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

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

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

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

Chiharu Shiota – Keys in Venice and New York

March 5, 2016 by Mariamma Kambon

Encountering Chiharu Shiota’s work at the Venice Biennale 2015 was indeed like stumbling upon a familiar tongue in a foreign land. Yet the lingua had been extrapolated into such sublime poetry that it was rendered almost completely new to me. In late 2013 I became aware of mass incarceration, a system of control and suppression unique to the United States, not only in its stupendous volume but in its targeting of the historically disenfranchised and underprivileged segments of the society. […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: A Key in the Hand, artist, Biennale 2015, caribbean, Chiharu Shiota, Exhibition, fine art, installation, italy, Japan, Japan Pavilion, Japanese artist, keys, loss, Mariamma Kambon, mass incarceration, memories, memory, New York, photography, Piers 42/44, red yarn, resistance, State of Being, The Armory, The Armory Show 2016, Trinidad and Tobago, venice, Venice Biennale, Venizia, wooden boat

Completing the Circle of Diaspora

March 3, 2016 by Mariamma Kambon

In a desire to gain knowledge of the part of myself that existed prior to colonialism and that survived in spite of it, I have spent years purposefully examining the identifiable markers of Africa within Trinbagonian culture. Dr. Robert Farris Thompson’s work was bound to enter my intellectual repartee sooner or later. His preeminent scholarly work, Flash of the Spirit, had unlocked the meaning in familiar symbols and rituals for me. Thompson describes the “sacred art of the Yoruba in […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: African Diaspora, african drums, african retention, alex lasalle, amma mcken, Baba Neil Clarke, C. Daniel Dawson, caribbean, CCCADI, city college, cuba, Elizabeth Yeampierre, flash of the spirit, Harlem, Iyesa Drum ensemble, karla moore, Lumumba bandele, Mariamma Kambon, marta moreno vega, New York, ogun, orisha, photography, resistance, robert farris thompson, roman diaz, Sheriden booker, something positive, Trinidad and Tobago

Basquiat: The Unknown Notebooks and Astounding Commodification

June 15, 2015 by Mariamma Kambon

African-American, born to African-descended, Francophone and Hispanic Caribbean immigrant parents, Jean-Michel Basquiat was the embodiment of modernity. He is the quintessential romanticized figure of the agonized artist, who died too young. He was prolific during his brief and meteoric career, and remains an invaluable artworld commodity decades after his tragic passing. Only half joking, I describe the trip from Harlem to Brooklyn as “the Hajj.” It consists of trains that are almost guaranteed to be delayed and messy, ever-mutating transfer […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: art, Basquiat, Basquiat: The Unknown Notebooks, Brooklyn Museum, caribbean, commodification, immigrant, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Mariamma Kambon, modernity, painting, photography

The Personal and the Political by Attillah Springer

May 24, 2015 by Mariamma Kambon

    Mariamma Kambon takes delicate fragments to create brutal truths in her work, exploring in fine detail ideas of social justice, race and class, civil rights, and genetic memory and how these problems find specific manifestations within the prison industrial system. “Altars of Poverty” problematizes several notions of being and belonging. It claims a vocabulary for the denial of humanity. It visually describes a set of issues that we have not yet found a language for. And through her art, Kambon […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: altars of poverty, art and politics, Attillah Springer, caribbean, christianity and capitalism, installation, Mariamma Kambon, photography, postcolonial, salt, Trinidad and Tobago, wax

Omen/ He Dances in the Courtyard of the Impertinent

November 26, 2013 by Mariamma Kambon

Water by the side of fire at the center of the sky A strange thing, on the road to Teji Oku He strikes a stone in the forest, stone bleeds blood He carries a heavy stone upon his head without a cushion. Shango splits the wall with his falling thunderbolt. He makes a detour in telegraphic wire Leopard of the flaming eyes Lord who wears the sawtooth – bordered cloth of returning ancestors (egun) Storm on the edge of a […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: abolition, african culture, african retention, caribbean, cornell university, Exhibition, he dances in the courtyard of the impertinent, installation, justice, liberation theology, Mariamma Kambon, mass incarceration, omen, orisha, politicized theology, prison industrial complex, rebellion, resistance, shango, slavery, survival