The Sacred Collaboration: Paintings by Sophia Dawson

May 2, 2016 by Mariamma Kambon

“I gesso the material black, whether its canvas or wood, I gesso it all black to prepare the surface. It’s a conscious political act for me to work on a black surface … All black. All black everything.” Part I “My greatest inspiration is without a doubt the Almighty God. He is the one who gifted me my talent and I consider myself a co-creator with Him. All the ideas I have are the ones that come from Him. All […]

Categories: Exhibition, Personalities, Uncategorized • Tags: all black everything, black gesso, Black Panther Party, Black Power, Civil rights, Dequi Sadiki, Emory Douglas, Erykah Badu, faith, fine art, freedom, freedom fighter, human rights, I Am Free, Kanye West, Lauryn Hill, Leon Bridges, luz de tu sonrisa, luzdetusonrisa, Mariamma Kambon, mass incarceration, Mondo We Langa, motherhood, New York, Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, painter, PEMDAS, Pharaoh, photography, political prisoners, portraits, Portraiture, prison abolition, resistance, Sam Cooke, Snug Harbor, Sophia Dawson, Staten Island, vision, visual artist, visual arts

Shaking Paper

July 18, 2013 by Mariamma Kambon

The story “Asha Means Life”, told in boxes made of wooden photographs, was on display in the Olive Tjaden Gallery at Cornell University between October 15-26, 2012, in the group show entitled “Shaking Paper”.

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: arts, Asha Darbeau, Asha Means Life, caribbean, cornell university, dance, dream, Exhibition, family, immigrant, Ithaca, miami, milled photograph, motherhood, New York, photography, shaking paper, show, single parent, wooden boxes, wooden photograph

The Wooden Photograph

June 27, 2013 by Mariamma Kambon

I exchanged the role of observer for that of storyteller. The task at hand was the synthesis of the hundreds of images created throughout the year of shooting, with memories of the family and my most striking impressions of Asha’s life

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: 3D photograph, Asha Means Life, children, choreography, dance, dream, dreams, family, heirloom, milled photograph, monument, motherhood, photography, Unearthed, video, wooden boxes, wooden photograph

The Birth of Earth

June 27, 2013 by Mariamma Kambon

She danced almost until the moment of the birth of her fourth child . . .

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: Asha Means Life, baby, Birthday, child, childbirth, children, choreography, dance, family, Florida, Know Thyself, labor, miami, Miami Dade, Michelle Murray, midwife, Mother, motherhood, natural childbirth, newborn, Now I Know, photography, pregnancy, pregnant, Sheila Simms, single parent, Son, Stephen Marley, Unearthed, water birth

Asha Means Life: An Introduction

June 1, 2012 by Mariamma Kambon

In late summer 2011, I overnighted with Asha and her family while in transit to work on another project. I began snapping as Asha created pockets of order in the chaos that ensued the night-before-the-first-day-of-school. Weeks later, I realized there was an emotional charge to the images. Still nascent, the project “Asha Means Life” came into being with that moment. It features my mother’s namesake – a young mother herself, an artist and a Caribbean immigrant – and the visual […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: Asha, caribbean, children, dreadlocks, family, identity, immigrant, miami, motherhood, photography, rasta, Trinidad and Tobago