AMA (Ask Me Anything) is a series of inter-island, cross-cultural, artist-led conversations featuring artists in our HOT SUN Caribbean Contemporary community.

Artists have “carte blanche” to select fellow colleagues with whom they wish to speak about practice, challenges and possibilities. Within this peer to peer format, the Curator steps back, adopting a listening posture, which enables artists to frame the direction of the conversation. The result is a series of open, sincere, unscripted conversations on Contemporary Art practice from the Caribbean.

Last October, our first AMA was led by Kriston Banfield (Trinidad & Tobago) in conversation with Mafalda N. Mondestin (Haiti), Dominique Hunter (Guyana) and Steeve Verin (Guadeloupe). Here are a few excerpts:

On space, belonging and mini-migrations.

Kriston Banfield: When I look at your work, I see a lot of honesty, and a willingness to be vulnerable while showing strength in your work. What is your idea of using the body as a place of refuge, and creating that refuge within your body?

Mafalda Nicolas Mondestin: A lot of my work is concerned with ideas of survival, self care and community, and when I think about living in the Caribbean, living in Haiti, it’s a beautiful country, it is complex. But also, there is violence and often, bodies of women are repositories of that violence.

For me it is a way to explore how women are able to survive, build communities and keep space within those moments of violence. I would say I have not seen a lot of work where black women’s bodies are seen in this way. In Fine Art for example, historically black women’s bodies have been relegated to objects of desire, or even insignificant, in shadows barely seen. I wanted these bodies to stand in their truth and to show bodies living in a different way.

KB: I remember when you had your show at Le Centre d’Art (Haiti), someone asked about why the bodies were nude. And I thought, what does it matter? Why are they not allowed to drop armour in public? I am also thinking of being vulnerable, for instance being put in front of an audience and how we deal with the judgment.

How do we navigate other people’s perceptions, our environment – especially during the Covid19 period right now – how do we deal with this distance?

MNM: I actually retreated a lot over the past year and a half. The social atmosphere is not conducive to socializing. Thank God for social media. It is one of the few ways I’ve been able to maintain communication with people. It’s been hard with internet access… It is odd having to communicate through machines, there’s a lack of intimacy. It’s an extra effort on our part to just remember what community really is about.

KB: Does community show up more in the work, now that we’re experiencing a lack of it ?

MNM: When you look at the work, you don’t necessarily see it first hand, but it is there in subtle ways. Like in the more recent pieces, some of which are on the HOT SUN website. There’s a piece called Sometimes We Must Take Turns to Rest : 5 figures are submerged in what could be water, but it’s not water. It’s this idea of being there for each other when someone is breaking down.

Also in that painting specifically, the background is made of linoleum prints of plantain leaves. That piece was made earlier this year before President Jovanel Moise was killed.
It referenced how many people were discontent with his Presidency…Before he became president he was actually an entrepreneur, a plantain exporter.
A lot of the work I’ve done earlier this year has that detail of the plantain in it. I questioned the relevance of the work after his death but i think it is still relevant nonetheless.

The idea of community and is showing up more in my work now. How do we navigate social unrest?

How do people organize when the atmosphere is not conducive to that, to see how we get out of this situation? Once again, it is about survival.

KB: Indeed, there is a layering of stories, people, bodies. Layering of female bodies in particular in the natural environment, to the point that there is a lushness. It is also reminiscent of a tradition in Trinidad: “Taking a bush bath” when things (are) going wrong. It reminds me of that, it’s an act of healing to immerse ourselves in this foliage. It is a feeling of undoing, a lot of undoing.

MNM: I do agree with that. In my work the vegetation takes many forms – as a healer, it acts as a healing environment, sometimes it is decorative, sometimes it’s a bit more ominous like in the piece I told you about…

Mafalda then asks Kriston and Dominique:
Has the pandemic affected your practice, and if so in what way?

KB: It allowed for a lot more time to think about my work and my practice, I had a lot more time. I returned to drawing…On a social level, I did however become reclusive. The lack of connection with people started to show.

Dominique Hunter: The best way to describe it would be waves; when it started, I wanted and was trying to continue as normal – but earlier this year, I had so many deadlines, and that’s when the reality set in. I needed to pace myself in terms of my production and my mental health.
In fact, I took 2 months off social media. I am still making work in the background, but I think a part of being a contemporary artist is the pressure to always produce…

But I think you really have to step back, and be more realistic, manage expectations.

MNM: I can definitely relate to that. At times during the pandemic, feeling like wanting to give up, it was just overwhelming.

Interestingly enough, with George Floyd’s murder and the whole BLM movement there was alot of interest in African American art, black art, and Caribbean art – just a lot of demand.

I thought: I can’t respond to this. It was not the best time for me to produce a lot of work… so I can relate to having to take a break from social media.

KB: I see what you mean. How to manage burn-out when you don’t expect it? How do you find energy to meet these expectations?

DH: Indeed. I definitely see the connections in our work (as it concerns the) Black female body and stereotypical representation, exploitation. How are we complicit? How do we internalize these stereotypes?

When you talk about black women, the conversation is not really about mental health.
I feel like it’s like black women can’t afford to be depressed. Without being the black angry woman….

When I returned home, I was active, writing a lot, featuring a lot of artists. But sometimes there comes a point where you are pouring so much of yourself into these things that your production suffers. I was feeling anxious and uncertain about returning home. There was a culture shock moving there (abroad), but also a culture shock moving back home, to be in this environment. When you are in a conducive environment work is easier. It’s difficult to keep the momentum going.

KB: I am hoping things will pick up eventually. We all hope things will pick up. We are stuck on adapting. It almost feels like every 3 months we have to adapt…

Watch this FULL VIDEO via Kriston Banfield’s Instagram @kbanfield122

AMA Session: “Here and there. On space, belonging and mini migrations”
Recorded via IG Live 28102021 @kbanfield122 for @hotsun_cca

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