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

Notes for Alton Sterling

July 11, 2016 by Mariamma Kambon

Intro A video of the cold, violent execution of a prone Black man by white police officers opened my very first day in Louisiana. In transit I may have imagined the famed streets of New Orleans – the fertile land that has nourished Jazz and Rhythm-and-Blues; superb cuisine that just might be reminiscent of my own well-seasoned Caribbean fare; and a renowned debauchery that marks the place as vibrant and outrageous. Alton Sterling’s murder at the hands of NOPD served […]

Categories: Activism, Uncategorized • Tags: African American, African Diaspora, Alton Sterling, Baton Rouge, community, execution, family, freedom, grief, Jo Hines, John C. Mutter, justice, Louisiana, Mariamma Kambon, Michael Eric Dyson, mural, murder, photography, Police brutality, protest, race-based oppression, racism, resistance, Trinidad and Tobago, Triple S Convenience Store

Black and Pretty: Honoring Muhammad Ali

June 29, 2016 by Mariamma Kambon

“He is the property of all people but while he is the property of all people, let us never forget that he is the product of Black people in their struggle to be free.” – Dr. Kevin Cosby, 2016   “Clay is the finest Negro athlete I have ever known, the man who will mean more to his people than any other athlete before him.” – Malcolm X, 1964   It has been stated time and time again that Muhammad […]

Categories: Personalities, Uncategorized • Tags: African American, African Diaspora, Ali Bomaye, Blackness, boxing, Carol St. John, Champion, Civil rights, freedom, Gerald Early, hero, James E. Lewis Jr., Kentucky, legend, Lenox Lewis, Louisville, Malcolm X, Mariamma Kambon, Muhammad Ali, NUCUP, photography, Reverend Kevin Cosby, The Champ, The Greatest, The Greatest of All Time, Toni Morrison, Trinidad and Tobago, Will Smith

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

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

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