Tilting Axis is a sustained arts platform for, from, across, and through the Caribbean which I co-founded with Holly Bynoe in 2014. It is a call to action to rethink the position and conditions of contemporary art practices in the region. Its perspective, informed by artist-led initiatives within the archipelago, recognises this space as central rather than peripheral, and is fed by multi-generational voices.
The idea for Fresh Milk developed over years of conversations around the need for artistic engagement among artists in Barbados, to strengthen regional and diasporic links and shape new relationships globally. The platform was established in 2011 as a social practice experiment to counter the nearly 100% attrition rate of BFA students at Barbados Community College, the only institution on the island offering a BFA programme.
The Fresh Milk studio is located on a working dairy farm; the name ‘Fresh Milk’ also references the idea of nurturing, as the platform is committed to the healthy growth of contemporary arts & culture in the region. By offering a safe space for people to innovate, gather, and create, Fresh Milk moves against the Caribbean’s traumatic history as a platform of excellence and diversity. Operating out of a former seventeenth-century sugar plantation, Fresh Milk aims to shift the kind of activity that happens in this historically loaded site by fostering an open, critical environment.
Fresh Milk spans creative disciplines, generations, and linguistic territories in the Caribbean by functioning as a “cultural lab,” a dynamic space for artists through local, regional, and international programming including: residencies, lectures, screenings, workshops, conferences, exhibitions projects, etc. We aspire to be a sustainable organisation contributing to a healthy cultural ecosystem.
Caribbean Linked is a regional residency and exhibition organised by Ateliers ’89 Foundation in collaboration with ARC Inc. and The Fresh Milk Art Platform Inc. It is a crucial space for building awareness by bringing together emerging artists from Anglophone, Francophone, Hispanic and Dutch Antillean Caribbean islands.
Sour Grass is a consulting and curatorial-duo founded by Holly Bynoe and myself in 2020. We seek to work with artists from the Caribbean and across its diasporas, to build relationships with museums, cultural institutions, biennales and private and public entities, including collections through the development of curatorial projects, alternative pedagogical modalities, lectures and various types of discursive programming.