. . . and to think you had me believing that all this time . . .

Presented by I’ve seen your face before, Alice Yard, and #ayardexchange

Monday 9 December 2019, 6 to 9 pm, 27 Pembroke St, Port of Spain

I’ve seen your face before collaborates with Christopher Cozier, Alice Yard, and #ayardexchange in a programme of screenings of selected videos and films from the 10th Berlin Biennale (BB10), We don’t need another hero.

I’ve seen your face before is a trans-disciplinary platform inspired by complex encounters with entangled histories that have led to the creation of spaces for learning with rather than about that which has been historically interrupted or not yet possible in the present. The platform is open to collective strategies, discourses, and practices that pave ways for debates (within and) beyond art and its institutions.

I’ve seen your face before was founded in 2018 by Gabi Ngcobo (South Africa) and Thiago de Paula Souza (Brazil), as a space to reflect on recent encounters with entangled histories in the Global South. The platform was inspired by research travels to six Caribbean islands conducted by Ngcobo and de Paula Souza in 2017, in preparation for the 10th Berlin Biennale (2018). These travels were made possible through funds set aside for research by the curator of the Berlin Biennale, which in turn made it possible for the curatorial team to rethink the conditions of exchange that have been mapped out through relationships that are informed by colonial mechanisms that still operate in the present.

This approach to curatorial research funds has led to a number of conversations and collaborations, some of which became visible as part of the BB10. I’ve seen your face before proposes a space for continuity, one that is aware of the limits of the “biennale” framework. It is also a space to face critically the positions we inhabit in order to rehearse possibilities for the reorganisation of economies of access.

The project opens up paths for re-encounters that may hopefully lead to more engagements between regions that for a long time have not been in constant conversation due to the lack of possibilities of exchange — most of them blocked by the absence of financial support and political will to articulate a broader horizon of contact.

The event I’ve seen your face before: . . . and to think you had me believing that all this time . . . is a continuing conversation that was initiated with Christopher Cozier towards his contribution to the public programme of BB10. This time, the selected videos and films are in conversation with the context of Port of Spain, where Cozier works and lives.

With works by:

Tony Cokes
Basir Mahmood
Cinthia Marcelle
Sondra Perry
Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa

This platform is funded through “Echoes of the South Atlantic,” an initiative by the Goethe Institute — São Paulo that supports artistic projects interested in researching the potential of the exchanges in the Global South and its relations with Europe. Additional support has been provided by the Caribbean Art Initiative (CAI).

Shannon Lewis: Get Me Bodied: Navigation Acts

Thursday 28 November, 2019, 7 pm, at Alice Yard

On Thursday 28 November, 2019, artist Shannon Lewis will present a one-night installation of her ongoing project Get Me Bodied at Alice Yard.

The artist writes:

“The new Get Me Bodied series, created specifically for Alice Yard, traces maps embedded in bodies. Maps on how to move in the world as a Black femininity. But what world? What happens when bodies migrate? How does the map of one’s personal and perceived narrative change when switched to a different geographic, socio-economic, or cultural location? Navigation Acts charts the somewhat messy work of mimicry, lessons learned and unlearned. Ways of being that fit some worlds and not others. Sometimes the beat is synced just right and sometimes it is all a bit off.”

All are invited.


Shannon Lewis is a Canadian-born, Berlin-based artist with Trinidadian roots, whose practice encompasses painting, installation, and performance. She has exhibited in Canada, the United States, Britain, and Germany. She has a BA from OCADU in Toronto (2006) and an MFA from Goldsmiths, University of London (2014).


With support from

 

Squatting: A Review of A Yard Exchange

By Kaneesha Cherelle Parsard

Ryan Huggins: Good Boy

Tuesday 10 September, 2019, 6 to 9 pm
27 Pembroke Street, Port of Spain
 

On Tuesday 10 September, for one night only, artist Ryan Huggins will present two series of new drawings in the temporary project space at 27 Pembroke Street in downtown Port of Spain.

These drawings are a fusion of ideas surrounding alternative youth subcultures within queer communities. The artist writes: “I examine the vocabulary of queer references and terminologies in relation to the body, social identity, and gender as a growing language. I got inspiration from collecting images from magazines, posters, and photographs that carry a peculiar ‘young boy’ narrative. These images are reinterpreted into drawings which I pair with text suggesting slogans or stereotypical references to young gay men.”

All are invited.


About the artist:

Ryan Huggins is a painter from Trinidad and Tobago, born in 1991. Raised in Port of Spain, he completed a Bachelor of Fine Art degree at the University of the West Indies in 2016. Currently he is pursuing his fourth year of postgraduate studies at the Kunst Akademie Düsseldorf, Germany, under Professor Tomma Abts.

A conversation with Alex Callender

Thursday 29 August, 6.30 pm, at Alice Yard

Artist Alex Callender has been in residence at Alice Yard in the latter part of August 2019. On Thursday 29 August, she will give an informal talk on her time in Trinidad and the archival research she is pursuing for her current painting project, which looks at economic policy and related cultural materials from the mid 1990s, and the relation to US trade policy in the broader Caribbean context. Through this work, Callender looks at the economic history of borders, to explore interweaving narratives of migration, class, post-colonial nationhood, and interiority.

All are invited.

#ayardexchange

Friday 23 August, 6 to 9 pm
27 Pembroke Street, Port of Spain

The Weight of a Premature Palm Tree’s Head, by Cass’Mosha A. Centeno


All are invited.

A conversation with Luis Vasquez La Roche

Monday 12 August, 2019, 6 pm, at Alice Yard

On Monday 12 August, artist Luis Vasquez La Roche, current MFA painting and printmaking student at Virginia Commonwealth University, will speak about his current practice and relationship with SYoS (See You on Sunday) and Alice Yard.

All are invited.


About the artist:

Luis Vasquez La Roche was born and raised in Venezuela by a Trinidadian mother and a Chilean father. In 2002 his family migrated to Trinidad and Tobago. He graduated from the University of the West Indies with a BA in visual arts and a minor in Spanish language. He has been actively producing and exhibiting work since 2009. His work has been exhibited in Trinidad, Grenada, the Bahamas, Venezuela, Colombia, Scotland, Germany, and the Netherlands. He was selected to be part of the residency programme OAZO AIR in The Netherlands in 2013 and Beta Local’s 2016 Itinerant Seminar in Puerto Rico. In 2013, he co-founded See You on Sunday, an artist collective committed to arts education. He lectures at the University of Trinidad and Tobago and is currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in painting and printmaking at Virginia Commonwealth University under a Fulbright Scholarship.

Amada Miller: The sun is a star too - and - Nicholas Frank: 1 I 2 Ü, A Play In Three Acts

Thursday 8 August, 6 pm, at Alice Yard

In early August 2019, artists Amada Miller and Nicholas Frank are in residence at Alice Yard. On Thursday 8 August, they will present a range of site-specific new work inviting active audience participation.

Amada Miller’s The sun is a star too is a compendium of naturally dyed fabric paintings using zaboca, turmeric, roucou, sorrel, coconut, and other locally-sourced ingredients, and a folkloric history of the origin of avocado in chapbook form.

Nicholas Frank’s 1 I 2 Ü, A Play In Three Acts is a theatrical presentation that operates in the boundaries between actor and audience, individual and collective, island and horizon. Frank will also mint a new Alice Yard currency.

All are invited to attend and participate.


6 pm: assemble in Alice Yard
6.30 pm: Painting Promenade begins near Augustus Williams Park and through the neighbourhood
7 pm: play begins in Alice Yard
8 to 10 pm: Afterbar: Cocktails by Amada

About the artists:

Amada Miller and Nicholas Frank reside in San Antonio, Texas. Miller currently has an exhibition on view at Blue Star Contemporary and FL!GHT Gallery in San Antonio, with upcoming exhibitions at Porcino (Berlin, Germany), The Galveston Arts Center (Galveston, TX), and Gray Duck Gallery (Austin, TX). She recently completed a residency at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin and will be in residence at the DoSeum in San Antonio later this year. Frank showed at FL!GHT Gallery in San Antonio earlier this year, the Green Gallery (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) in late 2017, and was in residence at Artpace (San Antonio) in early 2017.

Digital Heirlooms: Global Intimacies and Alternative Family Trees

A presentation and workshop with Tao Leigh Goffe and Felicia Chang

Tuesday 6 August, 5.30 pm, at Alice Yard

Left: Felicia Chang
Right: Tao Leigh Goffe
 
History is a dark room that often leaves silences about the global intimacies that connect families across the continents, from the Caribbean to Africa to Europe to Asia. In this Alice Yard workshop, we invite participants to think about what stories they will inherit by analysing family photography from varying perspectives, including that of artificial intelligence. Working in groups, participants will create physical collages using found objects to form an entangled album of digital heirlooms. 

All are invited. Required: bring a family photograph.

 

Based in Trinidad, Felicia Chang is a co-founder of Plantain, a company that crafts bespoke physical and multimedia family narratives.

Based in Amsterdam, Tao Leigh Goffe is a professor of Caribbean cultural studies at Cornell University who uses her skills as a DJ to teach the remixing of visual culture and global literature. 

A conversation with Julián Sánchez González

Friday 28 June, 7 pm, at Alice Yard

Colombian art historian Julián Sánchez González is currently based in New York City, in the doctoral programme at Columbia University. His research centres on contemporary art production and alternative spiritualities in Latin American and the Caribbean, particularly during the 1960s and 70s. In recent years he has explored the work of artists from Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and the Colombian archipelago of San Andrés and Providencia. In June 2019 he is in residence at Alice Yard.

On Friday 28 June, at 7 pm, he will give an informal talk on his research interests and his exploration of the intersection of art, spirituality, and ritual in Trinidad and Tobago. Audience members are invited to give their insights on these themes and also participate in constructing an intimate and collaborative community “altar”, by bringing a portable object of personal spiritual significance that responds to the question “What is sacred to me?”

The creative and spiritual potential of this installation in the Alice Yard space will depend largely on our shared participation. All objects will be duly registered and returned to their owners by mid-July.

Musicalisation of the altar by musician and composer Andrés Vera León.

All are invited.


Julián Sánchez González is a PhD student in art history at Columbia University. He holds an MA in art history from NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts, and a double BA in history and political science from the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá. His broader academic interests investigate the influence of diasporic and non-hegemonic spiritualities on global trends of artistic modernism during the second half of the twentieth century. His current research project analyses such interplay in the 1970s in selected countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Previously, Sánchez worked with the Museos de Arte y Numismática del Banco de la República in Bogotá and the Art Museum of the Americas – Organization of American States in Washington, DC. His writing has been published by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection, Oxford Art Online, and the Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano in Bogotá. His work has been generously supported by the Fulbright Program, the Ministerio de Cultura de Colombia, and the Fundación COLFUTURO.

A conversation with Pierre Obando

 Sunday 9 June, 2019, 5.30 pm, at Alice Yard

Born in Belize, artist Pierre Obando currently lives and works in New York City. He has been in residence at Alice Yard in early June 2019. On Sunday 9 June, he will present a series of new drawings inspired by the architecture and streetscape of Woodbrook, alongside an informal conversation about his current creative and curatorial interests.

All are invited.

Kearra Amaya Gopee: Work in progress

Wednesday 27 March, 2019, 7 pm, at Alice Yard

Artist Kearra Amaya Gopee has been in residence at Alice Yard during the month of March 2019. On Wednesday 27 March, they will present recent video work and a new installation in progress.

The video work Artifact #3: Terra Nullius is the self-referential final peg of a three-part work that visualises how personhood, family, and intimacy are influenced by lineages of trauma and spirituality within diasporic Caribbean identity. This piece closes the artist’s Artifacts series, a trilogy exploring how migration and memory affects manifestations of the Anglophone Caribbean family from the pre-Independence period to the present, using Gopee’s own family history as a point of reference.

Employing scrying and speculative non-fiction to demonstrate agency in crafting models of communication and care within the present, Terra Nullius abandons nostalgic desires for the biological family structure in favour of alternative kinships. The term “terra nullius” is “used in international law to describe territory that may be acquired by a state’s occupation of it.” Here, the state refers to that of being, one that is constantly being renegotiated with the entry/exit of new modalities with which we engage each other and subsequently reconstruct the self.

All are invited.


Kearra Amaya Gopee’s practice focuses on the nature of violence and erasure, and the particularities of that which is inflicted on the Caribbean by the global north. Using personal experiences as a point of departure, they address themes of migration, intergenerational trauma, queerness, and difference while seeking to complicate the viewer’s understanding of economic and social marginalisation in the postcolonial Caribbean. Through photography, animation, video, installation, coding, sound, and handicraft, their observations are translated into ephemeral photographs, installations, and objects. Their work interweaves the personal with the historical, the mythological with the material.

Gopee is a visual artist and photographer living and working between Carapichaima, Trinidad and Tobago, and Brooklyn, New York. They have been included in recent exhibitions at AC Institute, Jenkins Johnson Projects and the New York Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1. Gopee has completed residencies at Vermont Studio Centre, ACRE, and NLS Kingston, and will be in residence at Red Bull Arts Detroit this summer. They hold a BFA in Photography and Imaging from New York University and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2018.

Shannon Lewis: Get Me Bodied

Thursday 21 February, 2019, 7.30 pm, at Alice Yard

On Thursday 21 February, 2019, artist Shannon Lewis will present a one-night installation of her ongoing project Get Me Bodied at Alice Yard, offering “an intricate and philosophical narrative, touching on issues of decoloniality, self-worth, and commodification.”

All are invited.


The artist writes:

“In Get Me Bodied, shapeshifting is an adaptation. It is the work we do to be able to move between spaces, classes, and geographies. But what does that work — the constant reworking — do to our bodies or our minds? It is about the performance and the objects that we collect along the way. We primp, preen, fix up — look sharp, grow, develop appendages that are useful until they’re not. It is about mobility, intersecting with sexuality, gender, race, immigration, class, economics, and social climbing.

“The task of a migrant is to learn the anatomy of a new society and reconstruct yourself in a new accommodating form. This framework and your performance in it are never invisible to you. So you either become flexible with the constant social contortions, or you fold over and break. The work sits in a space that contemplates the push and pull of this operation. It sits in a space that has fun with high femme performance fantasy and total exhaustion. Self-making as sport, for access and for life.”


Shannon Lewis is a Canadian-born, Berlin-based artist with Trinidadian roots, whose practice encompasses painting, installation, and performance. She has exhibited in Canada, the United States, Britain, and Germany. She has a BA from OCADU in Toronto (2006) and an MFA from Goldsmiths, University of London (2014).