9 of 219 by Jamaican Artist Ebony G. Patterson in Alice Yard.

Ebony G. upfront (Rodell Warner)

July 25th, 2011. Alice Yard, Port of Spain, Trinidad.

9 of 219 . This piece had all the fixings of a good ole fashioned wake: from flambeau to candle and a procession of 9 coffins around the portion of the Woodbrook block that is home to Alice Yard Contemporary Artspace and then some. Woodbrook was already abuzz for most the day before the 7pm performance-based work by Patterson.

Flambeau and candle

Woodbrook police station was reportedly inundated with calls from concerned neighbours about the goings on at Roberts Street. These “goings on” actually prompted an investigation by a party of officers who responded to calls about “somebody dragging around a coffin on Roberts street, whole day,” and even Port of Spain’s Mayor himself paid a visit, warning us about the Yard’s lack of proper procedure in procuring permission for the performance and that the performance should not by any means take place on the “street”.

Ebony G. and the popo

6 of 9 of 219 coffins Alice Yard, The Lower Annex

Not withstanding all of the various official “visits”, by 8pm it was clear that Patterson’s project was going to happen, and the faithful gathered to bear her representations of fallen brethren: nine cosquel dancehall/bling coffins marking the number of deaths that took place during a few days of Patterson’s residency in Alice Yard. (Patterson’s aesthetic choices in the work form part of her ongoing exploration of Jamaica’s dancehall culture and its grandiose love of bling and flam couture.) Patterson is the first of a number of Caribbean artists that will be visiting the Yard over the next few months to celebrate the art space’s fifth anniversary, entitled Act 5.

Ebony G. Patterson (Jamaica/U.S.A.), Entourage, 2010. Digital print. (courtesy the artist)

As the pallbearers (both men and women, an oddity in the Caribbean where pallbearers are typically men and noted by one onlooker as empowering for women within this context) traversed the Woodbrook streets accompanied by 3 Canal. Patterson and 3 Canal collaborated to create a dirge of culled newspaper recollections/musings of Patterson’s, fused with 3 Canal’s own Pitter Patter riddum. It soon became obvious to everyone, documenters, onlookers, pallbearers et al, that this work had more shared resonance than anyone could have imagined at the beginning of the experiment.

3 of 9 of 219 coffins, Alice Yard, The Box

The Procession clip (Artzpub Videos)

The Procession in Woodbrook

Ebony G. Patterson and Christopher Cozier

Artist Luis Vasquez on crime and Caracas

Patterson, in a later talk about her work, drew similarities to our murder rate and that of Jamaica’s, prompting a lively comparison of safety and securities/ insecurities in our Caribbean environment, and our perceptions of what safety and security really mean. One Venezuelan-born artist commented on the fact that coming from a city of 5000 murders a year with a population of 5 million, to Trinidad, where there’s a murder rate of “only” 300 a year, he felt a sense of safety and security that he clearly didn’t have in Venezuela. Patterson also noted how the work and its development entered into a type of political space that she hadn’t initially foreseen.

Kelvon was a people's person and plenty people liked him because he liked to give jokes. He liked to chant and give freestyles (rap chants). Everybody in the neighbourhood saying it was something that wasn't meant for him.- (Antoinette George on the death of her son Kelvon 16)

Thank you for this...

One member of the procession thanked Patterson for the opportunity to attach a self to the often faceless murders and people reported, to get the chance to know, even if briefly, or rather, have ownership for and a bond maybe, with this representation of a person that on a regular day we may actually avoid, by ducking a newspaper or a crime reportage because we may have had enough. The ‘work’ discussions prompted more side discussions and branches to the exploratory tree than can be mentioned here. However, these are a few: males, the masculinity of crime, our acceptance or desensitization to murder due in part to violence in the media, You Tube etc, the disposal of the dead and what it means, superstitions and beliefs about funerals and their social importance, and so much more.

Some of Patterson’s work has left me speechless, just by its sheer magnificence. 9 of 219 is one of them.

Artists Ebony G., Ashraph and Darren Cheewah (pix by Rodell Warner)

WRESTLING WITH THE IMAGE eCATALOG

Wrestling with the Image: Caribbean Interventions, an exhibition of contemporary art from twelve Caribbean countries. Featuring work by artists from the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago, the exhibition is curated by artist and curator Christopher Cozier and art historian Tatiana Flores.

Published in conjunction with the Art Museum of the Americas, The Organization of American States and Draconian Switch, 'Wrestling With the Image', is the Official Catalogue of the exhibition opened on January 21st and running through to May 10th 2011 at the Museum of the Americas, Washington. This 108 page downloadable catalogue designed by Richard Mark Rawlins, features the artists works, and essays by Cozier and Flores.

Click link below to download.

wwtig.pdf

Check out a website listing for artists in the show:

Ewan Atkinson:

http://www.ewanatkinson.com/

La Vaughn Belle:

http://www.lavaughnbelle.com/

Lillian Blades:

http://www.lillianblades.com/

Terry Boddie:

http://www.terryboddie.com

Holly Bynoe:

http://hollybynoe.com/

Santiago Cal:

http://www.santiagocal.com/

Charles Campbell:

http://www.charlescampbellart.com/

John Cox:

http://www.iamjohncox.com/

Blue Curry:

www.bluecurry.com/

Jean-Ulrick Désert:

http://www.jeanulrickdesert.com/

Richard Fung:

http://www.richardfung.ca/

Joscelyn Gardner:

http://www.joscelyngardner.com/

Marlon Griffith:

http://marlongriffith.blogspot.com/

Nadia Huggins:

http://www.nadiahuggins.com/

Marlon James:

http://mjamestudio.com/

Patricia Kaersenhout:

http://www.kaersenhout.com/

Roshini Kempadoo:

http://www.roshinikempadoo.co.uk/

Hew Locke:

http://www.hewlocke.net/

Jamie Lee Loy:

http://jaimeleeloy.blogspot.com/

Pauline Marcelle:

http://www.paulinemarcelle.com/

Kishan Munroe:

http://www.kishanmunroe.com/

Nikolai Noel:

http://nikolainoelprojects.blogspot.com/

Ebony G. Patterson:

http://artitup.zoomshare.com/

Oneika Russell:

http://oneikarussell.net/

Heino Schmid:

http://heinoschmid.com/

Rodell Warner:

http://www.rodellwarner.com/

Tonya Wiles:

http://www.tonyawiles.com/

THE ARTZPUB INTERVIEWS: 5 QUESTIONS WITH CHRISTOPHER COZIER

Little Gestures with notes- Christopher Cozier

Little Gestures (original)- Christopher Cozier

Artzpub caught up with Artist/Writer/Thinker Christopher Cozier on the eve of his leaving for a showing in New York at the Museum of Arts and Design. We asked him about the show, the Alice Yard art space and his body of work…

Artzpub: It’s been a big year for Alice Yard: Paramaribo Span a string of successful engagements in Alice Yard and now The Global Africa Project at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), NYC. Tell us a little bit about how you view the year and how Alice Yard became included in the show at MAD.

Christopher Cozier: Yes – it’s good that our ideas are being noticed and that they can be applied and tested beyond the physical Yard. Fingers crossed.

Lowery Sims first asked me to recommend some design-based work from Trinidad. I sent her links to various things and she was really taken by Marlon Darbeau’s work from the New Orleans show and to things like Draconian Switch. She was initially looking at steel pan and also at architects, so obviously Sean’s investigations came up. Our conversation shifted from Trinidad to the region and to one or two artists from Africa that I had met - people like Ugochukwu Bright Eke, who did a residency at Alice Yard, and Kossi Assou who was in Haiti on my last visit there. I was never thinking of my own work but then she began to research my stuff and realised that there was a design element that keeps coming up in my practice, over the years – the various rubber stamps, the mass-produced objects such as the Box of Fear, the various cards, and objects like the benches or peeras, for example. She was curious about our use of the internet and the dialogues and communities we have been constructing – the ongoing conversation with Sean Leonard and Nicholas Laughlin around Alice Yard and its networks. It all expanded from there and especially after we did the “Critical Space” clip on Youtube for the conference at MICA.

AP: Your old alma mater, MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art) is “Co-organising an unprecedented exhibition of African art, design, and craft worldwide”. The show, co-curated by MICA’s own Leslie Hammond King and Lowery Sims, features a number of MICA graduates. It’s been described as one of the twenty top highly anticipated shows of the fall by New York Magazine. What, if any, is the significance of this for you?

CC: OK. I didn’t know that. Well, Leslie was one of my undergraduate lecturers and subsequently advised me in making my choices while applying to graduate school in the 80s. Lowery did studio visits while I was a graduate student at Rutgers but she may not recall. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. For some reason I was thinking more about our little John D, the one that was, back home. In my days it was just a few little wobbly brown stools and tables in a hot dusty room in a large, typical early 60s tropical institutional space. I can still smell the fermenting grain from the flour mills or hear the hiss of steam from T&TEC.

AP: Speaking of alma maters, John D. (John Donaldson Technical Institute) has quite a number of graduates showing around the globe at this time: the Marlons (Griffith and Darbeau), Wendell McShine and of course, yourself. Helluva coincidence.

CC: Not really when you think about it carefully. For example, John D gave me my start as a professional artist – a competitive and solid enough portfolio to get into university abroad. I did not do well in secondary school here so I couldn’t get into UWI. I was a reject from the conventional system even though I passed 11+ for my first choice school. I made doodles and paper planes with my O-level answer sheets. I was extremely alienated. I still have them in a zip-lock bag at home after smuggling them out of the exam room! Maybe they will become part of a future artwork in some way. John D. was my first real lifeline in a society with extremely limited educational and life choices and I gave it my all with that in mind. So, when I first returned to Trinidad after studying abroad, I wanted to be part of that and to follow on with that tradition (not the wobbly desks and the dusty space but the critical dialogues) to do the same for others in whom I saw the same struggle.

I remain astonished and elated at what was accomplished there for and by myself and others, for Wendell, Marlon D and G, Nikolai Noel and so many more. The things we take for granted here in Trinidad confuse me often.

AP: You were chosen to create “Now Showing”, the official image for the 2010 Trinidad & Tobago Film Festival. As a result, you ‘returned’ home this year, this being your first showing in Trinidad in a decade. ‘Returned’ is really is a funny term when you look at it because you live and create in Trinidad, though your works have been on tour in collections abroad. What work do you currently have on tour and now that you are ‘home’ so to speak, when can we expect to see the works here in Trinidad?

CC: Yes, I was quite surprised to be asked. An interesting question resides in this idea of “here” – my work resides where there is a context or space for it. We are talking about critical engagement and financial investment – about a responsive professional space for real growth. I would like Trinidad to be one of those kinds of locations as well. I remain optimistic. But then – look at where most Caribbean literature is written and also published. At the end of the day, “home” is wherever one can find some level of equality, dignity and way in the world.

One of my projects is now in Martinique after being in England and Spain, another is still in Canada, a collection of my prints were just on show in the US and Alice Yard is in two shows, the current one at MAD which opens this week and the other which opened in Miami/Basel and was in France over the last few months. The film festival image simply created a reason for me to do something in Trinidad. However on-line my work and ideas are always “here,” “there” or “everywhere” according to how you interpret “location”.

Made in China - Christopher Cozier

The “made in china” box came up in the development of the “Now Showing” image. So the process was a good one for me in that some interesting ideas came up that I would like investigate further, and it may develop into a show that I would like to do here in Trinidad. It’s been 10 years since that has crossed my mind…that’s exciting for me. Having that feeling or thought.

AP: In the short film “Alice Yard: A Work in Progress” by Darryn Boodan and Mariel Brown, you discuss Alice Yard as a conceptual enterprise. Sean Leonard describes the Yard as a place to PLAY. Nicholas Laughlin portrays the Yard as a freedom of the space. Expand on this for us, and give us an overview of where or rather what you see in store for Alice Yard’s immediate future and your hope for the contemporary art scene in Trinidad and Tobago.

CC: We are an actual and virtual yard, delineated/configured by creative interests. We are building a critical or investigative dialogue or conversation, a platform or context for creative endeavors. We are a “yes”... “go ahead” and “do it” space, not a “Trinidad not ready for that” or “people need to be educated” kind of space. We appreciate the value of dreams and self respect. We are both an actual physical space as well as a virtual one so the logical step is for Sean’s experiments with architecture as designing spaces for social interaction to keep expanding out into the region and the diaspora. For our recently accomplished (and of course celebrated) 4^th anniversary, Marcel Pinas and Ann Hermelijn of Suriname, Sheena Rose of Barbados, Heino Schmid and John Cox from The Bahamas and O’Neil Lawrence of Jamaica joined us for a series of discussions and presentations as we try to figure how to facilitate each other’s interests. We are trying to figure how to move artists between these locations and build curatorial projects and exchanges.

AP: Chris you have always been a solo artist, in a sense. How is the experience different now that you're at MAD as part of a collective?

CC: I have never seen myself that way. I am always in dialogue with others about their work and ideas and my own. Roxanne Fung’s family bakery in St Anns made the bread for my Chicago installation of “Bread on Wheels” – the shape of the loaves suited the look I wanted, Kiss Bread for my Cuba installation of sandwiches. I have collaborated with Earth TV and later Richard Fung for my video works. And for this Alice Yard work, Marlon Darbeau, Sean and Murphy at the Callaloo Company – the list is long.

Work is also “produced” by someone simply looking at it or by someone choosing to create the situation in which it can be experienced and through critical reflection and so on.

There are many kinds of collectives. I have always seen my works as also being engaged in a conversation, as building a kind of critical architecture or context not just for my own interests.

MAD: museum of arts and design highlights "Critical Space" film

One of the highlights of the conference was a conversation submitted by Christopher Cozier, artist/ writer in Trinidad, in which he and publisher Richard Rawlins discussed the “creative possibilities” in the Caribbean as well as the “collaborative networks, off- and online, that are evolving around Alice Yard and its partners.” Cozier is co-curator and “instigator” of the Alice Yard space and blogspot with architect Sean Leonard, writer /editor Nicholas Laughlin, and musician Sheldon Holder. Read it all here.

http://www.madblog.org/2009/11/transformations-new-directions-in-black-art-conference/

CRITICAL SPACES

An artzpub films production. Christopher Cozier & Richard Rawlins discuss the Caribbean as A CRITICAL SPACE for art and art development. Director: Darryn Boodan, Editor: Tracy J Hutchings Photography: Rodell Warner, Richard Rawlins and Damian Libert. Equipment provided by: Dave Williams, firsttfloor studios.