Andree Bagoo writes about the "NEW MEDIA" show at TNT's 2011 Film Festival

Muhe Frida (right) and La Vaughn Belle (left) at Medulla Gallery, Trinidad & Tobago

Andre Bagoo writes:
"La Vaughn Belle‘s ‘Somebody’s Been Sitting in My Chair’ worked well in the space. The video work showed the artist re-enacting the scenes of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, wandering an 18th century colonial great house, dressed in casual wear. The idea of the house echoed the space, which is itself a kind of house with wandering viewers encountering work and asking: who owns the work? For whom are these pieces intended? These complex questions mirror the complex issues in the piece which throws up ideas of ownership, identity, ‘beauty’, colonialism, race and class struggle. Is the artist/walker an intruder or the real owner reclaiming the space? Does she reclaim the space or is the space reclaiming her? In other words: what power does she really have? Who is she?"
To read the full article click here.

Trinidad + Tobago Film Festival

Very excited about this! It's the first time this piece, "Somebody's Been Sitting In My Chair, Somebody's Been Sleeping in My Bed", is traveling!

ARC and T+T Film Festival present "New Media", a collection of ten artists’ works. These works explore a range of themes and issues, while pushing and blurring the boundaries between film and art.

New Media will be the opening exhibition at the brand-new Medulla Gallery, 37 Fitt Street, Woodbrook. After a launch on Friday 23 September at 7pm, the exhibition takes place on Saturday 24 September and Sunday 25 September, 10am to 7pm daily.

For more info: http://www.ttfilmfestival.com/new-media

Proximities

Proximities is a programme of five artists' videos posing questions about family and domesticity, intimacy and publicity, anxieties and appetites. Curated by artist Christopher Cozier, Proximities explores the medium of video and its relations with performance, spontaneity, and self-revelation. The programme opens on Thursday 22 April at 8.00 pm, at Alice Yard, and runs for four nights over two weeks. See the detailed schedule below.

Cozier writes:

“I experienced most of these works in various exhibitions or while travelling between 2007 and 2008, and one or two were sent to me. They had an impact on me and lived with me because of their relatively simple and/or efficient use of video, and because the expression and/or investigation of intimacy — the use of self as subject — the personal and its relation to the public space, especially in the anglophone Caribbean — are concerns that are rarely directly visualised.

“Also, Trinidad is seven miles off the coast of the South American continent. Most of these works come from or engage the Latin American world — a space, history, and sensibility we share but also rarely engage.”

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The programme includes:

= Ways of Making Love in the US (2006), by Diana-Sofia Estrada
= Que Te Vaya Bonito (2007), by Ivan Monforte
= La Mala (2008), by Sandra Vivas
= Mulatta/Mestiza (2007), by Yvette Mattern
= Los Diarios de Porcelana (2003), by La Vaughan Belle

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Schedule

Thursday 22 April, 2010, 8-10 pm
Ways of Making Love in the US
Que Te Vaya Bonito
La Mala

Friday 23 April, 2010, 8-10 pm
Mulatta/Mestiza
Los Diarios de Porcelana

Thursday 29 April, 2010, 8-10 pm
Mulatta/Mestiza
Los Diarios de Porcelana

Friday 30 April, 2010, 8-10 pm
Ways of Making Love in the US
Que Te Vaya Bonito
La Mala

The videos will be installed in various spaces at Alice Yard, and will play simultaneously and continuously throughout each evening.

For more information about the artists, visit the Alice Yard website.
http://aliceyard.blogspot.com/2010/04/proximities.html

Hideaway

For Immediate Release
 
St. Croix-based LaVaughn Belle presents 'Hideaway', a group of pencil and paper cut-out pieces on display in Christiansted with an opening on February 19, 2009 5-8 pm at Maufé (the show runs until March 8). Hideaway is an extension of Belle's contribution to the Overdragelse group exhibition at Copenhagen-based artist collective Overgaden last August, and is arranged by Salt Gallery.
 
Overdragelse (in English, this means approximately Transfer) looked at the relationship between Denmark and their former colony, the Danish West Indies (today's U.S. Virgin Islands) in an attempt to understand the common history and cultural heritage between Denmark and the United States. Belle was one of the curators and artists in the group exhibit &  Salt Gallery is now displaying her work at Christiansted's Maufé Gallery on St. Croix. A handmade 10-page book of cut-outs (photo attached) is part of the exhibit and is inspired by Hans Christian Andersen. The book's images and text are taken from the real-estate websites and magazines popular in the Virgin Islands that "sell" the islands as a fairy tale, an adventure, an escape, a hideaway.
 
With 'Collectible' (photo attached), Belle's color pencil drawings on paper plates mimic Danish commemorative plates from Colonial times. After her residency in Copenhagen, during which she produced the current body of work, Belle was intrigued that the topic of slavery was so rarely discussed in Danish society. The viewer can't help but look for similarities between Belle's plates and traditional Danish ceramics, yet he finds a wry humor in the use of paper plates. Paper is a forgettable and easily disposable material. Belle's work comments perhaps on Danish society's 'forgetting and disposing' of their history in a similar way and it is an important contribution to the discussion.
 
LaVaughn Belle was born in Trinidad in 1974 and works in a variety of media. Her work has been displayed in Havana, New York, Copenhagen and St. Croix.
 
Salt Gallery is an online art gallery and project management firm based in St. Croix, USVI representing artists from Europe, the US, and the Caribbean basin. Since Salt Gallery only exists on the world wide web, we organize openings in available spaces in St. Croix and the mainland US.

Contact: Tomas Lanner
340-514-6664
saltgallery@gmail.com