Spoken Word: fake deep by Cecile Emeke

My favorite find of sisters this year.  Been watching other posts but this one

I had to repost.  


Multidimensional Consciousness.  Yes.  This is where I am.   These are 

my questions and ponderings... 


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"Fake Deep" is a poem written by Cecile Emeke and performed by (in
order of appearance): Michelle Tiwo, Emma Carryl, Stephanie Levi-John,
Naomi Ackie, Nneka Okoye and Modupe Salu.

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Director/Writer/Cinematographer: Cecile Emeke
Sound: Jimmy Allen

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TV Interview: Spotlight on Cocooning Catharsis

PBCJamaica "Spotlight" TV Interview Originally aired January 2014
for the solo photo-Based exhibition Cocooning Catharis at HiQo Gallery, Kingston, Jamaica
(Dec 19 - Jan 13th, 2014)


This was thankfully a casual but in depth discussion on the inspiration behind the work, and some of the methods used to make the pieces.  It was a great hang with the crew too.

Select works available at HiQo Gallery






Related links and articles:

Smile Jamaica/TVJ Morning Interview

Petchary Blog Review

Arc Magazine Release

The Gleaner

Another Robin Hood Capitalist Goes to Africa

“This is a relationship that could bring us all the things we desire,” Jeffrey Wright said. [from NYT Article]
 Will it really?  Not from what I can glean.

Michael Christopher Brown/Magnum, for The New York Times

A few days ago a dear friend sent this New York Times Magazine Article: Jeffrey Wright's Gold Mine, and I had to sit with it for a bit because quite frankly I didn't want to express too soon my innermost reactions of utter distaste.

I am all for the worldwide excitement that now swirls around Africa; I'm overjoyed and inspired by the throngs of Afropolitans who are relocating  there in record numbers to reclaim and rebuild. They, we, have her best interest at heart in investing in her growth and resurgence as the power that she always was - due to her most abundant bossom and talented children.  And make no mistake, this is a very significant event that has created such terms as "reverse migration" or "reverse brain drain" which are being used to describe a very specific socio-economic effect.  Once the Westernized educated classes of third world nations would leave their countries to help build the already powerful industrial nations from which capitalist driven standards hailed.  The effect of this was brain drain (human capital flight) which often left the poorer nations struggling to compete effectively in any international industry due to a lack of skilled work forces.  In turn this would of course affect a nations GDP (gross domestic product) growth.  Now for the first time in the LONG and (still debated) complicated history of world economics, the reverse is occurring.  The wide significance of this can be sourced to many publications and statistical reports, not least of which by the World Bank citing in 2013 that the fastest growing economies belonged mostly to African nations - and Sierra Leone is sustaining her top ranking position on this list.  Time Magazine and The Economist actually had the

same Africa Rising cover issue titles when reporting this phenomenon! There is no coincidence in the fact that the(current) race for Mama Africa (headed by China over 10 years ago) reawakened Europe's interest, and now supposedly 'concerns' that of the USA; - a crazed rush of which her own children are keenly aware.  Africans want ownership interest in her future - OBVIOUSLY.  No child of hers wishes to see her raped and robbed again!  Which brings me back to the responsibility of the individual, and this move by actor Jeffrey Wright and his gold mining project - which sorry, does not have the appearance of real interest in development or profitable investor growth FOR MY country Sierra Leone.  It looks like just the opposite.  

Is it me, or does his pet gold mine project have all the earmarks of the old imperialist model of exploitation for industrial and western profit?! And worse still because he does it under the guise of his right and spiritual destiny as a black man coming to do his part to help rebuild a chosen African nation which he has tricked himself into believing he has interest in!  How can it be real interest if you offer partnership to outside investors (he included) for profits to be removed from the very country you dig up for your personal enrichment?  Unless I'm misinterpreting something here - it seems he's recycling damaging strategies that put Sierra Leone in the very mess he proposes to be aiding to clean.  What fucking hypocrisy!

There are many well-meaning celebrities who have put their face, and sometimes time, effort, or money into charitable pots created by humanitarian organizations - and sometimes unfortunately to little avail.  The model of charity is indeed being reexamined as one that doesn't ultimately help to lift a troubled nation out of poverty. The old adage is true - better to teach one how to fish.   “Charity degrades those who receive it and hardens those who dispense it.” [from NYT article].  Agreed.  Wright cites this quote  in the article - and yes this is true in many cases, but certainly the alternative is not to repeat models of exploitation behind the cloak of a radical Robin Hood capitalist digging for gold instead of diamonds.  And especially not if you're robbing the poor you propose to be educating and empowering Jeffrey! Hello! Ugh - this man, this artist is in the specific performing profession of the empath - that's what you do as an actor, but all I see from this article, as I frankly have seen in some of his performances, is one of an arrogant self-appointed massah.

"Sierra Leone was one of the world’s most failed states. And it is ringed by war-ravaged Liberia and by Guinea, whose government was fast collapsing. To all but the most intrepid, Sierra Leone’s gold didn’t seem worth the gamble." [from NYT article].  And being among the most intrepid gives you no credibility in my book if you can go into such a state nonetheless and take resources and personally control trade in the name of nation rebuilding.  It absolves you of nothing.

Guess I still haven't cooled off yet...

Thank you Bea - this woke me from my personal silence. xo

"The narrative will always glorify the hunter until the lion learns to write."
Just like you said Komla Dumor
#VoiceOfAfrica 

Full New York Times article here

illusive self is now alive!

Curating this show #illusiveSelf was an unforgettable experience to be expanded on when I stop moving around so fast.  The past 10 weeks since I was moving out of the NYC apartment have been so dense with experiences  that I have to accept that reporting fully on any of them will come way after - when I'm sitting still in Jamaica over the holidays...preparing for the last leg of this journey:  to Sierra Leone. 

But after all the hard work and challenges of this past week - the show is open and up, and the opening night was by all accounts a success!

For me the greatest rewards as curator are:

1) the artists are happy and feel proud of the show they are in.
2) the visitors sense the thematic continuity of the show and are intrigued, moved, and provoked by its content
3) the gallery director and other art professionals see a future in the concept and offer opportunities for expansion.

Well... Check.  Check. CHECK!!!

What more... what more could I possibly ask of God and Mother Universe for curatorial debut in New York City?  Nothing!   Well... hmmm... an NYT review would be nice...LOL

And now to packing, shipping, and preparing for the next show in Jamaica...as an artist... ;-)

Post by SeBiArt i•ma•gine | e•volve.

The Journey Foreseen...

How's this for a send off?!  

After a 3 week run of intense activity of moving out of my apartment (what a job THAT was!), AND prepping for shows, I've had to switch gears immediately into prepping for travel.  I was running around today doing last bits before heading to the airport, which included of course a completion of a creative jaunt... I had to document images of a wheat paste session I did on a side street with my buds last night.

I still had to turn in my cable box and close out my account. Yup...just a couple hours before leaving the country.  I was online at Time Warner on 96th + Broadway with a ticket number that was sure to take at least 30 minutes to come up on the screen.  I took a chance by jumping on a bus heading over to the East side - the opposite side of town - to the little side street where we pasted up our prints.  

While rushing to archive our handy wheatpasting work,  I thought, "maybe I should catch a cab back across  on the main avenue to save on time or I may not make it...".  Within moments of this boggle, this man walks by...looking at me casually yet quite intently.  

As he passed in front of my camera he asked,  "Do you need a cab?" and gestures towards his yellow. I immediately said yes and acknowledged internally the fortuitous timing and his seeming ability to read my mind!   

Now understand people - this NEVER happens in New York city. Not with yellow cabs at least.  Maybe Livery cabs (the black town cars that recently turned that god aweful lime green) once in a while, but not yellows.

Anyway, he was double parked so we had to jet. 

It was a completely silent and peaceful ride to the other side of town. 

As I was getting out he calmly turned to the back and a pro po of nothing he said, 
"You are being watched closely right now....by your grandmother... Yes," he paused to confirm, "... not by your uncles or your cousin who are helping you, but by your grandmother.  You are on the right path. It's not going to be easy, but it will be good.  Very good work. You will be fine, and you will do just fine."

Needless to say I sat there shocked, my jaw dropped...just staring at him...blinking blankly. He was looking at me calmly chewing at his toothpick with a knowing smile only detectable in his eyes.  I began to say "If you knew the momen...", and he cut me off saying, "I know the moment. It is a very good and meaningful moment. You will be fine African daughter."

I balked again but quickly composed myself to ask his name.  "Malik from Mali" he said. "Berette from Sierra Leone" I said, "and thank you Malik for that." We took each other's hand, we smiled, locked one more momentary gaze and then off I went. 

I ran across the street into the Time Warner praying I didn't just screw myself with the timing.  The counter was at #233 and my number was #234.

I went up to the counter ready to pay my final bill, and was told, "You never cashed in on our promotion before canceling your account, so we owe you money.  The credit will be sent in the mail."

What?!! lol

And...when I got to the airport just now, the seeming major issue I had with Air Berlin and their baggage handling fee that I'd griped about just days before on was all cleared up without a hitch.  And I found a new hippie friend from behind the counter to boot!

Wow. That's what you call Bon Voyage Bless Ups - wouldn't you say?!

Floored.  Grateful.  Smiling. Ready.

SeBiArt News: New Work/Shows, New Book, and Now Curating!

Coming full circle. 

Over a decade after graduating from my school as an  Acting/Theater major, I just showed my work in the Hewitt Gallery of Art at Marymount Manhattan College. 

This was really a personal milestone because I took photography elective classes here while pursuing my degree...NEVER intending to become a photographer. All thanks to Prof. Millie Falcaro who taught me how to do formal portraiture and dark room processing all those years ago, and who invited me this year to do this show. So fitting too that I showed my family portrait work, Neue Rootz, taken in Germany/Czech Republic 4 years ago,  just weeks before setting off to do the same trip again with my mom. In fact, I'm blogging this all from Nuremburg right now!

Just goes to show...you never know what the future holds. 

Life is kinda funny and neat like that sometimes eh?

 

 • • • 

 COMING IN OCTOBER

 Watch this space for show dates!

•

It's time again for ArtfromtheHeart with the Vanderbilt Republic

  

I have 3 pieces in the show

 ♡

 October 19th

Get your tickets HERE!

photo!

•


Finally The Other Hundred book release is upon us!

ReCap:

    
  
The Other Hundred is a book project initiated a few months ago by the pan-Asian organisation, The Global Institute of Tomorrow [G.I.F.T.] based in Hong Kong. 

A Worldwide photo-call was announced and featured on the BBC, explaining the reason for this work.  The Jury received over 11, 000 submissions from 158 countries...    100 were chosen.
I am one...for Jamaica...with a portrait of street artist and painter: Delroy Anderson
 
See The Other Hundred Website

 Book available on Amazon  

  • 

Branded, We Walk

New Solo Show

Sept 30 - Oct 28th

 NH3 Gallery/Splashlight Studios, New York

Music by DJ Belinda

Hors d'oeuvres by Sean John/Spur Tree Lounge

•

Guest curating the show  
illusive self 

at the Taller Boricua Gallery, NYC

"An interpretive visual conversation of immigrant identity

retention, destruction, and (re)Creation."

Submissions now open through October 1st
 

 Artist Announcements October 15th.

Show Opening Nov 15th

More Info here:

~ About the Show

~ Guidelines

~Application

Conceptualized by Guest Curator: Berette Macaulay

Gallery Director: Fernando Salicrup

• • • 

 COMING IN NOVEMBER

 • 

New Solo in Jamaica!  

More news on this a bit later...



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If you have trouble viewing the content of this post, please visit the blog directly: http://sebiart.blogspot.com

Thank You

The Scary Business of New Beginnings...

They say you should do something that scares you everyday… Well, check!!

Moving they say is among the top traumas a person can experience, and prior to a couple weeks ago - this whole business of moving out and giving up everything I own was a great conversation piece that inspired only release and celebration...and zero fear.  Then suddenly one day recently, that all changed.  Everyday since has been an exercise in recalling the meditative and spiritual work of this year - and remembering to breathe.  The challenging asanas I've pushed myself in yoga all year to do, I call on now as practice in the asana of release.  Funny that I find myself clinging so tightly now just as I'm about to let go. 

I heard Rev. Bacon say in an interview with Oprah last week that change is like the tumult in a plane.  Pilots explain that when the craft is about to break through the sound barrier the cockpit shakes the most and the body of the craft is at its most unstable.  I love this.  Kind of like the constricting  trauma of the birth canal before air and light; but this new analogy is serving me right now. I'm breaking through the sound barrier - my apartment is the cockpit, and I'm wanting to grip for security before releasing to the cruising altitude on the other side.   Deep and interesting process to observe on a daily basis.  

I'm now at the 2 week mark and I FEEL my body poised and sharply focused on the task at hand.  There is not a single moment for renegotiation left.  It's do or bust. And I'm doing this most involved work WHILE preparing for immediate travel and 3 exhibitions!  Of course.  Hahaha.  But stoop sales are the biggest 'DO' right now and I don't particularly enjoy them because I feel like I'm in a fish bowl brandishing my panties for the world to stare at!  That said - I've been ushered prior into this process by the presence of friends and family so I could get my feet wet.


But unlike those other days where we've had mini impromptu stoop parties, today I had my first solo stoop sale and it was not only a real physical work out, but a true test of breathing away the histrionics, overcoming the fears and getting necessary work done.  I set this all in motion when I decided to release my life here in New York,  and so I have to go through these logistics - which are hardly as romantic as the reasons or the stories behind them. 
       
So...I didn't have the hand holding today that  my little heart yearned for, but such conditions yield deep spiritual truths about where to hold energy and how to stand in an exposed vulnerable space with your center in tact.  It's not easy watching people assess the worth of your belongings...that for you  are so rich with sentimental value.  But with each breath, I experienced the liberty that this entire move is ushering me towards.  And added to that, I was called and visited by sweet souls all day who delivered gems of deep encouragement for this soul work.  Even the guys in the clothing store across the street watched my stuff for me when I had to walk away or show someone my stuff for sale inside the apartment. It's remarkable how sweetly held I was by strangers and new neighbours and passersby who questioned and then celebrated my reasons for my move. It emboldened my sense of courage to continue, to sit in my fish bowl and get about the business of releasing my things, my emotional attachments, my fears, my ego...

These moments are the practice for when I am untethered and on my way to Sierra Leone at the end of the year.   This is the TRUTH right here.  Wow.  Yemaya. 

Humbled • Scared •  Determined • Grateful. 

Silence is Compliance

Video

The Politics of Black Masculinity

The Op-Ed columnist Charles M. Blow on the difficulty of explaining the Zimmerman verdict to his sons.

 By Christopher Cascarano on  

Publish Date July 15, 2013.

When we stand mute in any public social or community discourse that affects us all, then by default we are complicit in the inequities which in quiet company we claim to abhor.  How then should our children mirror us if we show two faces?

The upset over the verdict represents the upset over the very fact that this lack of impartiality seems to affect the lives of black men in this country differently and seriously so, than it does others. To not recognize that is naive at best. Sadly there seems to be either a road to death or a death sentence depending on which side of the gun they stand. Had there been a role reversal here as the only changed variable, keeping all other ridiculous details in tact - most feel fairly confident that if Martin was the shooter he would have been convicted...as an adult no less. It is this pessimistic yet  confident view - surpassing doubt which would be sad enough - that creates the upset here, for it is unfortunately caused by an inability to suspend (racial) judgment in our society and thus prevents impartiality in any (racial) response. And so, these results keep repeating, as quiet confirmation of a system that the majority claims unable to do nothing about.  It is actually in this context that Mr. James Baldwin wrote a searing examination of the Atlanta Child Murder Investigations in his book The Evidence of Things Not Seen, questioning our justice system, the manner of investigations, and further, the application of law in the quest for them to equally and patently serve us all.




All the reaction and rhetoric flying around regarding the 'Not Guilty' verdict for Zimmerman, and perceived lack of justice for Trayvon Martin, and what this means to young black men in America made me think immediately of a debate I watched earlier this year between William F. Buckley and James Baldwin in Cambridge 1965.  They were answering the question:  

"Is the American Dream at the expense of the Negro?" 

- Buckley for 'No' and Baldwin arguing 'Yes'. 

Both erudite, both keen in the structure of their arguments, but one clamors for creative dismissal that these days falls flat, while the other pulls from experiential accounts,  winning over the Cambridge students then - and unfortunately, over time, still rings true today.  It is, among many of his other genius observations of America's failure to provide an experience of equality, the most complete and relevant response to the matter of race and how mythologically prejudicial perceptions continue to endanger all our citizens.

For Trayvon Martin: In. The Hood. We. Will. Witness. Lives and Dreams.

A little over a year ago I collaborated with some friends to create levitating imagery as a first reaction to the news of Trayon Martin's untimely demise. The titles of each triptych portrait were part of a whole sentence: In The Hood We Will Witness Lives and Dreams. 

The idea stemmed also from what I have noticed and experienced in American culture especially - and painfully so - the attachment society has to limited, definitive emblems and symbols of a person, rather than to recognize 'the being', the character, the soul. To state repeatedly that we all have soaring dreams whether we live in 'da hood' or in a homogenized or insulated gated community, whether we wear a suit or a hoodie, is indeed a social conditioning that must be created and pressed consistently and actively into our collective psyche if such dangerous misconceptions are ever to change. We witness not only what unfolds before us, but we create what we witness, by bringing our perceptions to a scene, a conversation, or chance meeting.  If Zimmerman saw a child instead of perceiving a black gangster, Trayvon Martin may possibly have lived, or in fact benefited from his protection rather than to be hunted.

For the triptych works - I asked friends from mixed backgrounds and professions to pose for me in their hoodies for front and back portaits, and in levitating action sequences as a visual attempt to represent the static stereotype whilst actively transcending it.

A short film was also in development to accompany this that I'm hoping to complete by the end of the year.

If only we all remembered simultaneously that it's a simple shift in one's perception that can create huge change...just like the butterfly...

In. The Hood. We. Will. Witness. Lives and Dreams.

Via Flickr:

In. The. Hood. We. Will. Witness. Lives and Dreams., a set on Flickr.

Series Title:

In. The. Hood. We. Will. Witness. Lives and Dreams
A response to Trayvon Martin's misidentification...

Life is quite sweet sometimes isn't it...?

An adorable dance company named Under One Dances (founded by Kyla Ernst-Alper) proposed folks send in choreographic ideas for 1 minute #TweetDances to be performed at this year's #Figment Festival on Governors Island in New York. 

I thought...what the hey...I'll play.

They ended up using the idea and here's what they did...performed by Meladonna.  
So sweet.




#TweetDance: Meladonna dances "giving in to love..."
from Kygwen on Vimeo. Meladonna
Figment, Governors Island, New York, NY

@SeBiArt:
'giving in to love...again'

At the start, every 15 seconds, and at the end of the 1 min dance - cup one hand in the other (gesture of offering) and then
cup it over your heart. (so the gesture would happen 5x)
For the whole piece - Improv a movement story of heart break followed by a heart riZe to love in between each gesture.
-To learn more about Meladonna visit http://www.underonedances.com/#!meladonna/c1zp

Naked in the Shadow

The Shadow came and covered my place, my doorway, my face.  It was like having a solid steel block placed over my heart-space while I lay flat on a cold ground gasping for air.  

That damn persistent Shadow...

I have never stopped myself so consciously from writing before.  I never experienced so physically the effects of such mindful resistance.  I feel it now as I write.  

My whole life I've been told to write, or that I would inevitably be a writer.  I never wanted to accept such prophecy because it meant so many things that I somehow concluded would make my life a misery.  It meant I would be alone.  It meant I would never dance.  It meant I couldn't act. It meant I wasn't pretty enough.  I could never be a popular or fun person who attracted the company of other popular or fun people if I spent my whole day writing about all the crap that ran around in my head.  Funny - as nowadays none of these conditions hold my interest.  Well that's not entirely true.  But the recluse I feared I would be as a writer, is now actually how I choose to exist.  It's how I feel safe.  And now my head is full of thoughts that must come out - UNinterrupted.  Ha!  Isn't that it?  Writing is speaking your mind UNinterrupted?  

Anyway despite my resistance, -a lifetime of active resistance through a number of other activities and professions- I would still write.  Since the age of 6 I started writing...copiously.  And when the rush of thoughts would barrel through me, nothing could stop me from recording it.  Added to mounds of journals, I have so many napkins, internal book sleeves, and scrap papers with sentences, phrases, or whole passages scribbled on them.  I can't count how many draft documents I've typed, never written for public consumption mind you, just for the release I uncontrollably needed. 

In fact the only public consumption of my writing have been assignments in college, a mere handful of published essays and articles, and this blog.  I never tried to take it beyond that you see.  But in each of these instances, I was frightened when my work was well received.  The fright was that I made possible the prophecy of being a 'writer', and thus the Shadow that could rob me of the otherwise active life I thought I wanted.  

But this last month I felt suffocated in a way I never expected or experienced.  I would be sitting on my outside stoop or on the train, or doing some other activity when suddenly a rush of thoughts and words would come over me and through me.  I know this feeling so well and precisely how I've always reacted to it. But this time I would literally, consciously decide to let it slip away.  I would plant myself, sit it out,  STOP myself from grabbing a pen or running to the computer to write.  And that freaked me out.  It is freaking me out.  It's freaking my friends out too.  So much so that as I verbally explained this to one of them, my dear Vernice made me sit down immediately to write this in her presence to release myself...

So here I am, ...naked.

And here I will stay...embracing this prophecy.  Many thoughts have bubbled in this winter of introspection.  I was so still that if I wrote anything, it would be the only action and so...resistance. 
It seems awfully obvious now, and reveals me as a bit mad and slow on the uptake...but, of course I can do everything I've done before, just now it's time to openly embrace 'writing' as one of...  But on the way here, maybe it's okay, as Saul Williams said: "to throw away the pad and pen, and simply be the poem." Perhaps all this exploration has been to gather tales and living poetry to share; dispatches from a mad lab of endless searching for wholeness. 

Indeed.  And this search shall take me home, the reports of which will be shared through my lens and my pen.

Sierra Leone.  

It is time.

Sisyphean Struggles vs Overcoming like a Trojan

This is quite connected to the #MindtheGap philosophy that I am working my way back to. Here is a wonderful and accessible explanation for why we do what we do, and why we despair when it is no longer serving us...

Dan Ariely: What makes us feel good about our work?