Ok, so maybe we can do a little* teaser~
II: Curating the Margins at Alice Yard
About a week into the residency, I was asked by Christopher Cozier if I wanted to curate the culminating, one-night-only, open-studio exhibition for Defying the Margins. I quickly agreed since my participation in the residency was driven by a desire to conduct research into exhibition histories of Caribbean art rather than make art myself. However, as I soon realized, curating a show with fifteen participants in five days is not an easy task; nor is organizing an exhibition with over half of the artwork still in progress. It was out of this sense of urgency that I was forced to develop strategies for accommodating the various stages of development the artists were engaged in. In the second week leading up to the show, I worked closely with my fellow residency participants, asking questions about their works in progress to better understand their artistic objectives. I assisted where I could and had frequent discussions about presentation options, (especially for process-based work such as Yuxi Ji’s experiments with cyanotype and anthotype photography). [1]
In drafting the curatorial statement, this visitor status needed to be considered. During my initial research, I compared exhibition catalogs from Wrestling with the Image, which opened in 2011 at the Art Museum of the Americas in Washington, DC, Relational Undercurrents from the Museum of Latin American Art in 2017, and the Brooklyn Museum's 2007 exhibition Infinite Island, to determine how the Caribbean has been organized culturally, geographically, and historically. In a review for Wrestling with the Image, curated by Christopher Cozier and Tatiana Flores, Jerry Philogene praises the critical stance of the curators who foreground Caribbean diasporic artists to address "the specificity of the 'local,' while contemplating the abstraction of the 'displaced' and the practicalities of 'home.'” [2] This was my challenge as well, as both artist and curator, of how to address the specificity of the local but as someone who was raised outside of region and was “returning” as a tourist. Fortunately, Alice Yard provided a built environment in which to ground my thoughts. The exhibition incorporated all available space including the ground floor, (which is sectioned off from the street by a sliding metal gate), the second-floor patio, and the apartment loft for artists in residence. [3] These spaces were then conceptually subdivided into staging areas for various works. Likewise, the exhibition display capitalized on existing hardware available at the studio including excess furniture, wooden boards, a metal ladder, two long worktables, and a fishing net.
The ground floor functioned as an exhibition space which later became a stage for three musical and spoken word performances which took place throughout the duration of the evening. On the main (second) floor, we hung a fishing net from the ceiling to display cyanotype prints. Madeline Collin's light pink chapel-turned-nightclub sculpture, rave against the dying of the light (2023) [4] introduces the show and sets the tone for the rest of the exhibition. Located at the top of the stairs, its flashing lights and loud soca music welcome the visitors. A well-worn couch, wooden crate, and television became incorporated into what I nominally called “Khushi’s Home Theater,” which was the setting for Khushi Jetley’s multimedia installation Catharsis (2023). Olivia Eyre’s sound installation Open (2023) was placed in the artist loft to better manage the acoustics; however, Olivia’s decision to decorate the bedroom of the loft with objects she had brought to Port-of-Spain—and those she had acquired during our time there—embody an act of placemaking. The arrangement of sounds in Open also communicates place, thus, the loft was deemed “Olivia’s Room.” Holly Enns’ textile work (and performance), Kismet (2023), was staged under a spotlight on the second floor. Originally, the work was meant to solely consist of embroidered textile tapestries. However, due to time constraints, Kismet was adapted into a performance. In it, Holly invites viewers to participate in the creation of queer space as she embroiders through sitting and conversing. On the second-floor patio, people were encouraged to sit and play checkers on Sebastian Mean’s concrete checkboard bench. The accompanying video installation was propped up on bricks found on the patio and projected onto a wooden board. The site-specific experimentation and remixing built into the conception and presentation of the Defying the Margins exhibition also extended to content of the artworks, such as Anisha’s Alice Yard—Shared Scape (2023).
Alice Yard—Shared Scape (2023) is a surrealist three-dimensional rendering of the actual space of Alice Yard. The video installation simulates a walk-through of the physical environment based on measurements taken from Alice Yard's floorplan. Reality becomes permeable through the artist's desire to reflect the affective dimensions of the building itself. Trees and grass grow indoors, nearly wall-sized windows open to a view of the ocean, a stark contrast to the concrete streets and houses of residential Belmont; however, the fidelity of the latticework on the brick pony wall above the stairs is unmistakable. While there are several other works of art that I could highlight which interact with the natural environment of Port-of-Spain—such as Farzaneh Moallef’s Walking with John Stollmeyer on the Land (2023), and Madeline Collins’ series of pinhole photographs, the same water (#1-5) (2023), and video installation, every animal knows when something is wrong (2023)—Anisha’s work specifically engages the built environment of Alice Yard, as I sought to do through my installation.
III: #AYardExchange: From Port-of-Spain to Toronto
October brings cloudy pale skies and traffic.
A few months later, I’m back in Toronto. I meet Madeline one afternoon to discuss the layout for the Toronto production of the Defying the Margins exhibition. We walk around the gallery, examining the white walls and measuring the distances from the end of one hypothetical artwork to the next with our hands. I felt grateful she was able to co-curate since I would be away during the installation. I’d bought a plane ticket to visit my parents in the States after we returned from Trinidad. I was anxious and tired, and we finished mapping out the space quickly. I gave instructions for how to install my work and left to prepare for my flight to Tennessee.
I’m told the installation took place over a couple of days and that Madeline and the installation team, (including several of the participating artists), navigated numerous technical difficulties to get the exhibition up and running. It’s thanks to them that we had a show at all. The main issue though, as I saw it, was how to create space within space. At Alice Yard, the soundscape for “Olivia’s Room” was isolated in the loft and “Khushi’s Home Theater” was sectioned off with a couch. [5] There was also the outdoor patio and the first floor, which functioned as an entry point to the show for any passersby. Unlike Alice Yard, the Ada Slaight Student Gallery is not located on the first floor and can be a bit difficult to locate. In planning for the Toronto exhibition, however, I believed maintaining the flow of the exhibition was most important. We created sections of wall space for each artwork or installation, and attempted to bring the artwork forward so that the audience would be compelled to walk around or under certain works. The boxy shape of the gallery also made it challenging to create multidirectional flows within the space since the eye would naturally be drawn from wall to wall. The hallway then, and the entrance to the gallery, is where we established the tone of the exhibition and made the strongest connections back to Trinidad—all of which begins with the music.
Upon my return a week later, as I walk down the hall towards the Ada Slaight Gallery, I smile with happiness and familiarity at sound of “Hard Fete” pulsing out of a tiny pink chapel. “Olivia’s Room” is now a lounge chair, bookshelf, stool, and side table in a corner of the gallery. I sit and listen to the sounds of rain, seeds, and paintbrushes from Open and look at the framed pictures on the wall. “Khushi’s Home Theater” (Catharsis) has been transformed into an inviting and carefully arranged display of photographs, books, and incense on tables draped in brightly colored saris. Madeline’s salt-body outline in the hall thrills me. I tell everyone who sees it that, “She did this on the roof [at Alice Yard].” Yuxi’s cyanotypes hang from paperclips and twine, casting geometric shadows on the wall. [6] I stand under Holly’s embroidered tapestries and observe the red threads that crisscross and traverse the distance between them—an encoded call and response. I am immersed in and mesmerized by Anisha’s Alice Yard-Shared Scape and her attention to detail once more.
I asked Madeline, upon reflection, what would she say about the Toronto version of Defying the Margins. Her response reflects the same sentiments I share about the objectives for the show:
"Bringing Defying the Margins to Toronto required me to think through what the residency meant to us, its energy, how it made us feel, and trying to communicate those affects through the curation. The white cube gallery in Canada’s fall weather felt sterile and cold, the absolute opposite of our experience at Alice Yard, where we were welcomed with open arms and a kindhearted community. My curatorial vision ended up incorporating that warmth and invitation through sensory experience — bringing in lush plants, rich fabrics, furniture, and other materials to pull forward two-dimensional works into the viewer’s space, with music and sounds flowing throughout. The end result was a re-centering of texture, colour, music, and voice, to infuse the new location with a sense of hospitality and liveliness, a bit of Trinidad brought home." [7]
While the flow and spatial organization reflected that of the Port-of-Spain show, rather than allowing the exhibition to become a hollow echo of the past, the tone and energy was revitalized through attention to music, color, texture, and staging. Creating that context was vitally important for sharing the experience of exhibiting in Trinidad. Upon the opening of the Toronto show, we artists spent the evening reminiscing about our time in Trinidad while also conversing with visitors about the work we made and our experiences traveling and making art.
Curating Defying the Margins marks my solo and collaborative curatorial debuts. I don’t think I could’ve anticipated the rewarding yet challenging experience of putting together an exhibition in five days. It was not perfect, (we were still installing by the time people started arriving to the show). I spent the opening night running around like a headless chicken and the weight of the trust bestowed upon me by the artists felt daunting at times. However, seeing the exhibition come together in Port-of-Spain, (and then introducing it in Toronto), brought me a unique sense of satisfaction that only comes from having your hard work recognized.
*not so, as it turns out. i couldn't help myself :D
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[1] The final presentation of Yuxi’s series of cyanotype and anthotype photography recognizes the technical processes of photographic printing. Anthotypes and cyanotypes are printing processes which utilize photosensitive material in order to register an after-image, (in other words, they are photograms). Yuxi’s process involved photographing with her digital camera, then digitally separating the negative from the positive image to print onto acetate sheets. These photographic negatives and positives became the images in her cyanotype and anthotype prints. The installation of Yuxi’s work for the Defying the Margins exhibition represents the entirety of this process, featuring the cameras and chemical agents used to develop the prints, as well as the numerous iterations/printing tests that the artist conducted. From the texture of the paper to the intensity or darkness of the image—which varies according to the amount of time the photosensitive agent is exposed outside—each print contains its own unique qualities.
[2] Jerry Philogene, Review of Wrestling with the Image, exhibition curated by Christopher Cozier and Tatiana Flores, Art Museum of the Americas, The Caribbean Review of Books 25 (January 2011): http://caribbeanreviewofbooks.com/crb-archive/25-january-2011/belonging-to-in-between/.
[3] The restroom also became integral to staging darkroom experimentations.
[4] rave against the dying of the light is modeled after a chapel that is near the Chancellor Hotel on St. Ann’s Avenue. Inside the church multicolored lights flash and soca music plays loudly as if a party is taking place. Madeline contextualizes her interest in queer nightlife and rave culture in a religious space, “[alluding] to the transcendent and ecstatic power of music and dance, and the ways these spaces alleviate struggles associated with seeking selfhood and acceptance.”
[5] Sebastian’s concrete bench unfortunately did not make the return with us to Toronto since he could not carry it onto the plane.
[6] We had discussed the possibility of sourcing rope netting prior to my departure but could not secure it.
[7] Personal correspondence.