Substantiation of the Spiritual: The Found Objects of Grace Williams

January 31, 2022 by Mariamma Kambon

Hers is an art practice built out of memory embedded deep within her. She transforms Harlem’s residuum – everything from discarded toys and furniture to the guts of renovated buildings – into stirring, tactile chronicles of the events and personalities that have marked her life.

Categories: Personalities, Uncategorized • Tags: African Diaspora, altars, artifacts, artist, Barack Obama, Betty Shabazz, Bob Macbeth, Caribbean Diaspora, Ed Bullins, flags, found objects, Grace Williams, Harlem, immigrant, Jamaica, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, Mariamma Kambon, mosaics, New York, Ntozake Shange, photography, recycling, Sculpture, Trinidad and Tobago, vessels

The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X

May 27, 2021 by Mariamma Kambon

Discussion Points for Bookclubs and Study Groups: At over 500 pages, this latest addition to the assortment of Malcolm X biographies offers the reader an opportunity to review the life of an American icon – the Black shining prince of the Civil Rights Movement – in richly detailed context. 

Categories: Activism, Books • Tags: African American, African Diaspora, black shining prince, Bookclub, caribbean, christianity, Civil rights, cult, Discussion Points, Earl Little, el hajj malik el shabazz, history, human rights, icon, islam, Les Payne, Louise Little, luzdetusonrisa, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, Mariamma Kambon, martyr, Nation of Islam, racism, religion, shirley dubois, Study Group, Tamara Payne, the ballot or the bullet, The Dead Are Arising, the life of Malcom X, UNIA, united states

Notes for Alton Sterling

July 11, 2016 by Mariamma Kambon

Intro A video of the cold, violent execution of a prone Black man by white police officers opened my very first day in Louisiana. In transit I may have imagined the famed streets of New Orleans – the fertile land that has nourished Jazz and Rhythm-and-Blues; superb cuisine that just might be reminiscent of my own well-seasoned Caribbean fare; and a renowned debauchery that marks the place as vibrant and outrageous. Alton Sterling’s murder at the hands of NOPD served […]

Categories: Activism, Uncategorized • Tags: African American, African Diaspora, Alton Sterling, Baton Rouge, community, execution, family, freedom, grief, Jo Hines, John C. Mutter, justice, Louisiana, Mariamma Kambon, Michael Eric Dyson, mural, murder, photography, Police brutality, protest, race-based oppression, racism, resistance, Trinidad and Tobago, Triple S Convenience Store

Black and Pretty: Honoring Muhammad Ali

June 29, 2016 by Mariamma Kambon

“He is the property of all people but while he is the property of all people, let us never forget that he is the product of Black people in their struggle to be free.” – Dr. Kevin Cosby, 2016   “Clay is the finest Negro athlete I have ever known, the man who will mean more to his people than any other athlete before him.” – Malcolm X, 1964   It has been stated time and time again that Muhammad […]

Categories: Personalities, Uncategorized • Tags: African American, African Diaspora, Ali Bomaye, Blackness, boxing, Carol St. John, Champion, Civil rights, freedom, Gerald Early, hero, James E. Lewis Jr., Kentucky, legend, Lenox Lewis, Louisville, Malcolm X, Mariamma Kambon, Muhammad Ali, NUCUP, photography, Reverend Kevin Cosby, The Champ, The Greatest, The Greatest of All Time, Toni Morrison, Trinidad and Tobago, Will Smith

THERE (Yankee) – A curatorial project

May 24, 2016 by Mariamma Kambon

To stand in front of one of the photographs made by emerging photographer, Sasha Phyars-Burgess, is to stand at the point where documentary and art collide. In line with the wave of photographers creating imagery from positions of marginality, Phyars-Burgess has made use of the technology of photography as a tool for self-reflexivity and self-redefinition. She has examined aspects of contemporary Trinidadian life from the vantage point of a first-generation American grounded in the culture of this distant, yet familiar […]

Categories: Exhibition, Personalities, Uncategorized • Tags: African American, African Diaspora, back and white, Bard College, brooklyn, caribbean, Caribbean Diaspora, Cornell MFA, cornell university, documentary, En Foco, Exhibition, family, fine art, Harlem, ICP, identity, immigrant, International Center of Photography, Mariamma Kambon, migration, Mink Building, New York, Pennsylvania, photographer, photography, photojournalism, Sasha Phyars-Burgess, SoHarlem, transnational West Indian family, Trinidad and Tobago, Trinidadian, west indian, yankee

“Everyone Breaks”: Tanda Francis

May 5, 2016 by Mariamma Kambon

In this life, everyone breaks. As individuals, we are shattered by disappointments. We are knocked to our knees by the share force of life – that balance of negative and positive that ensures that one day, each of us will face the unthinkable. As a people, we have been scattered. A rich and eclectic Diaspora has been born of our perpetual, migratory state. Much of the journey has been marked by pain and loss. Yet, as individuals, we persevere. As […]

Categories: Personalities, Sculpture, Uncategorized • Tags: African Diaspora, art, artist, beauty, Benin, Benin Bronze, Benin head, brooklyn, concrete, Everyone Breaks, fabrication, gold, healing, Ife, Ife sculptures, Jamaica, kintsugi, kintsukoroi, luz de tu sonrisa, luzdetusonrisa, Mariamma Kambon, mending, New York, photography, public art, resiliance, Riverside Park, sculptor, Sculpture, steel, Tanda Francis, visual artist, visual arts

The Son of the Prophet Journeys to the Land of the Believers

April 22, 2016 by Mariamma Kambon

The earliest image of my family was captured with Marcus Garvey’s portrait occupying the position typically reserved for White Jesus in the West Indian home.   “Children, children! Children, children! Humble yourself and be calm, one day somehow You’ll remember him, you will No one remember old Marcus Garvey No one remember old Marcus Garvey Garvey’s old, yet young Garvey’s old, yet young” – Old Marcus Garvey, Burning Spear   “My trod was in the livity and order. I honored […]

Categories: Personalities, Uncategorized • Tags: African Diaspora, African Liberation, black god, Black Power, Bob Marley, breadfruit trees, Burning Spear, caribbean, Clyde Noel, colonialism, dreadlocks, Ethiopia, family, family portrait, flags, food independence, Haile Selassie, Harris Promenade, In the Lion's Den, Jamaica, Julius Garvey, Junior Bisnath, luz de tu sonrisa, luzdetusonrisa, Marcus Garvey, Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Mariamma Kambon, New York, photography, postcolonial, prophet, Ras Daniel, rasta, Rastafari, Rastafarian, red black and green, resistance, San Fernando, Steel Pulse, Trini Levi, Trinidad and Tobago, twelve tribes, Twelve Tribes of Israel, white jesus, Worth his weight in gold

Cashing in on Fine Art Photography

April 1, 2016 by Mariamma Kambon

I was fortunate to have a coffee with the distinguished, New York based photographer, Howard Cash. We met at the MIST Café in Harlem, and sat beneath the words of South African freedom fighter, Steve Biko: “It is better to die for an idea that will live, than to live for an idea that will die” It was a fitting backdrop for the conversation that would ensue since Howard Cash is a person who has devoted his life and talents […]

Categories: Personalities, Uncategorized • Tags: African American, African Diaspora, art appreciation, Black life, cafe, fine art, Harlem, Harlem Renaissance, Howard Cash, interview, Langston Hughes, Mariamma Kambon, MIST Harlem, New York, photography, Steve Biko, Trinidad and Tobago

Lorna Goodison – Recovering the Lost through the Imagination

March 13, 2016 by Mariamma Kambon

It was a treat to attend the talk entitled On the Caribbean Imaginary by Lorna Goodison. The lecture was a part of the New York University Institute of African American Affairs Spring 2016 Lecture Series and coincided with International Women’s Day. Goodison’s poetry has been a staple of the West Indian high school experience. Her words delighted me in and out of the classroom. Her poem Guinea Woman featured in the textbook of my school days. A quick perusal of […]

Categories: Lecture, Uncategorized • Tags: Abeokuta, African Diaspora, african retention, caribbean, colonialism, Guinea Woman, home, I am becoming my mother, Ilesa, imagination, Institute of African American Affairs, International Women's Day, Jamaica, Jamaican, Lecture, Lecture Series, Lorna Goodison, Mariamma Kambon, memory, New York, NYU, poem, poet, poetry, postcolonial, The Caribbean Imaginary, Toni Morrison, Trinidad and Tobago, Wole Soyinka