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

“Omen” featured in group show, EXPLICIT PROTOCOL

November 27, 2013 by Mariamma Kambon

The piece, “Omen/ He Dances in the Courtyard of the Impertinent” was on display in Tjaden Gallery, Ithaca, NY from October 21 to November 1, 2013, in the group show “Explicit Protocol” Decades ago, “justice” was already an ambiguous term when applied to the carceral system of the United States, with its overt and inherent biases of class and particularly of race. In 1967, in a letter to his father, from solitary confinement, George Jackson had a clear concept of […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: abolition, Anarchist Black Cross, Angela Davis, Betye Saar, cornell university, Exhibition, explicit protocol, George Jackson, he dances in the courtyard of the impertinent, history, installation, James Baldwin, Jericho Movement, liberation theology, Mariamma Kambon, mass incarceration, Mecke Nagel, omen, Paget Henry, politicized cosmologies, politicized theology, prison, prison abolition, prison industrial complex, rebellion, resistance, shango, slavery

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

Free School

September 6, 2013 by Mariamma Kambon

“A Possibility”, a multimedia installation addressing the system of mass incarceration in the United States in the context of historic struggles for human rights, was in “Free School”, the 2013 MFA Group Show at Gary Snyder Project Space, New York in May.

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: a possibility, audio installation, Cornell MFA, cornell university, Exhibition, Gary Snyder Project Space, group show, Harriet Tubman, Mariamma Kambon, New York City, nkisi sarabanda, rebellion, resistance, slavery

A Possibility – multimedia installation

August 27, 2013 by Mariamma Kambon

 A Possibility[i] [audio http://f.cl.ly/items/2d2S1G2L2p2q2C2O3e3o/SF21-NOF-compilation.mp3] After my visit to a state prison in North Carolina, the hollow, trapped eyes of the men in worn out prison uniforms stayed with me along with the miles and miles of chain-link fence, the layers of enclosure that separated them from the rest of life. I could have drowned in the bleakness of their interminable sentences and the withering boredom of their days had I not been able to resurrect a semblance of hope for a […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: a possibility, African Diaspora, audio installation, chain link, correctional institution, emancipation, Exhibition, Frederick Douglass, freedom, Gary Snyder Project Space, group show, Harriet Tubman, hope, incarceration, installation, Kongo, liberty, Mariamma Kambon, mass incarceration, Narratives of Freedom, Nat Turner, nkisi sarabanda, ogun, parabolic speaker, prison, rebellion, resistance, sarabanda, Seth Concklin, slavery, syncretism, syncretist, Yoruba

Narratives of Freedom: Chanting Down Babylon with Ancestral Voices

August 25, 2013 by Mariamma Kambon

In April 2013, I followed my inspiration from reggae legend, Bob Marley, to “Chant Down Babylon.”[1] I had played the track countless times until the refrain Come we go chant down Babylon[2] one more time retrieved distinct images from the vault of my memories. Links began to form Music -> the Key Chant Down Babylon CHANT down Babylon Chant DOWN Babylon Chant DOWN BABYLON Communicating -> to Everyone I recalled my childhood neighbour, an elderly Shouter Baptist woman who spoke […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: audio installation, Bob Marley, chant down babylon, escape, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Narratives of Freedom, Nat Turner, rebellion, resistance, Seth Concklin, slavery, Underground Railroad