Thursday, December 31, 2009

Reading: Ishion Hutchinson and Valzhyna Mort

Wednesday 6 January, 2010, at 7.00 pm



Ishion Hutchinson and Valzhyna Mort

Alice Yard is currently hosting its first two writers in residence, both poets: Ishion Hutchinson of Jamaica and Valzhyna Mort of Belarus. They are also the first residents of our new Habitat space, intended to host visiting artists, writers, musicians, and other creative practitioners interested in living and working in Port of Spain and interacting with Alice Yard’s creative network.

On Wednesday 6 January, at 7.00 pm, Hutchinson and Mort will read from their recent work at Alice Yard, and engage in a conversation about questions which their separate bodies of work address from different directions: language, translation, home, abroad, and personal and national history.

All are invited.

About the writers:

Ishion Hutchinson was born in 1983 in Port Antonio, Jamaica. He has an MFA from New York University and is currently researching his doctoral dissertation at the University of Utah. He has read at the Calabash International Literary Festival in Jamaica and participated in the Cropper Foundation Caribbean Writers’ Workshop. In 2005 his chapbook Bryan’s Bay appeared in the Calabash Chapbook Series, and his first full-length book of poems will appear in 2010.

Valzhyna Mort was born in 1981 in Minsk, Belarus. Her first book, I’m As Thin as Your Eyelashes (2005), was a collection of poetry, prose, and selected translations from Polish and English. Since 2006 she has lived in the United States, where she is a writer in residence at the University of Baltimore. She has also been a writer in residence at the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin and Sylt-Quelle in Germany and at the International Authors’ House in Graz, Austria. Her second book of poems, Factory of Tears, translated by Mort in collaboration with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Franz Wright and Elizabeth Oehlkers Wright, appeared in 2008.

I took my name from the aftersky
of a Mesopotamian flood,

birdless as if culture had shed its wings

into a ground vulture on the plain.
...

— from “A Surveyor’s Journal”, by Ishion Hutchinson

even our mothers have no idea how we were born
how we parted their legs and crawled out into the world

the way you crawl from the ruins after a bombing....


— from “Belarusian 1”, by Valzhyna Mort

The reading is co-hosted by Town.

Three young artists: Stanita Clarke, Justin Hay, Arnaldo James

Alice Yard recently hosted the work of three young photographers, all of them university undergraduates.



Photo by Stanita Clarke

Stanita Clarke is a student at Trinity College, Connecticut. She spent the Fall 2009 semester working in Trinidad under the mentorship of Christopher Cozier. Her research focused on traditional architecture, the evolution of urban space, conservation, and preservation. On Monday 21 December she showed a series of photographs documenting Trinidad's urban fabric at this current moment of transition, and gave a short talk. She also documented her work at the Trinity at Alice Yard blog.

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Photo by Justin Hay



Photo by Arnaldo James

On Wednesday 30 December, Justin Hay and Arnaldo James staged a collaborative exhibition of recent work in photography and other media. Hay is a student at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver. He showed a sequence of photographs alongside several works on paper and a sculptural work. James is a student at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine. He showed a sequence of 100 photographs, many of which also appear on his Flickr page.

The event also included music by DJ cozyprone metronome.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Another chance to visit the Alice Yard Shop




Following the Alice Yard Shop exhibition and sale last Saturday, we've had many requests for a second opportunity to view and purchase artworks from the Shop inventory. Here's your chance: the Alice Yard Shop will open again on Thursday 24 December, from 1.00 to 7.00 pm.

Christmas Eve is an extremely busy time for many people, but if you need to buy an intriguing and unexpected last-minute present for someone--or simply want a break from errands, crowds, and traffic--stop by Alice Yard and take a look at our selection of artists' limited editions and multiples, design objects, and original artworks. Most of these items are modestly priced--you can pick something up for as little as a dollar--and all purchases help support Alice Yard and its programme of events.

Please spread the word--this is Alice Yard's first and only fundraising event for 2009--and if you can't make it to the yard on Thursday, you can still browse a selection of artworks at the new Alice Yard Shop website.

Artists with works in the Alice Yard Shop include Akuzuru, Ashraph, Christopher Cozier, Marlon Darbeau, Michelle Isava, Jaime Lee Loy, Brianna McCarthy, Kavir Mootoo, Nikolai Noel, Suzanne Nunez, Richard Rawlins, Seon Thompson, Rodell Warner, Adam Williams, Robert Young, and 12 the band.

As always, all are invited.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

At the Alice Yard Shop opening

Photographs (by Georgia Popplewell) from the opening exhibition and sale of artists’ works at the Alice Yard Shop, Saturday 19 December, 2009. Selected items are available for viewing and purchase at the new Alice Yard Shop website.




Works by Christopher Cozier, Nikolai Noel, Richard Rawlins, and Marlon Darbeau installed in Alice Yard’s gallery box.




Audience members view artworks on sale.




Alice Yard’s chief instigator, Sean Leonard, at the Shop opening exhibition.


See more photos by Georgia Popplewell here.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Introducing the Alice Yard Shop




This coming Saturday, we will launch the Alice Yard Shop, a new intervention in Trinidad's commercial art market. Rather than a permanent retail outlet, the Shop is an exhibition and sale of artists' limited editions and multiples, design objects, and some original artworks, reasonably priced and intended to be affordable to beginning collectors. Every few months the Alice Yard Shop will exhibit a new selection of works and objects, which will also be available for purchase online.

The first Shop exhibition and sale opens at 6.00 pm on Saturday 19 December, 2009. It will feature objects by a range of artists who have been involved in Alice Yard's activities over the past year, including Akuzuru, Christopher Cozier, Marlon Darbeau, Michelle Isava, Jaime Lee Loy, Brianna McCarthy, Nikolai Noel, Suzanne Nunez, Richard Rawlins, Seon Thompson, Rodell Warner, Adam Williams, and Robert Young.

All are invited.

For more information, contact helloaliceyard@gmail.com

Sunday, December 13, 2009

At the opening of The Dimming

Images from the opening night of The Dimming, an exhibition of two series of drawings by Nikolai Noel, Friday 11 December, 2009.


noel dimming 2 installation

The Dimming 2, a series of 100 drawings (graphite on paper), installed in Alice Yard's Habitat space. Photo by Nicholas Laughlin


noel dimming 1 installation

The Dimming 1, a series of 25 larger drawings, installed in the gallery box. Photo by Nicholas Laughlin


noel dimming talk

The artist in conversation with Nicholas Laughlin. Photo by Richard Rawlins

(See more images from the opening of The Dimming here.)

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Nikolai Noel: The Dimming

Opens Friday 11 December, 2009, at 8.00 pm



From The Dimming (1)


The Dimming is a series of new drawings by Nikolai Noel — dark, puzzling, and by turns sinister, witty, sly. These works on paper play with ideas of narrative, sequence, congruence, consequence — notions of absence, isolation, harm, magic, fear — and cumulatively suggest either distress or sanctity, a state of peace, contentment, rest.

The drawings will be installed at Alice Yard for one week, and the exhibition opens at 8.00 pm on Friday 11 December.

All are invited.




From The Dimming (1)


About the artist:


Nikolai Noel grew up in the east Port of Spain district of Belmont and attended the John Donaldson Technical Institute before entering the world of commercial video production as an animator. He began to exhibit in 2000, and has shown work every year since, participating in a number of group shows, with solo shows in 2002 and 2007.

He says: “The purpose of my work is to question the way we structure our civilisation. Why are the institutions that govern the world we know, the institutions that govern the world we know? Could we have evolved an alternative, more equitable form of organising ourselves? Is it too late to do it? Do we have the will or desire for that kind of thing? I am interested in the millions of years of occurrences that brought us to this point.”

Noel last showed his work at Alice Yard in December 2007.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

At the Vein performance

Images from Vein, a site-specific performance work by Akuzuru, Monday 23 November, 2009. All photos by Georgia Popplewell.











(See more images of the performance here.)