“As a member of the Guyanese diaspora living in Canada, I hold a collection of stories from many storytellers in a web of communities that, though geographically separated, are bound together by acts of resistance as we define our own methods of documentation and preservation. The following project brings together images from four series shaped by this exploration.”
Artist Project
“PPE (rituals) is a browser-based iteration of the speculative virtual world Plants Properties Equipment.”
“To know where we are going, we must first remember where we have been. This work is a way of addressing the silence and shame surrounding the experiences of violence of those close to me, of speaking out where they felt they couldn’t, and picking up on the traces of what was left unsaid.”
“We are drawn to our source material out of a mutual fascination, appreciation, and morbid curiosity. For both of us, the collages provide a space to simultaneously celebrate and satirize mainstream notions of taste and sophistication. We get to poke fun at the aesthetics of the past but also to pay tribute (albeit in a subversive, gaudy, and often humorous way).”
“In the beforetimes, you would never have worked like this: through two hypothetical fifteen- minute breaks and a lunch, with no concept of overtime, entirely alone. There was time to distract yourself with images—a plentiful supply in a seemingly endless scroll. The work seemed less urgent then; yesterday’s rest was a risk of different proportions.”
“Re-working traditional Islamic art forms and objects by employing a variety of media (ink drawing, painting, printmaking, digital print, laser cutting, and video projection), I attempt to reconsider the attachment of divineness and depth in art making. I want to highlight how the meticulous process of creating art—once celebrated in ancient Persia as a symbol of beauty, precision, and spirituality—has become obscured in today’s art world.”
“As we play and grow, we may conclude that distinguishing between 2D, 3D, and virtual art forms is non-essential. Inside and outside my studio, the ever-shifting conversation between painting and visual culture unfolds.”
“My freeze-frame process slowed down the images, and recreating them as paintings drew it out ever longer. These impressionistic renderings started to lend to your story an archetypal quality, at least for me. […] For now, Ed, your memory might last a little longer.”
“Relational Making is the skillful production of objects, new media, or performances by an Indigenous person that infuses Indigenous epistemologies such as relational, locational, spiritual, communal, and holistic understanding.”
“DO I INTIMIDATE?” started as an anthropology research question for my university classes. In a series of ten interviews, I asked elders and youths in my Yoruba Community how it felt to wear their traditional attire in public.