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

Blood at the Root: Activism in Art

May 30, 2016 by Mariamma Kambon

Nooses were hanging like vines. Roots penetrated deeply into blood soaked soil. And then there was a fight.   Blood at the Root is a small-scale production. The cast numbers six. It was performed at the National Black Theatre, which has a seating capacity of less than two hundred. The set is comprised of a flat backdrop and six chairs in constant rotation. But there is nothing small-scale about the impact of this play. Blood at the Root forces the […]

Categories: Performance, Uncategorized • Tags: Allison Jaye, awareness, Black Lives Matter, Blood at the Root, Brandon Carter, change, Christian Thompson, Civil rights, division, Dominique Morisseau, empathy, Eric Garner, Hi-Arts, hip hop dance, installation, Jena 6, Kenzie Ross, labels, Louisiana, lynching, Mariamma Kambon, mass incarceration, National Black Theatre, New York, Nooses, Penn State Centre Stage, photography, play, prejudice, production, protest, racism, resistance, rules, Sade Lythcott, stage set, Steven Broadnax, Stori Ayers, strange fruit, tolerance, Trayvon Martin, Tyler Reilly

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

“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 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

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

Whosestory? The Privilege of Definition After the Colonial Encounter

March 28, 2016 by Mariamma Kambon

  An indigenous elder is confronted with a young, European explorer on a mission to find a powerful, legendary plant (yakruna) in the Amazon forest. Probing questions from the visitor plummet the elder into grief. By nightfall he is weeping for the failure of his memory. He knows that he has arrived at the most tragic state in which a human being can exist. He is without time, without the knowledge and stories of his people. He is a chullachaqui, […]

Categories: Exhibition, Film, Lecture, Uncategorized • Tags: african art, alternative worldview, amazon, art, Artists on Artworks, bias, black and white, chullachaqui, Ciro Guerra, colonialism, David Museum, El Abrazo de la Serpiente, Film, fine art, Hank Willis Thomas, independent film, indigenous, Kongo, Mariamma Kambon, memory, metropolitan museum of art, museum, New York, photography, power figure, privilege, the Met, Trinidad and Tobago, violence, whosestory, yakruna