After

Concept, co-curation, and exhibition foldout design for a group exhibition.

Having first worked with Y Art Gallery on the 2017 group exhibition, Line, I was thrilled to engage with the team once more at the end of 2018 to start planning another group show, After. At the heart of After was a single question: “How does one visually interpret a piece of writing?” Seeking responses, we invited a group of artists to create a tangible response to a piece of contemporary Caribbean literature. We saw literature, in particular, poetry, as an artform in and of itself – the structure of verses or sentences, the selected words, or combinations of all of these elements create vivid pictures – whether literal or abstract. 

As expected, the responses were varied – from delightful, illustrative watercolours to objects and installations that were more conceptual interpretations of the underlying themes in the written works, sometimes born out of a strong sense of nostalgia or an otherwise visceral response. My role on After included generating the concept for the show, shared duties of artists’ correspondence and studio visits, and writers’ correspondence for permissions. Melissa Miller from Y did the main exhibition graphic, and I designed a simple single-sheet foldout to document the visual works alongside the written ones. After took place from 11–27 November, 2019.

SUMMARY | Role: Co-curator (with Melissa Miller); exhibition foldout design
Artists: Adele Todd, Brianna McCarthy, Che Lovelace, Dean Arlen, Edward Bowen, Horacio Hospedales, Jackie Hinkson, Jaime Lee Loy, Paul Kain, Sabrina Charran, Susan Dayal, and Wendy Nanan, who responded to literary works by Andre Bagoo, Derek Walcott, Earl Lovelace, and Nicholas Laughlin.
Y Art Gallery Team: Melissa Miller and Yasmin Hadeed

Studio/exhibition photographs: Melissa Miller / Y Art Gallery
Thumbnail image: Season, by Che Lovelace (in response to a passage from Salt, by Earl Lovelace)