The things I cannot say

Friday, 24 to Sunday, 26 November 2023, 5:30 - 9pm
24 Erthig Rd, Belmont

The things I cannot say

Mahrinna Shareef

‘The things I cannot say’ is a digital media exhibition at Granderson Lab in Belmont in collaboration with North Eleven, where Marinna Shareef explores her personal relationship with enmeshment, specifically the cycle some indo-Caribbean families can develop with their children, reflecting on strictness, lack of control and boundaries. The work deep dives into wanting to make a change and ‘stop the cycle’, something we often hear from children when addressing their parents when coming into adulthood. What does entail when our own brains wont let us remember our trauma? Shareef tries to ‘break the cycle,’ in her own way by performing a sort of funeral service for the things she cannot say, and says her goodbyes to this sort of hesitance. She simultaneously performs this Caribbean ritual for her grandmother in dealing with her death, and reflects on how she dealt with both trying to manage remembering her trauma while losing a motherly figure.

This work was created during Marinna Shareef’s The Caribbean Digital Scholarship Collective x Alice Yard’s Virtual Artist Residency in 2022. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to make this exhibition possible.

Transmission/distortion: A re-reading of C.L.R. James’ The Black Jacobins

Saturday, 10 June 2023, 12 noon to 5 pm*
24 Erthig Rd, Belmont

Transmission/distortion:
A re-reading of C.L.R. James’ The Black Jacobins

This upcoming Saturday, June 10th, you are cordially invited to join us at Granderson Lab for a re-reading session of C.L.R. James' renowned work, "The Black Jacobins," in the company of video artist and filmmaker Ésery Mondésir.

"When I arrived here three weeks ago, I was perplexed by the enthusiastic smiles that greeted me when people learned I was Haitian. It wasn’t the usual “poor Haiti” I have faced many times in other settings. Instead, the folks I encountered associated my homeland with ideas of pride, freedom, and justice. It struck me as peculiar until Christopher [Cozier] reminded me that C.L.R. James hailed from this very land. Suddenly, it dawned on me that Haiti, as both an idea and perhaps an ideal, had long been embedded within the ‘Trini imaginaire.’

As author Millery Polyné emphasizes in his work 'The Idea of Haiti,' there is no singular, unified notion of Haiti. While it may symbolize freedom, justice, and equality for the “the wretched of the earth,” the “brutes,” and the “rebels,” Haiti continues to stand as a "monstrous anomaly" in the face of colonialism, imperialism, and white supremacy to paraphrase Nick Nesbit.

Which particular ideas of Haiti have permeated and continue to permeate Trinidad and Tobago? How do ideas diffuse through the intricate web of social and political contradictions? What are the mechanics of transmission or distortion of transformative ideas? How do we leap from revolutionary ideas to liberatory gestures that generate new ideals? Can we go beyond criticality? These questions and others will shape my residency at Alice Yard this spring.

On Saturday, we encourage you to bring your copy of 'The Black Jacobins.' We will engage in collective readings and invite you to share your favourite passages.

All are welcome.

*Readings may be recorded.

Defying the Margins

Friday 3 June, 2023 / 6 to 10 pm / Granderson Lab

Defying the Margins brings together works by established and emerging artists, designers, and writers from OCAD University in Toronto, Canada and the artistic community at Alice Yard in Port of Spain, Trinidad. Defying the Margins embraces interdisciplinary approaches that explore the Caribbean as a space rather than a place, grounded in community and land-based practices. To defy the margins is to question hierarchies of power and influence. Whether the margin functions to keep something in or out, how can we reposition ourselves to see beyond these pre-determined boundaries? The artists here showcase completed and developing works related to ritual and performance, collective identity and diaspora, as well as the natural, artificial, conceptual, and sonic [environs/environments] of Alice Yard and Port of Spain. Some artists focus on the body as their medium, while others experiment with a variety of technical processes and their creative applications. Defying the Margins facilitates a collaborative exchange between Alice Yard and OCAD University, inviting students and professional practitioners into the same space for a period of two weeks. The resulting exhibition is the product of this exchange, which has positive implications for all participants on a social, cultural, and artistic level.

Curated by Madalyn Shaw. With special thanks to Christopher Cozier and Esery Mondesir for organizing.

Krish Nathaniel: Several Hands

Friday 5 May, 2022, 6.30 to 8.30 pm
Granderson Lab

Artist-in-residence Krish Nathaniel presents a short exploration on creolised East Indian culture, spatially exploring the link and divergence between an “origin” culture and the Indo-Trinidadian diaspora.

Using the visual and sound culture of Hosay as his inception point, the works reflect on presence within the landscape and connections to place.

Pulling at loose threads by challenging notions of fidelity and dogma, Nathaniel’s ongoing research seeks to bring to light moments of playfulness, inclusivity, and new traditions within diasporic histories, as a way to strengthen future creolised expression.

All are invited.

Incubator Open Studio

 Friday 9 and Saturday 10 December, 2022, at Granderson Lab

 

 

Over a four-week period, artists Bianca Peake, Elechi Todd, and Khaffi Beckles have shared an improvised studio space at Granderson Lab, engaged in work that serves their individual practices as well as the resulting collective discourse. While sharing the resources of the space, they aimed to intentionally create communal experiences through shared meals, reading, discussion, and watching films/videos.

On Friday 9 and Saturday 10 December, from 6 to 9 pm each evening, the artists are hosting an Open Studio event to share the results of this project. The work shown in this shared space is the product not of shifting focus on process, learning, observing and sharing.

The Incubator experience is the product of ongoing discourse on the value of collective making and shared spaces and thought. As both an exercise and event, it challenges the notion of solitary studio practice, where exchanges take place intrapersonally, and instead provides an exploratory invitation to create and exchange cultural, artistic, and intellectual knowledge as a group.

As an additional core function of the Incubator experience, the artists have engaged in documentation and reflection through writing. Cataloging and sharing experiences has operated not just as a means of creating accessibility to artistic practice, but also of demystifying the process of creating
knowledge.

All are invited.

Hackney nongkrong

Alice Yard at Ruby Cruel / documenta fifteen 

Tuesday 15 November, 2022 / 6 to 9 pm

 

The 100 days of documenta fifteen are over, but Alice Yard and its collaborators are still thinking and talking about what we did and saw and learned, the friends and the art we made.

On Tuesday 15 November, from 6 to 9 pm, we’ll be at Ruby Cruel at 250 Morning Lane, Hackney, London, for a post-documenta nongkrong — that’s the Indonesian word for hanging out — conversing, sharing some fragments and traces of our documenta fifteen activations, maybe some new activations from old friends, and hoping to make some new friends too.

All are invited.

 

Belmont nongkrong

Alice Yard / documenta fifteen
Wednesday 12 October, 2022 / from 7 pm at Granderson Lab, Belmont

We learned a new word in the documenta lumbung. Nongkrong, Indonesian for “hanging out”, means more or less the same as liming.

documenta fifteen is over. What did we see and hear, what did we learn, who did we meet? Did we “make friends, not art”? Or did we make friends and art?

On Wednesday 12 October, from 7 pm, we’ll be at Granderson Lab for a post-documenta nongkrong — conversing, reflecting, spending time together, and sharing some fragments and traces of the various activations Alice Yard and our visiting artists made in Kassel during the 100 days of documenta fifteen. This is also a moment to belatedly commemorate our sixteenth anniversary in September, and continue imagining the way ahead with friends old and new.

All are invited.

Proximities 3: The sky has no limit / El cielo no tiene límite

Alice Yard / documenta fifteen
Presented in collaboration with the Third Horizon Film Festival

Still from Celaje (Cloudscape), by Sofía Gallisá Muriente

 

From 12 to 21 September, Alice Yard and the Third Horizon Film Festival will present an installation of three short films/videos at the documenta fifteen venue WH22, screening in a continuous loop from 10 am to 8 pm daily. These works, by filmmakers with roots in the Caribbean region (Trinidad and Tobago, Puerto Rico, French Guiana), investigate ideas about territory and belonging, family and self-definition, and the ongoing legacies of colonialism — all making use of found or repurposed footage.

Featuring:

Islands, Richard Fung (9 mins)
Cloudscape, Sofía Gallisá Muriente (41 mins)
Listen to the Beat of Our Images, Audrey and Maxime Jean-Baptiste (15 mins)

This is the third in the Proximities series of video works presented by Alice Yard, exploring relationships within the Caribbean region, following previous editions in 2010 and 2015.

Update: Proximities 3 will be reinstalled at WH22 for the final weekend of documenta fifteen, 24 and 25 September