States of Confinement

26 to 29 November, 2020, at Granderson Lab

Curated by Adeline Gregoire 

States of Confinement seeks to explore the various states — physical, psychological, geographical, real or perceived as, and imagined — of confinement, experienced during the worldwide pandemic of Covid-19 in 2020.

 

Upon examination of the colonial history of confinement/isolation and associated violence (ref. slave punishment archives, use of metal masks; isolation as torture) — are some societies more “ tolerant” of the confinement directive, while others more resistant (ref. US, EU protests as responses to the confinement directive) to what could be seen as another form of structural violence (carried out by the state)?

 

Could prolonged confinement/isolation/distance destroy social fabric? And what is this new normal and the new way of being? 

 

In as much as the exhibition is an attempt to document this critical period in time, the selection of works is meant to engage reflection on confinement as an accumulation of states: a geographic location; mental/psychological states; status quo; a preventative measure or method of control; a means to protect and save populations. Iterations of confinement (directed, self-imposed…) would be also examined, in addition to the possible ripple effects (re)created by confinement on individual, structural and societal levels.

 

Finally, the selected works hope to provide stimulus for a series of interrogations on relationships of the human-human/ human-system/human-nature; on themes of permanence vs. transience and metamorphosis.

 

Participating artists:

Shannon Alonzo / Sabrina Charran / Maria Diaz / Sarah Knights / Alicia Milne / Luis Vasquez La Roche / Rodell Warner

See web version here

States of Confinement / CULTUREEGO

OPEN from 5 to 9 PM  / 

 

Zane Rodulfo and Rodell Warner: Fractals

Tuesday 24 November, 2020, 8 pm, at Granderson Lab

 

Fractals is a live electro-acoustic, multimedia performance by Trinidadian drummer and composer Zane Rodulfo in collaboration with visual artist Rodell Warner. Using sensory percussion drum triggers to improvise with electronic sounds, Rodulfo will manipulate and trigger Rodell’s video artwork along with archival video. The videos will be projection-mapped on Granderson Lab’s building exterior by North Eleven. The public is invited to drive or walk by the building to experience the performance, while observing COVID-19 protocols.

The performance is made possible thanks to Granderson Lab, a project of Alice Yard, with support from CATAPULT | A Caribbean Arts Grant — a COVID-19 relief programme conceptualised by Kingston Creative (Jamaica) and Fresh Milk (Barbados) and funded by the American Friends of Jamaica | The AFJ (USA).

Zane Rodulfo is a Trinidadian drummer and composer living and working in Brooklyn, NY. He completed graduate study in jazz studies at New York University and holds Bachelor of Music degrees in both jazz performance and ethnomusicology from the Oberlin Conservatory Of Music. He has opened for great musicians such as Stevie Wonder, and has performed at illustrious venues such as Jazz at Lincoln Center and the Blue Note. www.zanerodulfo.com

Amir Hall: Pray Daddy: The Prayer

Saturday 7 November, 2020, 7 pm, online
Supported by Alice Yard

Stand-up comedian, gaza man, college graduate, grieving son — these are the voices that echo throughout Pray Daddy: The Prayer, a digital freedom ritual that explores the liberatory power of embodied truth-telling and loving witness for folks of marginalized identity; the black, the poor, and the LGBTQ+.

A coming-out letter in spirit, this digital performance interrogates Amir Hall’s and his father’s experiences of conventional masculinity, challenging the bounds and permeability of gender as it operates in the Caribbean space. It is the cartography of a new man, the one unknown to us, the one that flies.

Pray Daddy: The Prayer, directed by Xoë Sazzle and collaboratively designed with Nigel Williams and Omar Jarra, with vocal training and performance by Stephanie Joseph, costume by Reuben Gonzales, styling by Suelyn Choo, and video by Elechi Todd, will be performed next on 7 November, 2020, at 7 pm AST (Trinidad)/6PM EST digitally via Twitch. Reserve your space here. Or tune in by clicking this link.

Carnival 2020 residencies

Gwladys Gambie, Maia Nunes, and Alan Vaughan/Moko Somõkõw


During January and February, during the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival season, Alice Yard hosted three artists’ residencies at Granderson Lab, which has been an important location for mas and performance practice in recent years.

Gwladys Gambie, who lives and works in Fort-de-France, Martinique, explores questions of feminism and race through the mediums of drawing, sculpture, and performance. During a two-week residency at Granderson Lab — instigated by her previous collaboration with Kriston Chen during the 2018 Caribbean Linked residency in Aruba — Gambie investigated Trinidad’s Carnival traditions and created a mas performance titled Manman Chadwon, in which she joined the mas band Moko Somõkõw on Carnival Tuesday. Photo by Maria Nunes

  
Maia Nunes is a performance artist based in Dublin, working across the disciplines of textile, original text, and sound in a live performance context. Their artistic research explores the emotional and cultural legacies of colonialism from an intercultural perspective. Their two-month residency with Alice Yard — including research trips, field recordings, and indigo dyeing — laid the artistic research foundation for a major performance work titled Crossings, a version of which will be presented by Alice Yard later in 2020. Photo by Jason Hunte

Artist and designer Alan Vaughan, based in Newcastle, has worked in Carnival masquerade for over two decades, in recent years designing and creating a series of mas bands with a group of practitioners of the traditional moko jumbie (stilt-walking) masquerade. The collaborative mas band Moko Somõkõw, founded in 2018 and based seasonally at Granderson Lab, created the presentation Resurrection at Sorrow Hill for Carnival 2020, inspired by the novel by the late Guyanese writer Wilson Harris. Photo by Maria Nunes

A walk to Belmont

Sunday 2 February, 2020, 5 pm
From 80 Roberts Street, Woodbrook,
to Granderson Lab, 24 Erthig Road, Belmont

At the end of January 2020, Alice Yard will relocate from 80 Roberts Street, Woodbrook — our base for the past thirteen and a half years — to Granderson Lab, 24 Erthig Road, Belmont. Previously an adjunct space, Granderson Lab will now become the permanent home of Alice Yard.

Since September 2006, our activities have evolved in response to the physical environment at 80 Roberts Street, but we have always maintained that Alice Yard is not merely a place but a social and conceptual space, a model for collaboration, a far-ranging network. Our move to Granderson Lab offers the opportunity to test this idea, as we rethink and reimagine our way ahead in a new (but still familiar) location, and the different (but still familiar) social topography of Belmont.

On Sunday 2 February, 2020, at 5 pm, we will mark this transition with a walk from 80 Roberts Street through Port of Spain to 24 Erthig Road: a short physical journey that will serve as a simple ritual of relocation, and a collective reflection on our past, present, and future.

At Granderson Lab there will be modest refreshments and an opportunity to tour our new home, currently a work in progress. (We will provide transport back to Roberts Street for those who park there ahead of the walk.)

We invite all our friends, colleagues, and collaborators to join us on our walk to Belmont — and in our future imaginings.

Maya Ramesar: Big and Small

Thursday 16 January, 2020, from 6.30 pm
27 Pembroke Street, Port of Spain

On Thursday 16 January, 2020, for one night only, artist Maya Ramesar will present a series of paintings and digital animations in the temporary project space at 27 Pembroke Street in downtown Port of Spain.

“I approach a painting as a room,” explains the artist. “A character is put into a space where it will live forever.” In these works, non-human, subhuman, and superhuman figures abound, elements of fiction that the artist and her audience superimpose over real life. Anachronistic, incongruous, and iconic images merge to subvert conventional representations of Trinidad, as the normal and the calamitous co-exist. The discomfort, tension, and posturing of these figures are forceful rather than subtextual.

The artist writes: “Local art in the public consciousness is serene and picturesque. I was frustrated with figures that appeared contemplative, languid, or busy making merry without gaze. Local people and spaces are often treated as passive muses rather than individual characters.

“What or who gets to take up space, and what is shoved to the periphery? What is framed? Focal?”

All are invited.


Maya Ramesar is communications officer at the Trinidad and Tobago Association for the Hearing Impaired, as well as a freelance illustrator.

In collaboration with #ayardexchange and Cass’Mosha A. Centeno