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VOLUME 1 | ISSUE 3 | $20
“UGLY BOY”
B A RB A DOS
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MATTHEW KUPAWASHE MURRELL
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REVIEW: A CLIPPING OF WINGS BY ADAM PATTERSON
16
52
CHATTING WITH SHEENA ROSE BY NAOMI JACKSON
34
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ADRIAN RICHARDS
CONTENTS 05. GUEST EDITOR’S NOTE Publisher + Executive Editor Melissa Hunter Davis Designer + Assistant Editor Ed King Website Dudley Alexis Copy Editor Jeff Nesler Writers Sir Hillary Beckles, Tamara Best, Adrian Green, Katherine Kennedy, Jason Fitzroy Jeffers, Matthew Kupawashe Murrell, Adam Patterson, and Naomi Jackson
06. CHARLOTTE BRATHWAITE BY JASON FITZROY JEFFERS
Advertising sales@sugarcanemag.com Sponsorships engage@sugarcanemag.com
11. POETRY: NEW ELIMINA BY ADAM GREEN
12. WHY NELSON MUST FALL
FOREWORD BY ADAM PATTERSON LETTER BY SIR HILLARY BECKLES
Submission + Guidelines submission@sugarcanemag.com sugarcanemag.com/submissions
22. SWEET DREAMS OR A BEAUTIFUL NIGHTMARE
(646) 770-3409 8325 NE 2nd Ave Miami, FL 33138 editor@sugarcanemedia.net www.sugarcanemag.com
28. KATRINA BRATHWAITE
BY KATHERINE KENNEDY BY TAMARA BEST
44. SHORT PLAY: UGLY BOY
BY MATTHEW KUPAWASHE MURRELL
COVER IMAGE: Adam Patterson | “Looking for Langston” | Digital photograph | 2019 Commissioned for ‘Edge of an Era’ by Live Art Development Agency, UK. ©2019 Sugarcane Magazine is a quarterly magazine which focuses on art and intellectualism from Africa and the African Diaspora. All contents are protected by copyright law and may not be reproduced without written consent from the publisher. The advertiser is solely responsible for ad content and holds the publisher harmless from any errors and/or any trademark or copyright infringement.
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EDITOR’S LETTER | ISSUE INSIGHTS
guest editor
SHEENA
ROSE The first time Sugarcane Magazine invited
I am excited to share the featured creative individuals’
me to write a review, I was my own art crit-
work, truth, expression, thoughts and processes. These
ic. As “The Serious Art Critic,” I ended up
specific creatives have been chosen because I find their
interviewing myself as the artist. It was a
stories exciting. Do they respond to the Barbadian
conversation literally between me and my
space or avoid it? Is there an element of escapism? We
work. A successful piece that received a lot of attention, it
have covered the visual arts, music, playwriting/theater,
was, however, strange to read. As an artist, I was basically
poetry, performance art, fashion and photography. These
talking to myself. It was my first review, and I applauded
creators address topics such as history, gender, social,
Sugarcane Magazine for taking the risk. Now, here we are,
observations of internal and external spaces, and they
taking another risk as I am the guest editor of Sugarcane
share personal crib notes, photographs, reviews and in-
Magazine’s third issue.
terviews. Exciting!
Sometime during Art Basel 2017 (Miami Beach, Fla.), I met
For some time, we the creatives have been talking about
Melissa Hunter-Davis, Sugarcane’s founder. We spoke pas-
the value and acknowledgement of ourselves. I want peo-
sionately about the potential of showing and using the con-
ple to not just be educated, but aware of us as more than
temporary arts in the Barbadian space. Hunter-Davis was
just this “Island in the Sun” of tourist attractions, beaches,
very curious about this, and together we built a relation-
coconut trees and rum. We are more than that. Working
ship. Yet still it came as a surprise that I was invited as a
through this magazine, I feel as though I have curated a
guest editor for the magazine’s third issue, which has as its
show. How do these creations come together in one
sole focus, “The Barbadian Art Scene.”
space? I have learned quite a bit, not only about the wonderful work, but about the process of getting a magazine
I saw this as an opportunity to have critical conversations
such as this ready to go to press.
about the arts in and from Barbados. It’s exciting and most refreshing to have this focus on our creativity, rather than
Again, I feel honored to have this role as guest editor
in its usual role as a side attraction for a tourist magazine.
and thank Sugarcane Magazine for listening and taking
It becomes frustrating when one who often speaks about
the risk. Big thanks to the team, Melissa Hunter-Davis
their work with such clarity and pureness of thought, is
the founder, and all the creatives for making this happen;
suddenly asked, “What is your favorite spot on the island?
family, friends and supporters for always believing in us.
Where is your favorite beach or favorite restaurant?” I am
Now please sit back, read and enjoy this special edition of
exhausted by this limited representation of us.
Sugarcane Magazine.
#WEAREBLACKCULTURE | SUGARCANEMAG.COM
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Charlotte Brathwaite By Jason Fitzroy Jeffers
THEATER: Reinvented
Brathwaite’s eye opening, full tilt, and immersive theater pieces on sex, race and power in Black culture have won her acclaim and admiration. Now, she’s making the leap into film.
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FEATURE | CHARLOTTE BRATHWAITE
OISTINS, BARBADOS—It is a Friday night on the south coast of Barbados and all roads lead to Oistins. Home to a mostly quiet fishing village and market by day, it is swarmed every Friday evening by tourists and locals alike for the weekly fish fry. Hundreds course through the array of tiny stalls, each one cooking up fresh-caught local fish in all sorts of mouthwatering preparations. At the back of the market, couples hold each other close and partner-dance in the open-air ballroom to old country music tunes and ‘60s pop classics; out front, diners tuck into plates piled high with grilled tuna and lobster just off the boats and listen to local karaoke warblers on the massive stage whose quivering, passionate wails ring out over the entire town.
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Charlotte Brathwaite Filmmaking: Re-invented
Film still | “No More Water/The Fire Next Time: The Gospel According to James Baldwin” | 2016
On this particular Friday, just after Christmas, theater
and audience. Her productions often go full tilt into
the throngs, heading for her favorite stall. She’s fiend-
dia presentations and acting that the audience is in-
director Charlotte Brathwaite is sauntering through
ing for grilled barracuda tonight. Like many Bajans
who live abroad (this writer included), she’s in for the holidays to catch up with family and to take it all in.
The most-welcome sensory overload that is Oistins
conjures up pure nostalgia and culture for just about any Bajan who makes a pilgrimage there–be it from
the other side of the island or the other side of the world–but for Brathwaite, who has trained her cell-
phone camera on a drummer weaving through the
vited to live inside of, as opposed to just watching from the security of their seats.
Much of it syncretizes disparate, yet parallel paths of African diasporic culture, meditations on sex, race and
power–all while enlisting avant-garde collaborators to bring it to life, even–especially celebrated folks like
musician Meshell Ndegeocello and visual artist Sanford Biggers.
crowd while she waits in line for her fish, this becomes
“In my world, I think theater with a big “TH,” like The.
ater pieces.
in Harlem plotting a new piece over a quick lunch and
something more: it’s not entirely unlike one of her the-
Brathwaite’s work transcends traditional theater,
which usually draws a firm line between performers
8
the immersive, a wild swirl of music, dance, multime-
Theater,” reveals Brathwaite a few months later. She’s some overdue laundry. “It’s huge… it means all the
arts and music; light, visual art, language, the body, the environment, smells–all of them involved.”
SUGARCANE MAGAZINE | JUNE 2019 | ISSUE THREE
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FEATURE | CHARLOTTE BRATHWAITE
Her innovation has won Brathwaite high praise and re-
Those creative origins would be firmed up after she
awarded not one but three of the most prestigious
Art was the only thing that gave her pleasure, so all
ward. 2019 has been a big year for her, as she’s been
prizes in contemporary art: the United States Artists
Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Fellowship, a Creative Capital Award and a Rockefeller Bellagio Center residency.
All of this after countless other awards and rave reviews in the New York Times, Playbill, The Wall Street
Journal and many other publications. They all wax at length at how daring Brathwaite’s work is, how it wraps itself around you, lingering long after, but to hear
left high school in Toronto to head south to New York.
roads led there. The plan? Dive into the theater world, which she did by connecting with La MaMa Experimental Theater Club, the storied off-off-Broadway
theater company founded in 1961 by fashion design-
er/director/visionary Ellen Stewart in the basement of an old East Village boutique. It would prove to be a rite of passage.
“Two weeks after my high school graduation, I was in Eastern Europe on a bus with 30 people, a snake
and all of our sets and costumes touring around war
torn former Yugoslavia,” says Brathwaite through a
“I try to create spaces where the quiet parts of people feel heard.” – Charlotte Brathwaite
cascade of belly laughs. “The pieces that we were doing with La MaMa were all immersive pieces where,
as an audience, you were maybe told to stand or sit somewhere, but the piece was moving all around you
all the time. This idea of a fourth wall just wasn’t a part of Ellen’s vocabulary.”
At La MaMa, Brathwaite would wear multiple hats at
the theater’s in-house Great Jones Repertory Company, from production coordinator to Stewart’s assisher tell it, it’s in large part simply an extension of her
Bajan upbringing–in the UK where she was born, then
Canada, for her formative years–and the culture that
tant, and got plenty of experience performing. She
was even a tenant, living above the legendary Ellen Stewart theater.
came with it.
When it was time to move forward–though she still
“In some respect for me, art was always about being
would enroll at the famous Mime School at Amster-
inside of it, not watching it,” says Brathwaite. “Music and the body have been a part of my artistic expres-
sion for as long as I can remember. Also, growing up with Caribbean parents, Crop Over was essential. You
almost planned your whole year around being able to get home for Crop Over or, if you couldn’t, Caribana, the carnival in Toronto.
“I feel that long before I even thought about directing
considers herself a part of La MaMa in many ways–she damse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten, renowned for its schooling in all manner of physical theater, on through
a challenging time in Germany–it was a struggle to recognized for anything more than just her skin color,
plus she wanted to make her own work–and ultimate-
ly, to new liberation at Yale School of Drama, where she finally felt she earned the right to call herself a director.
or theater or anything like that, those elements have al-
In the years following her emergence from Yale,
of something, really inside of it, for me that was always
signaled she was out to create her own worlds rath-
ways been a part of my life,” she added. “Being a part tantamount to the creation of an artistic experience.”
Brathwaite would come to stage inventive pieces that
er than live in ones shaped by others. In 2015, there
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Charlotte Brathwaite Filmmaking: Re-invented was “PROPHETIKA: AN ORATORIO,” which ushered viewers into a spiraling portal strung together with
interstellar gospel and Afrofuturist visions of what’s
soothing, find someone to acknowledge their pain or an experience that they’re having.”
to come.
Now it seems she’s doing that womb-like rebirthing
In 2016, she brought new ferocity to James Baldwin’s
cinema. She just completed her first short film–“Only
“The Fire Next Time” by reinterpreting it as “Can I Get A Witness,” a show created in collaboration with Meshell Ndegeocello at Harlem Stage that was equal
parts sermon, concert and shamanic ceremony. As her work has grown, so have the experiences she’s made room for her audience to have inside of it.
work for herself with a leap into another medium:
When It’s Dark Enough Can You See the Stars” will make its festival premiere at the Blackstar Film Festival in Philadelphia in August 2019–and is embarking
on another that finds her tracing both known and unknown lineages in her family and spirit from the Caribbean to Ghana.
“I try to create spaces where the silenced parts of
It’s an unfolding that has particular resonance in Bar-
they feel listened to and maybe receive something
miles of bewitching island that sit like a stranger on
people feel heard,” says Brathwaite. “Spaces where
bados, the tiny birthplace of her parents, 166 square the eastern-most edge of the Caribbean island chain, nothing between it and Africa. In this discovery, this strengthening of roots and rhizomes, she is remembering herself.
“Barbados has been this place where I’ve been trying to reconnect to something that has felt like it got
away from me; in the family,” says Brathwaite, pensively, “but then also in the land, in the culture. The
film for me is a new experience trying to connect lost and forgotten parts of myself.”
As such, she plans on enjoying many more nights at
Oistins and across all 12 parishes of the island as she unearths truths both new and old about herself. Her deepening connection to old Ichirouganaim–the original indigenous name for Barbados, meaning ”the island beyond”–is in many ways kicking off a new chapter for herself, one she’s standing fully inside.
“I feel like every piece I make gets me closer to hear-
ing my own voice more clearly,” says Brathwaite. “I was actually talking to a friend yesterday about this: I
said that I’ve never felt more like myself than I do right
now. I think with every project, I learn something new about myself and about what I’m interested in. There are still so many things that I want to do, and so many Film still from “Looking Back–Looking Forward”
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things that I want to create.”
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New Elmina POETRY BY ADRIAN GREEN
Fraudulent Presidents Prime Ministers Premiers Exposed Running on the premise that we have reached the pinnacle of the precipice prophesied By Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Pompous in pose Mr. Post Racialism Is a brutal King And Mrs. Multiculturalism An evil queen Posing so as not to be seen As the neo-colonial, puppet, royal couple they are Pretending to have the best interest of the people at heart When really, she and he are pawns of global chess players, who commission, manufacture, wholesale, retail, purchase, and push the pieces And keep score We still bear the burdens we bore On our skins the teeth marks: Engraved, plagiarised lyrics from the bite of pirate troubadours. We were not really players
We’ve been played By the rules We behaved By the rules We be slaves By the rules Integrated through the grater To make a pie where certain ingredients are always seen as greater To bake a multigrain bread where the wheat rises and leaves the maize and millet behind Oppressing origins Grinding them fine Appropriating aboriginal flavours Incorporating them into a dish with a hint of that or this which cannot be defined Except by its logo, trade mark, patent or brand Pimp slapped by the invisible hand Sold the promised land Beach front property in New Elmina With a door of no recall Of a conquered culture at all Swallowed whole Regurgitated Repackaged Rebranded Resold Available only in Standard issue, dialect, patois or creole
#WEAREBLACKCULTURE | SUGARCANEMAG.COM
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WHAT ELSE
can we hope to IMAGINE “But what I’m claiming that is not limited is another kind of sovereignty, and that is the capacity you have for choosing and making and remaking that self which you discover is you, is distinctly you. And which in a way is always unfinished, but it has a very special essence that is you, and its power is that it allows you to create the meanings that are to be given to what happens to you.”–George Lamming, interview by David Scott, “The Sovereignty of the Imagination: An Interview with George Lamming,” Small Axe 12, September 2002. To lack imagination in these times is to lack hope. Or, to put it differently, having a capacity for imagination is to have a capacity for a radically transformative and willful mobilization of hope. It’s easy to imagine more of the same. Or, to put it differently, it’s easy to forfeit one’s imagination to a sort of resignation that is only capable of reproducing more of what we are already being subjected to—more of the same. If the task is to enable a capacity to respond, to stir things up, to trouble, to encourage unruliness in the forms our worlds inhabit (Donna Haraway, “Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene,” Durham: Duke University Press, 2016), then being able to imagine elsewhere and otherwise is where both hope and trouble may find us. Indeed, to demand, conjure and salvage something else of the worlds we already inhabit may be considered an act of hope.
The Nelson statue in Heroes Square, Bridgetown, Barbados, has continued to play host to a conflict of imaginations. Waking to the sunrise of November 29, 2017, Nelson wore a sickly yellow smear across his lower body, and we all looked on in awe. That yellow bled volumes from the echoing words of Sir Hilary Beckles among others, who denounced the statue’s claim to “moral legitimacy,” describing it as “a flagrant abuse of state power that has intimidated black society.” (Hilary Beckles, “Nelson Must Fall,” The Nation Barbados, http:// www.nationnews.com/nationnews/letters_to_editor/100433/nelson-fall) Nelson’s defacement may be seen as a response by parts of the Barbadian public to the calls of Beckles (and the like), “to take matters into their own hands.” Despite being described mostly as vandalism, a cultural criticism may be salvaged by further unpacking the act. Nelson’s defacement relies more on material addition (of yellow paint), with the function of decontextualizing and reframing the monument in the public eye. Its condemning reduction to ”vandalism” suggests a destructive gesture of the textual, pictorial or representational, as expressed through such media as graffiti, with the hope of drawing attention only to itself. However, Nelson’s defacement seemed less concerned with drawing attention to itself and more to the surface on which it sits. Colonial residue, like Nelson, tends to fade into the background of the imaginary, distorting, integrating or becoming invisible within it, along with its difficult context and legacy.
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INTRODUCING SIR HILARY BECKLES’
“WHY NELSON MUST FALL”
The addition of alarming yellow paint is a gesture that alerts viewers to what is left of a difficult history, wrenching Nelson from the depths of normalcy, demanding we see the statue differently or, rather, demanding we begin seeing and re-seeing the statue in the first place. It may be read as a call to shed complacency, to clamour for a sovereignty of the imagination, to estrange the statue’s presence from our social environment, to query Nelson’s place among us. “What future possibility does this open space hold or enable us to foretell?”–Gabi Ngcobo, “Dear History, We Don’t Need Another Hero,” 10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, Berlin: KUNST-WERKE BERLIN, 2018 Locally, artists have occasionally flirted with the untapped idea of the open space Nelson’s plinth promises. To imagine Nelson’s plinth, not as a site of monumentally fixed meaning but, as a space for constant becoming, revisiting, reconfiguring and reinscripting is indeed a hopeful, transformational and transporting act; an act that takes you elsewhere. The illegible traumatic wound of colonial residue becomes touchable, readable, maneuverable, salvageable and considerable when a scar forms over the surface; a scar that can be read, a scar that may be responded to. For artists and others to be able to at least imagine, if not a rounded-out ”something else,” then an open space for possibility in Nelson’s yet realized relocation suggests a sensing based in a position of becoming, a sensing that prophesizes, a sensing with one foot already elsewhere, a sensing of futurity.
When I talk about hope, I don’t mean the kind of hope that hesitates as a passive prayer, waiting for others to act. To hope, in the sense of imagining and envisioning otherwise, further requires the labor of working towards the unrealized. To imagine something else requires the labor of being taken there, doing the work of making the journey and journeying through the work. When Beckles clamors that “Barbados must move on” from Nelson, it is a clamor that hopes to imagine and work towards more unfixed and open conditions in the ways a nation and its people may represent itself. A landscape historically relegated to monocultures—slaves, sugar, tourism—Beckles’ clamor does not hope for a ”moving on” to whatever stage of singularity that may be next in line. Rather, in making the move to ”move on,” a multitude of paths to something else is becoming envisioned; a multitude imagined, shaped and decided by each being’s own trajectory in relation to the other. The trouble is in refusing to be fixed to a singular trajectory; the trouble is in refusing the totalitarianism of the monoculture; and it is with the trouble that a dynamic, complicated, reflexive and robust sense of imagination and an imaginable host of possibilities may find us. What becomes of our stories and images in turning away from harvests of the same? What unruly forms, wild thoughts and unexpected self-junctures become possible in refusing the rut of the monoculture? The ways in which we have yet to see ourselves are the reparations and restorations we owe ourselves. And in these ways we have yet to see ourselves, what else can we hope to imagine?
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WHYMUSTNELSONFALL A LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION SEPTEMBER 12, 2017 | BY SIR HILARY BECKLES
Generally, nations such as Barbados that claim ideo-
The 85,000 enslaved Blacks entrapped in Barbados
ing class have opposed publicly revering persons
icated to keeping them in slavery. The 15,000 slave
logical roots in the democratic struggles of the workknown to have committed crimes against humanity, and those who have assisted them.
The governments of such nations seek to avoid using their considerable moral and legal state power to normalise the acceptance of such crimes within the community of victims.
These circumstances, however, do not apply in our country in the case of Lord Horatio Nelson, rendering it in this regard a deviant if not a pariah nation.
The moral, military, political and legal power of the
Barbados state has been used for 200 years to abuse
the decency, sensibility and intelligence of the majority of inhabitants. This blunt brutality of state power in itself is considered criminal in some quarters.
The facts speak for themselves. Nelson, the naval war-
lord of the British empire by his political decisions, military actions and public speeches, was a vile, racist, white supremacist; he disposed black people, and
dedicated his political and military life to the cause of protecting Britain’s criminal possession of the 800,000 enslaved Africans held during his lifetime.
only knew of Nelson as leader of the naval power ded-
owners in Barbados who welcomed Nelson in the Caribbean and celebrated his presence, did so because their greatest fear was black freedom. For
them, Toussaint L’ouverture, who ended slavery in a
Caribbean society a decade earlier, was their hero. Nelson was their sworn enemy.
The enslaved black community was not invited, there-
fore, to be a part of the decision made by enslavers to erect the Nelson monument in Bridgetown in 1813.
But they did respond very directly three years later
in 1816 when the freedom War of General Bussa was launched to destroy the black enslavement Nelson sought to defend and preserve.
Enslavers used their monopoly possession of parliamentary and military power to erect the monument to
Nelson. As a symbol of white supremacy and slavery, it was meant to send a message. But it also represented an excessive and brutal abuse of parliamentary power.
Nothing has changed in this regard. It has no moral
legitimacy and its continued presence constitutes
the subjugation of democratic parliamentary power to descendant white elites. It is a persistent violent
imposition upon the mind of every right-thinking democratic citizen.
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Under the guise of cultural artifact, academics such as Professor Sir Henry Fraser, and Dr Karl Watson,
who should know better, have confronted the society
and in so doing, have refused to answer the question: Were you Jewish, would you wish to live in a state with a monument of a Nazi warlord?
Not only did Nelson fight to preserve black enslave-
ment, he took every opportunity in the House of Lords, where he sat as a member, to vote against Wilberforce and all those who lobbied for the abolition of the slave trade on the basis that buying and selling enchained black bodies was a crime and a sin.
It remains a flagrant abuse of state power that has intimidated black society.
Part of the justification for the abuse of power is
the notion that somehow if it is removed, English tourists will stop coming to Barbados in the numbers we expect...
Our English tourists are often... ashamed of our mendicant subservient responses to past brutalization.
Adam Patterson, “Untitled (Overture),” 2018, mixed media on postcard, 5.8 x 4.1”, image courtesy of the artist.
They are mostly educated and informed people who would feel more relaxed in Barbados if we appeared more dignified and less bowed.
• The Barbados Labour Party did not wish the Right
To hear them speak of the shame they experience in
square and placed him out of sight of the Assembly
seeing Nelson in our Parliament square is to realize that our politicians too often act upon the basis of untruth and a fallacy.
In fact, more English tourists will likely come to Bar-
bados in greater numbers when we give them more of our best selves which they can respect. This is why
they are flocking to Cuba—to experience Caribbean national pride in action.
The shaming of the nation in favor of Nelson’s symbolism is found in two historic moments:
• The Democratic Labour Party turned it around and deepened its roots when it had the opportunity to move it to a marine park on the pier.
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Excellent Errol Barrow at the centre of Parliament
in what was a public car park. Nelson remained in the more prominent place.
The assumption is growing, I have been informed,
that the Government might rather citizens, in an act of moral civil disobedience, to take matters in their own hands, and remove the offending obstacle to democracy.
This has been the case in the United States and South Africa.
Quietly, state officials could slip away and say that the people have spoken. Such alliances of active citi-
zens and passive state have moved many societies. Barbados must move on.
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a r o p s a i D s e t o N
Arrivants: Art & Migration in the Anglophone Caribbean World
Roaming and rambling, foot hot on the move–on the run–each hopscotch step skips you islands forward. Evasive, elusive, neither fixed nor named, you, with your itinerant ways, move with the rapture of smoke and the flex of octopi. Don’t let them catch your rhythm–that which keeps you afloat, adrift and endless–and don’t fall for false horizon promises of prosperity and rootedness; after all, the journey’s grown on you, hasn’t it? The road you love to ramble is rich in potholes and pitfalls, a begrudging inheritance that seeks your slip, fall and capture. In your ankle’s break, they’ll pin you to an enterprise of names and order, catalogued to be seen in the same way for generations to come; a butterfly perverted from your flight. Don’t let them catch your rhythm. Don’t
A CLIPPING OF WINGS BY: ADAM PATTERSON
let them clip your wings.
ST. MICHAEL, BARBADOS—Ewan Atkinson’s board
game, “Peregrination” (2018), was commissioned for
the exhibition, “Arrivants: Art and Migration in the Anglo-
phone Caribbean World,” curated by Veerle Poupeye and Allison Thompson at the Barbados Museum & Historical Society. Imagining ourselves as players in this game may prove a
useful exercise in maneuvering the pitfalls of certain narratives
framed through practices of exhibition-making in and around the Caribbean.
Designed as an archipelagic spiral, the rules and play of “Peregrination” encourage sustained movement and propulsion. Leading to a central finish-line marked as ”Prosperity,” players
risk being caught within points of settlement along the board, which temporarily deny them further movement. “Prosperity”
itself, marked by a reward of belonging, is perilously difficult to reach and is guarded by several obstacles and boundaries,
making the player second-guess their trajectory in relation to this destination advertised on the horizon.
Delight, then, may be found in this game, not in reaching the
end but rather, through the ongoing journey at play. On your
way, you may find yourself followed by dog-headed “Interlopers” with wildcard degrees of companionship, threat or impedi-
ment and everything in between. For things to come and go so frivolously, where one’s play is characterized by an ongoing
passage of moments and experiences, achievements and hardEwan Atkinson | “Peregrination” | Detail | 2018 All images courtesy curators, facilitators and/or artists
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ships, “Peregrination” makes for an unusual journey, where
the most precarious (and perhaps uninteresting) position and
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Leasho Johnson | “Land of Big Hood and Water” | Installation view | 2018
space to occupy is rootedness. Where each turn’s flight leaves you vulnerable to
of one’s image and narrative being condemned to fixation and stagnation.
both the dangers and blessings of the ground, not
In service to a common narrative of touristic con-
pinned and fixed to the board (by way of purgatorial
forms, swollen from the bedsores of their fixed posi-
much may be enjoyed by those players who are spaces like “The Hotel”). Characterized by movement, “Peregrination” helps to underpin certain issues of fixation, which “Arrivants,” as an exhibition,
has sought to critique and to which it ironically has forfeited itself.
Our first roll of the dice moves us to Leasho Johnson’s
sumption, Johnson’s figures putrefy into grotesque tion within such a narrative. Their features bear re-
semblance only to the frame that captures them. No longer floating, condemned to a singular way of see-
ing, pooling in the pressuring stillness of their image, they become seductive fixtures, pinned to the wall like territories to a map.
“Land of Big Hood and Water” (2018), a mural instal-
Whereas Johnson’s work envisions the consequences
phallic palm trees. It is interesting to note that this
“Tropical Forms” (2018) considers the fluidity and
lation of drifting curvaceous bodies engorged with
work has received the most controversial responses
by both incidental and accidental audiences, from
moral upset, to complaints, to calls for censorship and removal.
What appears provocative is the hyper-sexualization
of being caught in a singular framing, Simon Tatum’s
explosive potential of form in transit. Exposed, informed and transformed by the shifting exhibiting
contexts in which the work finds itself, “Tropical
Forms” has assumed and continues to assume a variety of constellations as it travels.
of the bodies, though the outrage hasn’t extended to
Though the installations themselves seem dormant
figures point to the unsavory effects and transforma-
work encourage a play in memory and imagination
the bodies’ hyper-tropicalization. Johnson’s floating
tions that occur through the fixating wills of various
dominating narratives. Swept up in the flow of sym-
bols, frames, images, myths, misconceptions and misrepresentations, they embody the consequence
and inanimate, the itinerant intentions of Tatum’s
within the viewer. How has this work grown and how will it continue to grow elsewhere? Resting as an installation and only activating in transit revises
the work’s relation to sites for exhibition, sustaining #WEAREBLACKCULTURE | SUGARCANEMAG.COM
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How has this work grown...
and how will it continue to grow elsewhere?
qualities of continuity, flexibility
and a perpetual effort of recon-
figuration not bound to the fixed moment of display.
Reconsidering the priority of
what is seen, where the activa-
tion of the work is kept hidden in its movement, “Tropical Forms” only reveals itself in momentary resting glimmers with each stop
it makes. Taking a breath to restore its energy, the work prepares to move again.
This indeterminate and roaming
potential also resonates in Nadia Huggins’ “Transformations”
(2015). A series of underwater collages cut between self-portraits and marine life, Transfor-
mations is caught in a tension
between fusion and divergence. The deliberate space that governs the inner borders of the adjoining images helps to avoid any fixed conditions.
A transgression takes place on
the water’s surface, as Huggins’ own surface grazes those of sea
urchins and coral. Each bound-
ary of skin, water and matter contracts and pulsates, each
in the intimate meeting and di-
through the untapped potential
vulnerable dissolution. The seam
an act of “abjuring a body that
fixed by social expectations.
surface porous to the other in a is hidden and uncertain and it is such uncertainty that preserves the sovereignty of each image and body.
Beyond this spatial-lining screen,
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Simon Tatum | “Tropical Forms” | Installation view | 2018
vergence of horizons, through feels way too vulnerable or out of
of bodies undetermined and un-
control” (Charlie Fox, This Young
The potential for something
Editions, 2017), Huggins’ private
rizon though not yet here; this
Monster, London: Fitzcarraldo
descent leaves us to imagine more open conditions for being
else, approaching from the hoimpending resonant movement and trajectory may be felt in
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Hew Locke’s monumental contribution, “Nelson,
considered space through its cross-temporal con-
corresponding with the original colonial residue that
Museum and the exhibition’s contributed interlopers
Bridgetown” (2018). A standing cut-out of Nelson, rests in Heroes Square, Bridgetown, greets visitors at the threshold of the exhibition.
The image is laughable and cheap in
its installation and, therefore, manageable and no longer monumentally untouchable. Perched on a foundation of
enslaved Africans, Nelson’s skin lightly
shimmers with the crest of the Union Jack, an admiral decorated with his acts
versations between the collection of the Barbados (a gesture that echoes the “Artistic Interventions”
exhibition, recently held here), with such dialogues as that between Ras Ishi Butcher’s “400 Years” (1994) and the anonymous colonial painting, “The Gover-
nor Going to Church” (mid-18th century), reading as a tense collision of conflicting historical narratives, and Ewan Atkinson’s “Peregrination” emulating the
fancifully stylistic and somewhat misleading qualities inherent in colonial mapmaking.
and ideologies. Plinth shortened and
However, where “Arrivants” attempted to apply
height and significance, a defenseless,
journey became muddy and cramped and the works
flaccid, he stands at a less pedestalled beheaded monster, flattened out to
a gimmicky parlor trick, a facade that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.
Locke’s intervention acts as an effort to move Nelson’s monument to the
museum as a historical relic, begging
“conventional” measures for exhibition-making, the certainly began to suffer. The conversion and use of a temporary gallery space on the museum grounds
felt like a throwaway afterthought where works were heavy-handedly stuffed into a room with lighting
that was neither bright nor dark enough and conclusively unflattering to all the works condemned here.
the imagination, “If Nelson is here,
The most joyless condemnation was Philip Moore’s
Square?” (Gabi Ngcobo, “Dear History,
the posture of a garbage can, its inner light damp-
what now sits on his pedestal in Heroes
We Don’t Need Another Hero,” 10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art,
Berlin: KUNST-WERKE BERLIN, 2018)
What future does this emptied plinth’s
ornate barrel of light, “Reparation” (n.d.), assuming ened to that of the low, buzzing glow of a faulty Christmas tree, its curatorial placement seemingly determined by the most convenient plug socket.
open space “enable us to foretell?”
Regarding a further misfortune just outside this
the unrealized possibilities rumbling
(2018) was literally and conceptually side-lined, rel-
Such a flight of imagination considers
beneath the social landscape, keeping the terrain malleable, vulnerable and open to innumerable reformations and retellings.
The game’s pace declines when consid-
ering how “Arrivants,” as an exhibition, “fails to register the geography and the movement of people”
(Christopher Cozier, “I’m Not Who You Think I’m Not
#5: Intransigent Forms and Itinerant Ways (Looking at shifty things while shifting),” 10th Berlin Biennale,
Akademie der Künste, Berlin) in its own narrative fram-
ing and how it has negotiated both the works and the space.
The Cunard Gallery has proven the most exciting and
space, Kelly-Ann Lindo’s “Sending Love Inna Barrel”
egated to a corridor, to which one visitor remarked,
“I thought the museum forgot to clean up its packing materials.”
Lindo’s installed conversation piece, beginning as a
gesture of distance, has evolved and been revised elsewhere to really emphasize and embody the
long-distance negotiations associated with families
of “barrel children,” while further addressing wider entanglements of cross-global conversations and communication.
In more favorable conditions, “Sending Love Inna
Barrel” reads as a lamentation and longing on distance as well as a remark on the magical resource-
fulness required and drawn upon in keeping the #WEAREBLACKCULTURE | SUGARCANEMAG.COM
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Nadia Huggins | “Transformations” | Installation view | 2015
stretched lines of communication open. Yet, here it
the context of “Arrivants.” The show shot itself in the
gency and finesse.
for (dis-)identification, in resting on a generalizing
sat, a work framed impotent by a lack of care, ur-
“We’re playing in a slightly different global landscape... This notion of “appealing to the empire” or
foot from the onset by denying all other possibilities order we assume to make sense simply because it
became familiar, instead of making room for scrutiny.
“appealing” seems to define a past vocabulary in
I share as much with a Jamaican person as I do a
Cozier, “I’m Not Who You Think I’m Not”)
were the possibilities and conditions for being and
terms of the relevance of the action.” (Christopher
Yes, it certainly feels like convenience took precedence in the shaping of this exhibition’s playing
field. Concerning one of the nobler intentions of the exhibition–seeking to address the disparity of exhibitions around art from the region between local
and global stages–it seems that in attempting to bring one of these shows back to the region,
“Arrivants” also imported some of the same problems perpetuated by global exhibitions framed around the Caribbean.
Relying on an old, inherited, though seemingly convenient categorization, “Anglophone Caribbean,”
the relevance and stability of such a narrative frame
and departure point has remained unquestioned in
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Hew Locke | “Nelson, Bridgetown” | Installation view | 2018
Martiniquais person–which is arguably little–so why meaning once again fixed to regional linguistic lines drawn and cut before us? Where “Arrivants” treated
this framework as a fixed given while it languished
outside notions of futurity and alternative possibility, perhaps a more conscious, reflexive and critical maneuvering of such frames might have been encour-
aged so as to work beyond “the totalitarianism of any monolingual intent.” (Edouard Glissant, “Poet-
ics of Relation,” Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010)
Otherwise, we may just be transplanting the same
limiting narratives and pitfalls into the local arena
from abroad, which risks “Arrivants” becoming what it critiques. Though this viewer is certainly grate-
ful for the opportunity to have seen these works,
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finally, in person and within the
region–a gesture that effective-
ly addressed a major disparity
in terms of where art from the region may be seen–one must
wonder whether the delightful contents of this gift excused the
shoddy wrapping paper in which it arrived. Returning briefly to
Atkinson’s “Peregrination,” a de-
gree of suspicion and uncertainty is inescapable when players consider the forebodingly captivating promise uttered by “Prosperity”: YOU BELONG HERE. The
belonging “Prosperity” promises is fleeting and unstable and, unless a player meets all the game’s
requirements, it may quickly dis-
place its settlers from its midst. Belonging is fickle and perhaps an unreliable departure point for facilitating more open conditions
Nadia Huggins | “Transformations” | Installation view | 2015
for being and relating.
We’r e playing in a
Being fixed to the constructed, imposing and usually exclusion-
ary narratives, hierarchies and conditions of belonging, is a way
slightly different global landscape
of being that cannot account for the divergent and eruptive movement of peoples; it denies
any space to “run in very differ-
ent directions.” (June Jordan, “Report
from
the
Bahamas,
1982.” Meridians 3, no. 2, NC: Duke University Press, 2003)
Considering its claimed preoccupation with “the journey,”
the execution of “Arrivants” has
involved a startling lack of ongoing programming and a dis-
engagement from movement, process and performance-oriented practices. Though its blog
initially showed promise, dynamism and flexibility in its cataloging and chronicling of the ex-
hibition’s content and intentions, it has since laid disappointingly dormant.
In addition to facilitation by the Barbados Museum and Historical Society, “Arrivants” (November 9, 2018-January 31, 2019)
Probably slowed by the same
administrative and bureaucratic doldrums it may have hoped
to overcome, while fixing itself instead to the measures of destinations, outcomes and finish
lines–junctures of fixed and resolved
belonging–“Arrivants”
has resigned itself to stillness in its detachment from the values
of itinerant thinking, experiences of liminality and the uncharted
margins of possibility inherent to the working process.
was presented by The University of the West Indies (UWI) in association with the University of St. Andrews (U.K.), and funded within the scope of the Horizon2020
EU-LAC-MUSEUMS
project. It was staged to coincide with the International Museums Conference Itinerant Identities: Museum Communities / Community Museums cohosted in Barbados by The UWI and the Museums Association of the Caribbean.
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SWEET DREAMS
OR A BEAUTIFUL NIGHTMARE Fantasy and Fact in the Work of Versia Harris
Versia Harris | “For Peace” | Detail | 2019
Since the 1800s, through stories like the Danish fai-
When it comes to self-image, the consumption of
1843) or the Russian ballet, “Swan Lake” (Pyotr Ilych
not, shaped society’s view of reality on a massive,
rytale, “The Ugly Duckling” (Hans Christian Anderson, Tchaikovsky, 1875), swans have remained symbols of
beauty and grace in popular culture, crossing continents with these fictional narratives. The first piece I ever encountered by Barbadian artist Versia Harris, an
animation titled “A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes
fairytales and fantasy have, whether consciously or
cross-cultural scale. We feel Swan Girl’s desperation
for beauty, as she herself goes against every exag-
geratedly glamorous depiction of what a princess or heroine “should” be.
When You’re Awake” (2012), subverted this familiar ar-
The romanticized image of a swan begins to unravel,
surrounds the “fantasy” genre into question.
her struggle for acceptance, but also cast as mon-
chetype, throwing much of the rhetoric that typically
Set against a backdrop that merges Harris’ incredibly
detailed drawings with digital imagery and footage that references classic Disney films, we are introduced to ”Swan Girl”—a hand-drawn character with the
head and long, slender neck of a swan attached to a hunched, emaciated torso, possessing spindly legs
and talon-like hands and clad only in a patchwork skirt.
22
By: Katherine Kennedy
and we are left with a character who is relatable in
strous in her amalgamated form; Swan Girl was the first of many chimeras that would immigrate to the
realm Harris was constructing, as I would find out as
her practice grew and, by extension, the scope of this fantastic world.
The word “chimera” originally came from Greek mythology and, as have many scientific terms or seem-
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FEATURE | VERSIA HARRIS
Versia Harris | “Merely A Chimera No 1” | 2015
ingly impossible theories which become actualiza-
“The dream didn’t leave, people just don’t know a nightmare when they right in the middle of one.”
tions of myth, it has been adopted by geneticists to
–Marlon James, “A Brief History of Seven Killings”
refer to creatures containing DNA from multiple organisms. “Chimera” itself is also hybrid in its meaning, alternatively referring to something that is wished for but is unattainable, such as Swan Girl’s yearning for
different landscapes, a combination of photographs,
tasy/technology that she can’t quite reach, even in her
enough off-kilter to render the scene anything but or-
the ideals trapped in an alternate dimension of fanjourney’s “sequel,” “They Say You Can Dream A Thing More Than Once” (2013).
In Harris’ first solo exhibition entitled “This Quagmire” (2015), facilitated by Punch Creative Arena at
the Barbados Community College (an independent arts initiative founded by Ewan Atkinson and Allison Thompson), this second animation was shown as an
ethereal installation, alongside two series of digital
prints. The first of these, “Merely A Chimera,” por-
trays several original characters/hybrids inhabiting
drawings and technical distortions where there is just dinary.
Some characters are clearly discernible in the envi-
ronment, bright colors standing starkly against muted photographs, while others are barely perceptible; hybridity does not have to be overt or pronounced for
worlds to be merged or affected by one another. The realism of this series somehow makes the appearance
of phenomena in these postcard-sized scenes all the more intriguing and unsettling for viewers trying to situate themselves in these mini-vistas.
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No. 27 in the “Merely A Chimera” series in particular
As Swan Girl’s fascination with fairytales taints her
this imagined universe, as the tripod and the camera
a disconnect from reality happens. The landscape is
enters a kind of meta-, self-referential plane within presumably used to shoot the surroundings feature in the photograph itself, along with the looming shad-
ow of Swan Girl, who appears to be holding up a cell phone. We don’t know if she is taking a “selfie,” trying in vain to get reception and connect to someone
outside of this barren terrain, or if it is even a phone
perception, these prints represent the instant that literally distorted like a glitch on a TV screen, caus-
ing two channels to overlap—catching the crackling static of that slight pause in between, the last flicker-
ing moment of a dynamic color spectrum—before the image dissolves entirely into white noise.
at all.
The link to technology and its impact on our ability to
It is our minds naturally filling in blanks, our imagina-
is reiterated in these series. Ease of access to the in-
tions making conclusions that–contrary to the setting–are ironically quite banal. The viewer is fleetingly
grounded, before no doubt being caught off guard by another strange discovery in this body of work.
capture, alter and influence thoughts and memories ternet, coupled with the way social media have been
woven into nearly every aspect of personal and professional domains, means we have been armed with
the tools to curate our own visage and fantasies to
an extent; presenting the version of reality we both
Versia Harris | Still from “A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes When You’re Awake” | 2012
“Parataxic Distortion,” the second photo series,
wish for ourselves and for others to see... but notably
Named for a psychiatric description of the skewed
ity and the cracking of this facade, whether a hairline
builds on this collusion and blurring of existences.
views we have of others based on projected assumptions as opposed to facts, these images challenge the
fracture or a shattered pane.
lens through which we regard our environment and
In 2017, Harris began her postgraduate studies at
shadow over our own sight and recollections.
awarded a Fulbright Laspau Scholarship, and on May
ourselves, instilling an internal paranoia that casts a
24
exposed in this work are the occasions of vulnerabil-
Cranbrook Academy of Art, Michigan having been 10, 2019 received her MFA from the institution. I was
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FEATURE | VERSIA HARRIS
curious to see what impact her advanced studies
speeches, in contrast with the almost toy-like subjects
rience and numerous conversations with peers in Bar-
this fresh direction, the more I appreciated it as not
would have on her practice. Based on personal expebados and other Caribbean islands who have studied
in the footage. However, the more I engaged with
abroad, I know that it is not only the intense focus on one’s work, but the culture-shock and often the harsh
change of climate that can cause surprising shifts in one’s trajectory.
And so, seeing Harris’ recent work, where she had been experimenting with sculpture, installations and videos in a way I had not expected, created my own
case-in-point of parataxic distortion. Crisp drawings were replaced by three-dimensional sculptural
objects, creating fascinating puppet-like characters,
“[Fantasy] can be used as a weapon, a way to be accepted, a way to gather, a way to separate entertainment from remnants of infantile wishes. It has its hand in segregation, racism, in homophobia and sexism. Fantasy is cultural, social and political. The fantasies we have about our identities run in tandem with the shared ideas of our cultures and societies.” – Versia Harris
and the echoes of familiar soundtracks from Disney films were replaced by heavy, powerful political
Versia Harris | “For Peace” | Full Installation | 2019
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necessarily a departure in her work from the personal to the political, but more of a natural expansion.
Fantasy is regularly explored as something whimsical
or escapist, but the double-edged sword of fantasizing and power dynamics is not always acknowledged. In
the work “For Peace,” the soundtrack is the inaugural speech by former Guyanese Political Leader Forbes
Burnham, delivered in 1964 as the country continued to strive for independence from Britain after a period of militant rule and occupation. Versia Harris | “For Peace” | Detail | 2019
Inviting and harmless craft materials are used to set the scene accompanying the address—paralleling
the assumed innocence of a Disney animation. The “masses” gathered to hear the speech are made of
modeling clay, a malleable and impressionable sub-
stance that can be morphed by enticing words and promises, while the leader at the head of the crowd is represented as a comparatively enormous sheep,
sheathed in red cloth. A “sheep” in this context con-
jures thoughts of a wolf in sheep’s clothing, or easily
led sheep being shepherded by politicians through collective mob-mentality. Versia Harris | “Parataxic Distortion, No 14” | 2015
Burnham’s words, which at the time of delivery meant
to bring comfort to a traumatized country, clash with
what we are seeing. He speaks of “an atmosphere of relaxation and reduction of tension” while we see one of the constituents impaled on a fence. He discusses
the importance of “survival” while a prostrate body comes slowly into focus amidst the crowd. As eerily still as the scene is, there is no true peace to be found here.
Levels of hierarchy have always been alluded to in
Harris’ pieces, and we can see overlap between what Versia Harris | “Merely A Chimera, No 27” | 2015
seems to be a more abject political statement with the subtler explorations through the social politics
of characters in previous work. The crown Swan girl
She creates honestly and from a place of curiosity, spawned from her individual thoughts and influences, but carried by the endless breadth of possibilities for understanding fantasy through fact, fiction and every gray area in between.
yearns for (and takes by force) is an animated part of
her fantasy, but it reveals a malevolent desire for beau-
ty and power that is rooted in perpetuated norms that classify certain people as inferior to others, based on the ever-fluctuating standards, cultures and extenuating circumstances of any given community.
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FEATURE | VERSIA HARRIS
These ideas around political unrest and rising tensions
She creates honestly and from a place of curiosity,
to be vicious fantasies or dreams perverted into night-
es, but carried by the endless breadth of possibilities
based on what, at the end of the day, may be conceded mares, have sadly captured the imagination of many.
They touch on a particular nerve in the present-day global atmosphere... though Forbes Burnham’s 1964
speech is used, the themes explored are neither time nor place specific. Imagination is ubiquitous, and although we each have beliefs and values based on
whichever environment we are a product of, Versia Harris has never set out to conform to, nor move against, a “Caribbean” aesthetic or mindset in her work.
spawned from her individual thoughts and influencfor understanding fantasy through fact, fiction and every gray area in between. Moving forward, Harris
said, she wishes to continue incorporating and layering the existing and future chimeras in multimedia
work, seeing how they interact and work in confluence with or opposition to one another; ultimately
exploring the different facets of humanity by fleshing out the labyrinthine microcosm she has been building for years.
Versia Harris | “Merely A Chimera, No 8” | 2015
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a r o p s a i D s e t o N
Katrina Brathwaite is evolving. Like most creatives, her journey has been marked by moments of joy, breakthroughs and tears. “We have a rich cultural history that the world needs to see,” the London-trained designer said. “I am trying to build something that is bigger than me, something that Barbados has never seen before, something that the world has never seen before.” She continued, “It’s very hard some days. I cry a lot. I don’t think that leaving makes sense, work needs to be done here.”
K ATRINA BR ATHWAITE BY: TAMARA BEST
NEW YORK CITY–Katrina Brathwaite is evolving.
Like most creatives, her journey has been marked by
moments of joy, breakthroughs and tears.
“We have a rich cultural history that the world needs to see,” the London-trained designer said. “I am trying to build something that is bigger than me, something that Barbados has
never seen before, something that the world has never seen
before.” She continued, “It’s very hard some days. I cry a lot.
I don’t think that leaving makes sense, work needs to be done here.”
Brathwaite, who returned home to Barbados roughly six years ago, is on a mission to redefine Caribbean fashion and elevate Afro-Caribbean women through her namesake womenswear line Katrina Brathwaite Design Studio.
In a far-reaching conversation, Brathwaite discussed her evolution as a designer, being a bridge for clients and more. These are edited excerpts.
Tamara Best (TB): Let’s start at the beginning. What was your initial sense of inspiration when you came home?
Katrina Brathwaite (KB): Because I had been living in London
for so long, I really wanted to bring fashion on an international scale to Barbados. When I first came home, I was very into
women embracing their sexuality. That’s what the work from around that time looked like. There were a lot of sheer tops.
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TB: What was the reaction? KB: I think a lot of people loved it. I think a lot of
people were into the shock value of it, but obviously there was criticism. It was very controversial to have that kind of stuff on a runway in Barbados.
I call myself a fashion designer now, but for a long
time I didn’t. I recently started again at the end of last year.
TB: Why is that? KB: I think that the term fashion designer is thrown around when you can sew, and that’s why I resisted being called that.
A lot of what we do is custom work, and sometimes the custom work involves recreations. A lot of people
want the dress Rihanna wore at whatever last event she went to. In that respect, Barbados kind of cre-
ates a box, and as fashion designers, we fit ourselves into that box and nobody really tries to break out.
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Fashion has been
a constant for me, no matter what I’ve gone through in my life, whether things were good or things were bad. It’s been forcing me to
It’s really been a process to get them to trust me as
a designer. Getting to deal with women one-on-one, you learn what they’re insecure about, what they love about themselves, what they need to work on.
So, my evolution has come through my clientele and catering to them, rather than me being the fashion
grow, because there’s no blueprint for a suc-
designer and playing a God kind of role. I feel that
cessful fashion designer in the Caribbean per
cater to these women? How can I create something
se. So it’s like you are trying to figure out “how do we do this?” because I do think that the clientele here needs to be catered to before we dash off and go somewhere globally. – Katrina Brathwaite
I had to play the role of a servant almost. How can I
that makes them feel beautiful and sensual all at the same time?
TB: That’s interesting because so often, the process between designer and client isn’t collaborative, with buyers simply purchasing whatever is produced.
KB: When I first started, I did lots of recreations. I had to show people I’m capable of designing. At this
moment, I’m really building a bridge between fash[Working with] Sheena [Rose] has been instrumental for me. She comes in and she’s like, “show me your concept.”
TB: What other designer on the island has caught
ion designer and servant. My day to day is working with a woman’s body type, knowing how to fit that
body type. I still create concepts and build stories around it. But right now, it’s about finding a way to
create for a Bajan woman in the way that she’ll buy it.
your attention?
We’re very into trends here, and I’m trying to build
KB: I think what Jaye [Applewaite] has done in bridal
a trend—to show it is a medium, something that
is amazing. I think she’s made a bunch of people who call themselves fashion designers wake up and smell the coffee, because she’s doing what we all want to be doing.
TB: How has your approach to designing changed
a bridge between fashion as art and fashion as you can use to express yourself. That’s what fashion is about.
TB: What’s been the most important tool in helping to build the bridge?
since returning home?
KB: The relationship building. I try to be as acces-
KB: My evolution as a fashion designer hasn’t come
to them talk, and I try to build a safe space for them
as I expected it to be. I thought I would just bang out these collections, and everybody would buy them
sible to my clients as possible as a designer. I listen as women.
and love them.
One of the things I’ve done is create a sizing chart
People don’t really go for collections–so that was
small, medium, large has been made for a Caucasian
one of the first big lessons that I learned. People like
the skill–they like that you can sew, but they don’t necessarily want to buy your clothes.
for the Afro-Caribbean woman, because the typical woman. Everything that is done in fashion is created
for the Caucasian body type. I‘ve been about reimagining that kind of stuff. I want to take women out #WEAREBLACKCULTURE | SUGARCANEMAG.COM
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of their comfort zone without being uncomfortable. When you wear something that makes you feel amazing, your whole walk changes, the way you speak about yourself changes. [It’s about] pushing
them outside of the box enough for them to see that
person, but also keeping them in a space where they still feel comfortable. It’s a very thin line. TB: What keeps you going? KB: The passion for it and the women that I cater to. Fashion has been a constant for me, no matter
what I’ve gone through in my life, whether things
were good or things were bad. It’s been forcing me to grow, because there’s no blueprint for a successful fashion designer in the Caribbean per se.
So it’s like you are trying to figure out “how do we
do this?” because I do think that the clientele here needs to be catered to before we dash off and go somewhere globally.
I don’t think the world needs another John Galliano.
I think the world needs someone who has had a Caribbean experience to put that into fashion.
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Adrian RICHARDS photo essay Adrian Richards is a contemporary photographer based in Barbados. He focuses on male portraiture. He has shown both at home (e.g., at Carifesta Barbados 2017) and internationally, most recently at Prizm Art Fair in Miami in December 2017.
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Adrian Richards | “Our Room”
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Adrian Richards | “Untitled”
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Adrian Richards | “At Church”
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Adrian Richards | “Hair 1”
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Adrian Richards | “Outside”
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Adrian Richards | “Wednesday”
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Adrian Richards | “Watering”
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Adrian Richards | “In the Permanent Collection”
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Adrian Richards | “Crop”
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Adrian Richards | “Passbook”
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Adrian Richards | “Inside”
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Ugly Boy
By Matthew Kupakwashe Murrell
June 30th 2017 | Matthew Murrell
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PLAY READING | MATTHEW MURRELL
2. ACT I Scene 1 Ulric is listening to the radio. He is in a wheel chair, with a blanket over his knees RADIO
This is the 7 O’clock news. Police are on the look out for Mason Erskine George also known as Ugly Boy of Chartman Road, The City. He is wanted for serious offenses. The public is warned to call the police if George is spotted. Police are advising the public to not approach George as he can be armed and dangerous. Any person harboring George will be charged with aiding and abetting a criminalUlric rolls his wheel chair to the door and locks it. He looks out the window
ULRIC MASON ULRIC
MASON ULRIC MASON
ULRIC MASON
you heard that? yeah I remember a day when I never had to lock my doors from criminals. Is funny how I locking it from police, cus at any moment dey could knock down my door and kill me Desmond should be here soon. You gaw two t’ousand dollars? I need to add to what I got look around, you see anything round here worth dat much? ol’ man...I know you got someting stash. You don’t believe in banks, not even de credit union. You tink I stupid. I gine pay you back all you gine do is take from me and run...is all you do. Das why you in here in de first place I aint got nein to lose. You tink you could see me in jail? (CONTINUED)
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CONTINUED: ULRIC ULRIC MASON ULRIC
MASON
ULRIC
3.
yes...is where you belong sea aint got nuh back door son well I gine bulldose down a door in de fucking sea and mek one, I gaw left from bout hay so dis is what life come to nuh...I remember de first day I was set out to go to de war. It was the day de Cornwallis blew up on de coast of Barbados. De Germans struck a cargo vessel dat came to feed people. Dey blow it up! I hear de people was so desperate, de fishermen sail out to the vessel and still risk dem lives to tek up everything. I was a lad, just a lad. And I get call to serve de Queen and dat was de first time I hear...I aint even leave yet, and already death was close to me. I had to face my own fate and looka you, a coward you really gine sit dey and tell me bout I is a coward? And what is your reward? you serve dis queen and dis is the castle you get? You blind in more ways than one my castle has something you don’t have and I didn’t have a choice, you don’t know what da is like. You see a riot? you went to war? Mason grabs the phone and makes a call
MASON
Desmond...You get sort yet?...I here trying to come wid my half...I gine get it, you don’t worry...20 minutes? yeah...And you sure Vincy gine be dey ready wid de boat?...aright...you know where to find me he puts down de phone
ULRIC
MASON
he gine leave you. I was a real solider once...and I could smell desperation and betrayal in battle. Desmond not coming for you. Surrender, fool well if he not coming for me, I could still mek it out Mason starts to ransack the place violently
(CONTINUED)
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PLAY READING | MATTHEW MURRELL
CONTINUED: ULRIC MASON
ULRIC MASON
ULRIC
MASON
ULRIC MASON
ULRIC MASON
4.
what you doing boy?! Stop! Stop mashing up my place! Boy, If you don’t stop! what you gine do?! Uh? Tell me?! I need dis money! You did scared and you couldn’t run way from dis system, but I can! what system! You is just an ungrateful criminal! De same system dat you wish you coulda run from! De crown! Dem mek you fight a war fuh a Queen who don’t know you. Mek you blind, poor and foolish as ass! I running from dat! Except, she sending she lackies...nigger lackies to come kill me! and dey should! You are a criminal, you no blasted martyr. I did nothing. I had no education but you squandering every shite! I know when I left I aint got to deal wid you no more. People would stop associating me wid your stinking ways. When I find this money, it gine serve a better purpose than you could give it I earn my money you aint earn nothing! Everything you had, you gamble. You coulda fix de cataract in yuh eye, you coulda fix yuh feet, instead you rotting in dis stink hole! You know why? You did always selfish. (beat) My mudda don’t even call you daddy...she’s call you Ugly Boy like everybody in de area. Foolish ol’ man who still t’ink he worth everything cus he fight in de war you still not getting my money. Where it is old man Mason starts back trashing the place
ULRIC
I know you did gine come looking for me. I mek sure I prepare myself fuh you. I might be blind, I might can’t walk, but my faculties still working(CONTINUED)
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CONTINUED:
5.
Ulric turns on his radio to play an old tune while Mason searches MASON
I tired of you and dis radio! Gimme dis before I hit you wid dis! Mason grabs the radio from Ulric’s hand Ulric takes his gun underneath his blanket
ULRIC MASON ULRIC
RADIO
ULRIC MASON ULRIC
MASON ULRIC
put down what is mine, boy grand dadshut yuh mout. As long as that radio on, I know where to shoot. So you gine hold da radio, keep it on. Lemme enjoy dis program We have breaking news. Desmond Archer of no fixed place of abode has been captured. Archer was captured and shot by the Barbados Coast Guard off the coast of Christ Church. Archer was in an attempt to escape the island. Police are still searching for Archer’s accomplice Mason George alias Ugly Boy. Anyone knowing the whereabouts of George, are asked to please contact the police. Don’t approach the suspect as he might be armed and dangerous Ugly Boy is armed and dangerous. I hate you First white man I ever kill is who call me ugly. A German. Honestly, I thought he call me a nigger...But I was told what he said meant Ugly Boy. De whole base laugh at me and dem call me dat fuh as long as I could remember...you get da name...cus you is de first grand boy. Look where it come to you gine really shoot me fuh trute? if I have to, yes. You shoulda never take up my radio. That is mine. Pick up de phone (CONTINUED)
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PLAY READING | MATTHEW MURRELL
CONTINUED:
6.
Mason starts to move slowly ULRIC MASON ULRIC MASON ULRIC
MASON
don’t put down de radio...I want to hear when you move! now...you call de police wha so special bout dis radio? it is mine. Is all I have de money in dis radio. you might be ugly, but you aint stupid. Now call de police. Tell dem you here! You gine stay here and fix you problems hello...this is Mason George...I in Dark Hole, St. Joseph...I at my grandfada house...Look for de sign mark Morris Lane...t’ird house at de bottom of de gap...grey house...If I armed?...just come He puts down the phone
ULRIC MASON
Place gine be peaceful once you lock up why you hate me, nuh? I aint do nuttin to you. You like how you living? You tink dis country so perfect when you living in dese conditions? You is a old fool Police sirens are heard
SERGEANT This is Sergeant Pollard. Mason George, aka Ugly Boy, we have you surrounded at every perimiter of the house. If you are armed or if anyone in the house is armed please to discard of your firearm or weapon through the door, very slowly! MASON
you hear de man...Go and throw yuh gun out de door
SERGEANT George...do you have anyone hostage?
(CONTINUED)
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CONTINUED: MASON
7.
y’hear de man, Ugly Boy? You got anyone hostage?
SERGEANT Mason George, we don’t have time to waste, if you do not comply in 10, we have no choice but to use force. 1... ULRIC MASON
if dey come in here and see me wid a gun!dey gine kill you too...is all fine by me
SERGEANT 2... MASON
every year we gaw bare de ignorance of dese politicians and dem bullshit. Marches don’t help, voting is a sham to keep de same ideas circulating-
SERGEANT 3... MASON
and people like you who feel dem do everyting in dem power to mek dis place better lose serious sight of wa it mean to be better-
SERGEANT 4... MASON
grand dad...I aint ungrateful. I angry. Nuffin aint change. Everyting is de same. De poor still poor, oppurtunities still low, blackness under scrutiny, we women getting rape-
SERGEANT 5... ULRIC MASON
stop talking and roll me out! I wanna get out of this house before dem kill me! you tink I really waste my education? My education was to hate me...and you
(CONTINUED)
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PLAY READING | MATTHEW MURRELL
CONTINUED:
8.
SERGEANT 6... MASON ULRIC
we got serious issuesYou got issues! I serve my country! Even after independence! What you do!?
SERGEANT 7... MASON
What i do? Me and de Minister? Das what you wan’ ask? You and dis country had everything to do wid he being in power, now tings worst, cus wunna can’t think beyond!
SERGEANT 8... ULRIC MASON
what you want from me, boy! Take de money if you want it so bad, but roll me out! nah, we in dis togeda
SERGEANT 9... Ulric points the gun at Mason ULRIC
I gine kill you!
SERGEANT 10...Roll in men! end
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A CONVERSATION with
SHEENA
ROSE NAOMI JACKSON | APRIL 30, 2019
Naiomi Jackson (NJ): I wanted to start out with just a
few questions about your art practice. So, what does the average day for Sheena Rose look like in her studio?
Sheena Rose (SR): The average day in the studio, it really depends. During the weekdays, I like to find myself driving around areas, from let’s say 10 in the morning to maybe two in the afternoon (or 12) and then go to the
studio, pick up a few things or stay home sometimes
and work, depending on the piece. And then I’m in the
streets. But I usually really like working at five or after five, say maybe five to 10 or 11 o’clock. So, my life is basically about art, art, art, 24 hours, between getting art materials, and shopping and then art again.
NJ: What do you get from being in the street? What does that allow for your practice?
SR: For instance, I’m here working on this mural, and I
told the curator, Jonathan, that I can’t be in a room all day, I have to leave the room. So being in the street, I
hustle and the bustle and the architecture and so on.
get to see people, I watch people, I see how they move,
It really depends on the place, but for me being in the
more and see myself in the space more.
on and discover things.
I get to talk to people, I get to understand the space
A good incident was when I went to the Washington
subway, and it was rush hour. I was super excited about
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that, really excited to be around a crowd and see the
street means I feel like I get an update on what’s going
NJ: What are some themes that run throughout your work?
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FEATURE | SHEENA ROSE
boro and I did several residencies, not being in Barbados, I tended to think a lot about myself.
So, besides the self-portraits, I started to do performance art, performing different characters or creatures, and these characters came from my personality. I divided myself, or took from my sketchbook.
“So, BEING IN THE STREET, I get to see people, I watch people, I see how they move, I get to talk to people, I get to understand the space more and see myself in the space more.” – Sheena Rose
I find the work has become more magical or it has humor in it, emphasizing more on Barbados. And I find
quite recently, people will say “your work is so feminist
or deals with feminism or femininity.” At first, I wasn’t
seeing it, but now, quite recently, I called myself a feminist. But to be honest, I don’t feel fully comfortable calling myself that, really, because I just believe in equality. Last night I was saying I should call myself an “equalist,”
if that exists. So, my work is always about my current situation, and most of the time, I’m just rebuking art, or being sarcastic, or exaggerating it, or I purposefully don’t put it in, but still put it in. That’s what my work’s been doing a lot these days. Sheena Rose | “Prestigious” 42x48” | Acrylic on Canvas | 2019
SR: At first, I started with Town drawings, which is like the street and the busyness. Then, with the “Sweet
NJ: I noticed you already talked about having lots of
bodies of work. And I noticed that you tend to work in series, so there’s “Sweet Gossip,” the “Invisibles” and “Black Obeah.” How does a series develop for you?
Gossip” series, it branched from “Town,” looking at
SR: The majority of the time these series come about,
sip on the telephone with overheard conversations. I
break. The “Town” drawings came from a really bad
how people gossip on the street and how people gos-
have about seven bodies of work. They’re obviously from my personal experiences, looking and reflecting on where I’m from, Barbados. So, when I studied in
North Carolina, University of North Carolina at Greens-
to be honest, from a bad experience, from a heart-
heartbreak. I had people walking through the city of Bridgetown, and I was just tired of the typical tourist scene. At that time, I broke up with this guy, and I was there, thinking about how everyone has their own
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Sheena Rose | “Crown” | 43.5x51.5” Acrylic on Acid Free Paper | 2015
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“PEOPLE WILL SAY “your work is so feminist or deals with feminism or problems, so that’s how they had silhouettes and words in them.
“Sweet Gossip,” came about with my being jealous of
men, like sometimes I wished I was a fella. And I would
femininity.” At first, I wasn’t seeing it, but now, quite recently, I called myself a feminist. But to be honest, I don’t feel fully comfortable calling myself that, really, because I just believe in equality.” – Sheena Rose
look at the guy saying “Man, you want a piece of that?”
So, I put the thought by my area, or I would show “look how she boobies falling out.” I was tired of like, every
overthinking person, and so on. Later on, when I did
Jamaican? Are you from Jamaica?” So, I just wanted to
sected myself and my different personalities, I would
time I go somewhere people would ask me “Are you show again Barbados pop culture but I thought it was gossip. I was merging what I heard on the street but becoming, or trying to become this Caribbean pop artist.
the “Black Obeah,” the “Invisibles” and so on, and disuse the same characters in the paintings, but also revealed my actual face more, rather than the characters, and looked more at the internal.
After I did “Sweet Gossip,” the “Invisibles” came about
I did this sketchbook called, “This Strange Land,” be-
and one of the pieces was incomplete. I stepped out
stand it and trying to understand myself in this strange
in a weird way, kind of by accident. I was there painting,
of the studio, and I came back, and I was like, “Wow, that actually looks cool like that.” So, I decided to leave
the piece like that, and I did some more and then re-
alized that the “Invisibles” is really one of my quieter pieces. I wanted to show that there is a quiet side to
me, too. And that’s why I call it “Invisibles,” because I
just wanted to be quiet sometimes and watch. They felt very quiet to me.
The “Black Obeah” came to me when I had very serious anxiety. I had to go back home to Barbados, and I
was seeing that my world looked so beautiful, and yet dark at the same time, by going through this anxiety, so
let me make fun of this beauty. So, I added black glitter because black is so beautiful to me, just the color, when it’s nighttime and you see the shadows. It’s just so beautiful, so I wanted to capture that.
I used black glitter, and yet I wanted to show the different characters I did in the “Black Obeah,” in these situations of them starting. They would always have shades on, to add a little bit of bizarreness to it.
Another body of work is called “Finally I Love Myself”— when I had hated myself. So, when I talked earlier about
dissecting myself, I had dissected myself to understand myself. I would act like men, I would act like women, I
would act like a dramatic person, a serious person, an
cause it’s me looking at Barbados and trying to underland. And I did performances responding to that. So,
again it’s always responding to something sad or something angry or depression, anxiety, frustration. I find my weakest work is when I’m happy. It doesn’t work so well when I’m happy.
My best work comes from when I’m going through a drama. The latest one, I did when I started trying to
see how to merge the work together. I don’t feel quite comfortable that I have all these bodies of work. And
it’s not me showing off to say, “Hey, look at me, I have seven to eight bodies of work.” I’m trying to see how
to bring the sketchbook ideas into the “Invisibles,” how to bring the performance ideas or the “Black Obeah,”
into the “Town” or into the “Sweet Gossip.” I’m trying
to find a way to bring all these different forms into one. NJ: That leads me to my next question, which is, what role does drawing have in your artistic practice?
SR: I love drawing. I love drawing more than painting. Quite recently, I did this body of work called “Compe-
tencies.” I was actually tired of seeing my face, and I wanted to find an avatar. Again, this same idea of merging all these pieces into one. So, I went to Florida, a
residency called the Hermitage Artist Retreat, and I didn’t want to draw me.
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“I’m trying to find a way to step outside of the performances, not use myself, and create these same women in a play. I deliberately want to make a bad play. Why do I want to make a bad play? Because those low-budget bad films are sometimes actually beautiful. – Sheena Rose NJ: Are there subjects you want to take on in your work that you haven’t yet?
SR: Yeah. I want to create a really bad play. I’m trying to find a way to step outside of the performances, not
use myself, and create these same women in a play. I
deliberately want to make a bad play. Why do I want to make a bad play? Because those low-budget bad
films are sometimes actually beautiful. I want to find
out how people find the talent to make such a beautiful bad thing.
I want to have women with rainbow wigs, not literally rainbow wigs, but each one in pink, blue, green, orange… I guess that’s about sexuality, but more so
childhood memories of watching “Care Bears,” “My Sheena Rose | “Comet Tail” | 18.5x24” | Mixed Media | 2019 Collaboration project with Adrian Richards photographer
So, I looked at some images I collected from Pinterest or from the websites, and I looked back five years, eight years, and I decided to sketch them to see how to merge them into this figure.
I came up with this figure who had a big Afro, big hair,
make fun of this idea of my desire to be a wealthy businesswoman, while also looking back at my childhood
memories of “Care Bears” and TV. So, I really want to make a bad play.
NJ: Go ahead, girl. So, what are some issues facing you as an artist born and based in Barbados?
with very elaborate dresses.
SR: The problem I have in Barbados, more and more,
And I remember a teacher who one time told me, told
The fear that if you go out of line, you can get punished,
the class, “Do not draw like this.” And I’m drawing in exactly the way that he said, “Do not draw like this,” which is a very scratchy kind of way, but the drawing
just made me very happy. So, drawing is my favorite.
is that we need to catch up. There is a problem of fear. outcast, abandoned, everything. Remember a woman
that they said was a witch, Joan, that she could hear things, and they said, we have to burn this woman?
Where I’m going with that is, I’m going back to not
NJ: Joan of Arc?
drawing skill.
SR: Yes. I think that they burned her to death. So,
just “Town” drawings, but to trying to elaborate on my
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Little Pony,” “Power Rangers,” and “She Ra.” I want to
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FEATURE | SHEENA ROSE
people usually get frightened of women, as when they
speak out or, as when they start to do a little magic or something. They get in trouble. So, that’s how I feel, or
am starting to feel, at home. I was always frustrated. But now, I’m starting to find that, the more positions I’m getting, or the more vocal I’m getting… You know
when you’re scared of a monster, you would do any-
thing to get rid of it, you would throw rocks at it, you would hide under the blanket? That’s how I’m starting to feel now.
NJ: So, you feel like you’re the monster? SR: Yeah. I did this performance called Island and Monster when I did a 12-minute performance at first in the Royal Academy of Art in London, and I acted as two characters. I acted as the island, and I act-
ed as the monster. I was inspired by Shakespeare’s
“The Tempest,” and then I read Jamaica Kincaid’s “A Small Place.” Then I read other storytellers from the Caribbean and people who make up songs.
Then, I decided to create this script and performance.
The monster was warning the island that it’s dying,
and it’s not listening. And the island kept distracting the monster and distracting the audience by saying
that she’s beautiful and kept smiling and kept singing songs. While I was performing, you’d see the monster
Sheena Rose | “Breathing” | 19.5x24” | Mixed Media | 2017
monster would curse. But the monster would crouch,
times, and resisting. Both of them are opposites, but
interrupt the island, so the island would smile, and the and the island would take to its toes and stand proud.
Later, the island became the monster, meaning that when the monster was literally crying and telling the
island “Please stop, you’re killing yourself,” the island would say, “Monster, you behave, because at the end
of the day, you will be gone, and I will still be here. Behave yourself. You need to behave. I taught you better than this.”
Later on, the island became aggressive a little bit,
condescending, and the audience was, I guess, a little
shocked, because then the island really became the monster, and the monster surrendered and became the island. I guess my work has surrendering in it, some-
that’s how I feel, like I tangle between the two, wondering whether to behave myself and just settle with what I have, and then all of a sudden “No. Stop that s***.”
So, I would say I feel like a monster, especially now that I know that I know people and I can play the game.
NJ: What do you want to see on the art scene in Barbados?
SR: I would like for us to have a greater appreciation and a respect. And what I would also like is that we get equal treatment, meaning that if it comes down to man
and woman,, I still feel as though as Barbados is still coming to the realization that black women are somewhat dominating the art scene, and that is unusual.
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“Don’t just wait on the
I sometimes think I don’t deserve the treatment I get.
government. If you’re there waiting on the govern-
mom told me, “You should look for The Nation.” And I
ment or waiting on something to happen, you know nothing will happen. So, to me, it still winds back to the artists and the creatives.” – Sheena Rose
For instance, this big deal that happened to me, my said, “No, they should look for me,” meaning that peo-
ple should get up, do their research, and understand the value and the quality we have around. But if we’re
not really encouraged, I find that we get surprised when we find that we really have talent on the island.
There’s a lot of insecurity and doubt on the island, too. I would like the artists to believe in themselves. I would like them to speak out for themselves. I still feel there
is a fear. So, if the artists don’t speak out, if the artists
don’t do something, other people wouldn’t listen. Be-
cause they could look comfortable or they could just be like, “Just give us anything.”
I can’t say “not everyone” because I’m tired of that s***,
of buttering up. So, I would like people to understand quality and respect and expectations. Yes, expect that
we can create good work. I think generally, the younger people or people in general need to be educated
about art—and not just art as decoration or art as an annual celebration. It should be every day, it should be like a function. Sheena Rose | “Chagrin” | 9x12” | Pen and Ink on Acid Free Paper | 2019
I know we’re going through things with the economy and prices going up, but if we were educated to un-
derstand the power of art, art could also bring money.
Therefore, art fairs and biennales, and residencies, scholarships to send people to do their degrees and come back and build public art. There’s so much. And
I’m talking about visual arts, but there’s also so much
else, like dancing and theatre arts and poetry, costumemaking, fashion, music. It adds so much to the space.
Another problem on the island is tourism. So, what happens is the artists feel like they’re forced to do tourist music, the steel pan, typical Bob Marley kind of music. Dancers have to dance and smile and be Mother
Sally. So, in a weird way, they become like servants. Artists tend to decorate for hotels. There’s this weird representation of us, this limited representation of us Sheena Rose | “Perspicacious” | 42x48” | Acrylic on Canvas | 2019
60
that’s disturbing more and more, because we’re not market vendors all the time, we’re not up in the rivers
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FEATURE | SHEENA ROSE
naked. It’s like come on, just stop with that. But you can’t blame them for that, either.
NJ: I did have a question for you about the feminism thing. What is it that made you uncomfortable about claiming the word, “feminism?”
SR: I think what made me uncomfortable about it is that I was ignorant to the term “feminism” or “feminist.” I
thought it just meant an angry woman. And then I said,
work has a lot of anger, but it’s not a lot of anger like hate towards men. It’s just watching how women get treated. I don’t know a lot about gender studies and all
that stuff. If I’m talking about women, I’m also talking about sexuality. I don’t like to see people being treated
unfairly. So, I went to the Pride parade, and I actually
went because I know that I’m in the public eye, and if I didn’t go to it, it would show other “celebrities” I don’t want to go because I don’t want to look as if I’m gay.
I don’t want to be seen as the angry woman. Later
NJ: There was a Pride parade in Barbados?
and they educated me on what it is, I felt a little bit
SR: Yes, there was the first one last year, and I went to
on, when I went to a feminist brunch in Barbados, more comfortable.
But then I asked them, “To say that you’re a feminist, does it mean that you have to know everything?” They said no, once you feel this way about these terms, then yes, you could call yourself a feminist. So, then I felt
like I could say it. But what happened, I said, I will call myself that.
All of a sudden, when I called myself a feminist, people said “Well, white women created that.” And I was like, “Lord, this is why I didn’t want to say I’m a feminist.” Because when you say that, it’s like you’re putting yourself into a category.
And I was like, “I am only saying that because that is how I feel about equality.”
And somebody else said, “Well, what about “womanist?” I just believe in equality. So, someone else asked me, “Well, Sheena, you
that, and get on bad. So, when I went to that, I did it
purposely because the attention wasn’t about me, but just knowing who you are and putting yourself in that
position, also helps the situation more. It helps bring more attention or it helps show, well, this is normal.
So, I try to get involved in things to show that it is ok. They wanted me this year to be part of the Pride events, but I told them, “If you want me to be involved in the
Pride events, why don’t you invite me to go to the gay bar? You’ve got to be fair. So, you want to use me, but
you don’t invite me to the gay bars and the gay parties.” They got this fear again, which is understandable, but at the same time not fair.
How can people understand it more, if you’re living
in fear? I can understand living in fear, because you might lose your job, the church might kick you out,
your community might kick you out, and it’s such a
small island. I face that for sure with this art scene, but
once you face the worst, there’s nothing more you can turn to.
are feminist?”
So, what I would like for Barbados, is that we aren’t so
And I said, “Yes, I am, but I feel uncomfortable saying
space, and you can’t help being frightened. I don’t
it. It’s not like I’m ashamed, but I just don’t fully understand it.”
I just passionately believe people should be treated
equally, but now I’m wondering whether to call myself
an equalist. Because I just believe in that one term. My
frightened. But I can’t say that because it’s such a small
know how to remove that fear, but I would like people
to feel more at ease to express themselves and not
have to paint the beaches, sea and sand, Bob Marley, play the typical music. It doesn’t mean we lost our identity, it is still there. But let us see more of our identity and translate and transform the stuff around us.
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You don’t have to play Jamaican music or The Merry-
I feel like I went through a lot of foolishness already,
that, you could be inspired by it. And for those who
this weird tendency, like besides being a woman and a
men in Barbados. You could change that, you could use
do contemporary art, change it up. They should create their own spaces. Don’t just wait on the government. If you’re there waiting on the government or
waiting on something to happen, you know nothing will
happen. So, to me, it still winds back to the artists and the creatives.
NJ: Is there anything else you would like to add? SR: I admire, and I think what inspires me a lot, es-
I did what I had to do and I’m an artist. People have black woman and a thing, people have this foolish-ass
mentality that artists have to be starving, artists have to be desperate, artists have to be begging.
When a client of mine, he was going to buy a piece
from me. I said, “Sure, sure.” Mind you, as I tell you, I
don’t have a full-time job, so my job is being a full-time artist. This is how I have to be making money. The man went overseas, and he bought X number of pieces.
pecially in Barbados, is badass women. I admire you.
I’m trying to get a hold of this man, and I get so irritated
onne. I can’t remember the other little girl’s name [both
or something.
I admire you because I remember when you were Dicharacters in The Star Side of Bird Hill]. I liked Dionne, and I was always attracted to women like that because
it looked like a form of freedom, of I-don’t-give-a-s***
kind of vibe. There were three women in your book, the
sisters and the grandmother, but Dionne keeps hitting my head.
That’s what made your work beautiful, because it still
at how they treat you, like you are begging for friends
And my man called me, and I called him back, and he said, “Boy, Sheena, you must be cursing me.”
And I said, “I was, I was cursing you in my head.” So, he said he went and bought these pieces.
had a contrast to it, and the grandmother was the glue.
And I said, “Listen, I’ve been overseas, and I know this
but let me just say more so women, because I will tell
decorate. You came to me, that’s a different kind of
I like women who do what they have to do, or people, people I want to be a cartoonist or do music, but I also
tell people I want to be a dancehall queen, too. And people will be like, “What?”
But when I look at these women skinning out and doing
place has great pieces, but I bet you bought pieces to
art, meaning that I’m dealing in value and stuff, I’m not
dealing in decoration. So, as a businessman, you actu-
ally lost out because you’re not studying about years later, you’re studying about now.”
their thing, it looks so free to me. But then sometimes
So, when people hear me talk this way, especially be-
as an artist, I might not be a dancehall queen, but in my
used to hearing the artist. The artist is always looking
later on, they have their own insecurities. So, in my work head, I feel like a dancehall queen in art, like this art rebel. I get on bad and do what I have to do, but I still make sure the message is out there.
It doesn’t have to be clear, but it’s still talking about the contemporary issues or the setting, about history,
anything so. That’s why I feel more and more that I have
freedom. And I feel more and more like I’m a badass. That’s why I curse more. They say when people curse a lot, that means a person is a genius, right? But to me,
SUGARCANE JUNE_BLEEDS c 20.indd 62
ing home, they’re not used to hearing that. They’re not like they’re just hungry, I need to sell a piece. I am learn-
ing as much, as I might have a dollar in my last pocket there, I am learning to show them if I want value, if I want respect, appreciation, and so on, I have to talk in a certain tone. It’s a lot of extra work, not just being an
artist, I feel like I have a lot of hats on my head, of trying to make things happen in Barbados.
A lot of people don’t know the behind the scenes of
what I do, a lot of people don’t know why I am schem-
2/20/20 9:23 AM
ing and planning these things because of the development and
helping the future. So, I call my-
self a collector, just as I call myself a feminist.
Someone might laugh at me and
say, “How she could call herself a collector?”
But as two and three years pass,
now I have over 30 pieces, and I’m looking to buy more art regionally now, and I do have some
art from the States. Now I’m look-
ing to buy art more and more
and more. I call myself a curator. “How could she be a curator?” Well, ok, I curated one show, and then I curated many other shows.
I’m going to meet more kinds of high-end people from the bank
and so on. “How could she do these things?” Well people are starting to listen.
Big, big organizations are listening because I have to not just be
an artist, I have to think of how
Sheena Rose | “Well Well Well Did You Hear the Latest???” | 30x36” | Acrylic on Canvas | 2018
to not just promote myself, but
how to let people get access to art, too. Because of the
they need to build and educate people properly about
fear, the insecurity, and then we also suffer greatly from
the art system. Art is easy, yet complicated. When I say
So, I try to give access to people for art, which is
Ok, fine, it’s an expression. But where does it go
which is showing how I survive. I don’t have a represen-
“Sheena, I’m having a show and I recommended your
classism and art is recognized as eliteness.
through social media, which is showing them ideas, tative; I have to sell my work.
easy, I mean people say it’s an expression.
from there? I’m tired of when people come and say, name, and it happens to be next to a chattel house.”
So, I’m also the art dealer, the negotiator, and then
It’s like, are there are any other contemporary artists
ists are around, so then I become the promoter.
you don’t understand and you’re just putting on a show
people come to me and want to know which other art-
What Barbados needs is that they need to understand,
out there besides the few that are there? Or is it that
and saying, “Well, look, we’re trying.” So, it’s a bit of a mess, and you just have to take baby steps.
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