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

“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

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