Thursday 14 December 2023 (4:30 'til)
24 Erthig Rd, Belmont

IT GO HAVE TO ADJUST.

ON LANGUAGE AS PARASITE

IT GO HAVE TO ADJUST. ON LANGUAGE AS PARASITE is a living curatorial endeavour by SAVVY Contemporary deliberating on the parasitic nature of language.

If language is a parasite, we need to evolve one that is made up of a plurality of voices that we wish to see act for a shared future. If we are “participants in the future of our languages” (Ocean Vuong), how can we make space for more variants of influences in order to facilitate the right climate and conditions for subversive, liberating practices within art and publishing? If language is there to make space for our survival, can we find procedures for optimising our communication to aid the creation of networks that can parasitize towards the proliferation and development of liberating practices? 

SAVVY Contemporary is an artistic organisation, discursive platform, place for good talks, foods and drinks – a space for conviviality and cultural plurilog. As a public and independent organism in perpetual becoming, it is animated by around 25 members and a network of collaborators, co-creating community and communities it breathes with. SAVVY Contemporary situates itself at the threshold of the West and the non-West to understand their conceptualisations, ethical systems, achievements, and ruins. It develops tools, proposes perspectives and nourishes practices towards imagining a world inhabited together. 

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.