in Buenos Aires, Curaçao, and Cape Town. In 2019, she participated in the Architektursommer Hamburg and was invited to the prestigious Thupelo Workshop in South Africa. In her works, Dahlmann engages intensively with her surroundings and the peculiarities of spaces, responding with site-specific installations.

Giorvana Hadeed: The Nypa Seed

Wednesday 11 September, 2024, from 6.30 pm
Granderson Lab 

 

On Wednesday 11 September, for one night only, artist Giorvana Hadeed will present new and recent works from an ongoing project, including a series of metal sculptures and a light installation.

The artist writes:

You never know what can come in with the currents… This ebony object, this Nypa seed, alluringly demands to be picked up. So enticing that it perfectly fits in the palm of your hand. So effortlessly gentle and smooth that its curves follow the fluidity of the oceans’ waves which delivered it to this beach. It appears to be delicate, fragile even. It can almost be perceived as helpless or wandering. But in that same instant its tenacity and fortitude discloses itself. Solid. It has the capacity to endure. Its bristles folding in on themselves as if to hold their narratives captive.
Portable, yet what does it carry?

All are invited.

About the artist:

Giorvana Hadeed (b. 1999, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago) is an artist based between Trinidad and London. She works primarily with sculpture and installation. Her practice explores ideas surrounding the sea, the Caribbean, and notions of the landscape. Having a particular allure towards metal, her work takes shape through methods of mapping and circularity. She holds a BA from Goldsmiths, University of London.

CUT, PASTE, STAMP, DRAW

(no laptop required)
A “making day” hosted by Alice Yard + SPEC*
Saturday 7 September, 2024, 12 noon to approximately 6 pm

 

Featuring the launch of SPEC* issue 2!

Following our UN|FOLD zinemakers’ meet-up in July, we're hosting an informal and very hands-on workshop/“making” session for anyone interested in DIY publishing. We’ll play with manual techniques and tactics for assembling a simple publication (zine, chapbook, poster) — no electronic hardware or software needed.

Bring your own texts, photos, and other collage materials — we’ll provide paper, pens, scissors, glue, tape, stamps, ink etc. Come and explore, share ideas, learn and teach by doing, try something new, get feedback, make friends.

Plus the SPEC* collaborative will launch the second issue of their zine! Grab a copy, have a conversation, listen to some tunes.

All are invited.

With practical support from the Mellon Foundation

Currency: field notes from Shanice Smith

Saturday 24 August, 2024 | 6pm 'til (Artist talk at 7pm)

Currency: field notes from Shanice Smith is the second installment of the piece Women are the currency of the day (2016). The earlier artwork consists of a suggestive image of a woman’s body, printed on local currency, prompting conversations about ‘body counts’ in relation to coded sexual references and access to women’s bodies. According to one of the three traditional ideals of masculinity—access to women’s bodies, having the respect of peers, and conventional measures of career/financial success)—the greater the number of conquests, the higher a man’s perceived security in his masculinity. Like ‘body counts’, the single dollar bill has very little value, but a stack of dollar bills is worth more.

Her latest piece centres the survivors of sexual violence, who retell their encounters. The installation consists of a thermal printer that reads out the survivors’ accounts. Eventually, the ink fades away; much like the instances of trauma and abuse, these stories become part of a repetitive cycle—you hear about them, you are troubled, but then you move on—sweeping it under the rug, or discarding it like an old receipt whose contents have faded long after a transaction has taken place.

All are invited.

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Shanice Smith’s work explores gender-based issues, with a focus on deconstructing and investigating violence faced against women and children within the Trinbagonian society. Through visual representations, she explores these themes using a mixed media approach—from video works, to found and discarded items, to performative or interactive gestures. Her main aim is that these works will function as a medium for open discussions. These encounters serve as motivation for her ongoing works and prompt conversations that create awareness and foster safe spaces for others to share their own stories, seeking to transform silence into a language of action. Her artistic inspiration stems from her own journey of self-discovery, interrogation, and more importantly, from her family’s history.

Apart from her personal practice, she is also the co-founder of Cousoumeh Collective. The Collective focuses on using participatory research methods via the act of cooking as a tool for interpersonal engagement. Within the Caribbean and its diaspora, food holds a lot of meaning as a way of showing care and building community. Both of Shanice’s practices work in tandem, becoming a reflection of each other - while her personal practice acts as a mirror, revealing parts of society we try to hide, the works done under Cousoumeh Collective offer a nurturing, healing approach to confronting the harsh realities that have been unveiled.

UN | FOLD

A zinemakers + small-scale publishers meetup

Hosted by Alice Yard + SPEC*

Saturday 27 July, 2024, 5 to 9 pm
Granderson Lab, 24 Erthig Road, Belmont, Port of Spain

Writers, makers, publishers: join us for an informal meetup at the end of International Zine Month, to exchange ideas, experience, knowledge, and small-scale/non-commercial/handmade publications. See + listen, show + tell.

All are invited.

With practical support from the Mellon Foundation