FLOAT in Transformer Gallery in Washington DC.
Till June 21, 2014
Leasha Johnson, Church in Session, 2013.
Float presents the photography, sculpture and mixed media work of four dynamic emerging Jamaican artists – Deborah Anzinger, Rodell Warner, Leasho Johnson,and Marlon James. Working in collaboration with Jamaican based non-profit NLS Kingston, these works presented at Transformer redefine the physical and social boundaries assigned to them, positing a renegotiation of identity, and insistent on the recognition of the invisible but central role that “margins” play in the making of our cosmopolitan present and future.
Marlon James, Was, 2013.
Float curator Nicole Smythe-Johnson states: “The construct of the image has always been emphasized in parts of the world defined as the ‘Global South’ or ‘the margins’ (constructed in opposition to metropolitan centers). The Caribbean context is no different; with specters of happy natives, tourism and the exotic tropics portrayed in any image produced in the region. In the contemporary moment, ‘the nation’ dominates much Caribbean image making, often recognized as a post-colonial response to oppressive, externally derived constructions. This focus is shifted by the artists in Float, and further curated into a détournement in which these hegemonic conceptions of social and national identity (and the status of ‘margin’ itself) are declared compromised and inadequate. These artists propose a renegotiation of identity; untethered by the limits normally placed on the over-worked concept, and recognize the subtle yet dominant role that these ‘margins’ play in developing societal norms.”
Deborah Anzinger