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

Journey of a Soul: The Life and Work of Betty Blayton Taylor

February 6, 2017 by Mariamma Kambon

“I think that every child should have an opportunity to explore the arts, just like they have an opportunity to learn how to write and to count. A youngster who has had exposure to the arts is a youngster who is going to be more creative, more capable of learning; will have more enthusiasm for learning and particularly, will be in a position to explore potential, as opposed to the rote learning that goes into A-B-C. If you allow a […]

Categories: Personalities, Uncategorized • Tags: all is one, Alleyne Houser Blayton, Arnold Prince, art, artist, artist-in-residence, Barbara Blayton Richardson, Betty Blayton, Betty Blayton Taylor, Bruton Heights, Buddhism, Charlotte Amalie, Charlotte Hawkins Brown, Children's Art Carnival, creative, culture, Dr. James Blayton, family, Film, Harlem, Harlem Textile Works, Jean-Michel Basquiat, LeRoy Clarke, Mariamma Kambon, meditation, Michael Kelly Williams, New York City, North Carolina, Omar Blayton, painter, painting, Palmer Memorial Institute, photography, play, portraits, sculptor, Sedalia, self-reflective, St. Thomas, studio museum of harlem, The Bronx, Trinidad and Tobago, Virginia, Williamsburg, Zevilla Preston Jackson

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

Our Music Continues: Michael Kelly Williams

May 10, 2016 by Mariamma Kambon

  Liturgy for Lenox Lounge Gentrification is a sticky subject for many African-Americans. I once heard it summed up as such: “White people? You don’t come to join us. You come to displace us.” African-Americans became a part of the originally Dutch neighborhood of Harlem in 1905. A murder within a house on West 133rd Street turned it into a challenging property to rent. The solution decided upon by the owner was to turn to a Black realtor, who rented […]

Categories: Personalities, Sculpture, Uncategorized • Tags: art, brooklyn, Daughters of the Dust, Detroit, gentrification, Harlem, Harlem Renaissance, iconic, jazz, Lenox Lounge, Liturgy for Lenox Lounge, malcolm x blvd, Mariamma Kambon, Michael Kelly Williams, music, New York, nkisi, photography, resistance, sculptor, Sculpture, Serett Metal Works, surrealism, visual arts

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

David Hammons/ Obeah Man

March 23, 2016 by Mariamma Kambon

The art of David Hammons usually beckons to me from wherever it is perched within a group show. How can someone who uses such a myriad of methods and media have a voice so distinct amid the ambitious cacophony of contemporary art? It is the obeah in the thing – the spirit of the miraculous and the rebellious. It is the profundity revealed in the quotidian that allows his voice to rise above the rest. Obeah is black magic some […]

Categories: Exhibition, Uncategorized • Tags: african amerian, African American, african art, artist, bird, black magic, boukman, champ, David Hammons, dreadlocks, Exhibition, fine art, five decades, fur coat, Harlem, human hair, installation, Kongo, mal yeux, malcolm x blvd, maljo, Mariamma Kambon, mass incarceration, mau mau, mnuchin gallery, New York, nkisi, Obeah, obeah man, okomfo anokye, orange is the new black, photography, power figure, rebellion, resistance, slavery, snowball, standing room only, tribal art, Trinidad and Tobago, visual arts

Ashes and Embers, a film by Haile Gerima

March 11, 2016 by Mariamma Kambon

For my uncle who was sent to Vietnam a whole man but returned to his family incomplete  “It is for life. PTSD is for life,” she told me. “That person will never, ever get better.” The faces around the dimly lit table grew serious momentarily as this reality sank in. It was only a warning about a date with a man from the navy who might have been to a recent war. The pause was fleeting before the faces all […]

Categories: Film, Uncategorized • Tags: African American, African Diaspora, American Fruit African Roots, Angela Davis, Ashes and Embers, Black Power, David Rudder, Elizabeth Catlett, Film, Films at the Schomburg, Haile Gerima, Harlem, lynching, Madman's Rant, Malcolm X, Mariamma Kambon, movie, New York, Patrice Lumumba, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, soldier, The Schomburg Center, The Sharecropper, Veteran, Vietnam, Vietnam vet, war

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

Ebony Hands on Each Ivory Key: The Marjorie Eliot Postcard

June 1, 2012 by Mariamma Kambon

The images entitled “Ebony hands on each ivory key” remained on view at the Studio Museum of Harlem from November 2011 to March 2012. It is now a part of the permanent collection of the museum. Postcards can be obtained by collectors by visiting the museum or contacting me.

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: Harlem, jazz, Marjorie Eliot, photography, piano, postcard, studio museum of harlem