“I have a different idea of a universal. It is of a universal rich with all that is particular, rich with all the particulars there are, the deepening of each particular, the coexistence of them all.” Aime Cesaire , Letter to Maurice Thorez, Paris: Présence Africaine, 1957

‘States of Confinement’ is an attempt to document and explore the spectrum of responses to the confinement or stay-at-home order, and the pandemic in its “early” stages from March to November 2020. The exhibition features the work of 7 selected contemporary Caribbean artists who have declared Trinidad & Tobago as their home, a few operating beyond this “home base” from other physical / geographical locations such as the USA and China.

Confinement, as explored in this body of work, is simply the trigger or an identifiable instant in time, creating a ripple effect of multiple modes of being, thought processes, behavioural changes and other treaties occuring in the mind: all precipitated by a microscopic virus.

Among the many narratives present in this group exhibition, themes of loneliness, belonging, introspection, relationships to self vs. the other, structural (inherited) violence, as well as the ongoing dialogue between humans and our environment have woven themselves into the work. The plurality of themes and these connections particularly resonated with me from a curatorial standpoint. I am reminded: There is no single story, and there never was. 

Existential crisis

In his book Existential Psychotherapy (1980) Existential Psychotherapist Irvin Yalom details an exercise where he asks us to write down our answers to the question “Who am I?” on several cards, be it a word or a sentence. By assessing our very first responses or those noted at the top of our list, according to Yalom – we’re all set, on our path of “knowing oneself/ ourselves.”  Except, that in reality – it just takes a disappointment, career change, birthday or some major life event (like covid-19) and a very Westworld existential loop of questions on “existence”, “purpose” and “future” begins again… For many, the confinement period has become synonymous with solitude / introspection; isolation / distance and reflection on presence, identity and belonging: as seen in the works of Warner, Diaz and Milne.

Rodell Warner’s digital installation “In Spirit” is a compilation of thoughts dealing with solitude, distance and loneliness. This digital archive of self (maintained since 2013), was created to record his thoughts, musings on life, which he reflects “may not have had any place in his real life”. The result is absolute reverie: a stream of consciousness, flowing like a never ending poem. “In Spirit” perfectly  captures the complex and very real, yet inexplicable wanderings of the human mind. Presented in the context of this exhibition, “In Spirit” speaks of the desire to connect with home and community in a time of physical distance, limited mobility and  absence. 

On the question of one’s place or role within any given society, Maria Diaz invites us to take a closer look at the boxes and hierarchical parameters, that the human being throughout the course of our existence has “made up”.  Diaz’ sculptures are based on her own observations of responses/group-reactions to the stay-at-home order symbolised by the recurring motif: a door knob.  As the viewer contemplates posture, each piece intervenes with a subliminal prompt: who am I within the wider group ?

Looking beyond the self, towards the broader, geographical state of belonging to a country or a region – Alicia Milne’s gaze settles on the Caribbean region in her Sino-Caribbean Plate series (presented at PAMM, Miami FL, 2019; Exhibition “The other side of Now”). Initially imagined to represent the increasing number of bridges which may connect the region as a result of rapid industrialization, these plates take on new meaning within this show.  Circular, each plate acts as a magnifying glass of sorts, a zoom into life on an island and the islands in an era of globalization, climate change and developing economies.  Each island state in the Caribbean is outlined in red, or as in Caribbean B, covered in red – colour of emergency & urgency, fragility, stop. Could this have been a premonition of dangerous times to come ?

As pittoresque, nostalgic as they are, in 2020, these plates remind us that the very existence of the Caribbean region – in the middle of the deep blue Caribbean Sea – is both the blessing and the curse…In his Foreword, So Many Islands, Nicholas Laughlin writes “ …islands, large or small, are indeed in some sense self-contained, worlds unto themselves. But the very sea that insulates and isolates – (…).”  Crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic, always tend to toss about island states, who face the resiliency challenge of navigating between insularity protection and isolation/ vulnerability.

The Return 

In a manner akin to the unbridled plant life bursting through weathered walls and cracked pavements in many islands of the Caribbean, a definite sensitivity to the environment spontaneously emerged through the works of the artists: appearing as cane stalks in Shannon Alonzo’s mural, then as medicinal plants throughout the work of Sarah Knights and finally as a palm-lined walkway, one of the focal points in Alicia Milne’s Holiday in Hangzhou.

Interested in the principle of animism, Shannon Alonzo’s work establishes the premise that the Environment/ Nature influences – and has always influenced – the rituals, heritage and cultural identity of a group. Her charcoal drawn mural referencing the Canboulay Riots, (historically, the event which gave birth to Carnival celebrations in Trinidad and Tobago) and subsequent performance during which Alonzo progressively and solemnly erases the mural, remind the viewer of this unquestionable bond between human and the Earth. The erasure creates a gutting discomfort among the audience, who witness the erasure and loss of this natural relationship/ bond – at the hands of a human being.  Within the framework of this show one is led to ask: what is the impact of erasure of the physical environment on our identity ? And what has the Earth remembered of our passage ?

Meditation and solace found in Nature are explored in Holiday in Hangzhou, embroidery piece by Alicia Milne, where the focus is dual: first, the outdoor view itself, of palms and other plants (as seen from her hotel room during the quarantine period); second, a golden yellow window frame. The window becomes the subject this time (in the conceptual manner of Marcel Duchamp): representing the way inward as well as the way out… 

Themes of “healing” and “rest” found during confinement are recurring in the paintings of Sarah Knights.  One observes the everpresent motif of the Aloe Vera plant, Philodendron (Love plant), doubling as beings, extensions of the human body and even occupying a central place within the group. In her book Decolonial Daughter (2019) Trini-American writer Lesley-Ann Brown has penned the term “radical healing plants” in reference to the knowledge passed down by Indigenous and First peoples, who saw the continuum of nature-human-nature. Looking back at a year rife with sadness, anxiety and upheaval, globally there has been a yearning and search for (re)connection to the Earth (home gardening, outdoor activities, open windows, beaches and sunlight), revisited as “essential “ to our very survival and well-being. 

The Reckoning 

In addition to healing, Sarah Knights also reflects on structural violence, dynamics of power-freedom, and methods of control throughout history (directed at women, people of colour, black and brown bodies…) in her works: The Conundrum, Commissioned and Forty Acres.   

Knights draws references from US archives, citing the Harlem Renaissance dancers, Jim Crow laws and broken promises of the State, such as Union General William T. Sherman’s plan to give newly-freed families “Forty acres and a mule”.  She also establishes a link between the lockdown / confinement period, power and the social divide (created by skin colour and geographical location, in Trinidad & Tobago), which has manifested itself as heightened suspicion, hyper-vigilance and abusive narratives (which somehow systematically seem) directed at urban, disenfranchised and afro-descendant communities of the twin island state.

Protests for justice, change and a new world order around the world, echo the demands of those labelled by a post-colonial, now neo-colonial frame as “minorities” and are none other than a response to the accumulated weight of violent, oppressive and unjust systems worldwide, which have functioned normally (!) for hundreds of years… 

Pandemic Justice

Sabrina Charran’s piece “2020, Year of the Nurse” representing two female healthcare workers, walking hand in hand, responds to this year, with a message of advocacy. The heteronormativity of intimate relationships is confronted, while holding a conversation on multicultural/interethnic relationships, solidarity, love and finally, what becomes essential in a time of crisis.

Furthermore, Luis Vasquez La Roche’s photography essay, Project “Dancing in the Streets” is a conscious decision to document the resilience and joy of brown and black persons, BIPOC community around the world. The collection of 150 mini polaroid prints, “taken by anyone willing to share moments of joy during pandemic time”, further displayed as a body/ unit, translates the artist’s desire “Not to represent, but to focus on the truth (of black and brown communities) – that is us.”  The installation intentionally shifts the gaze from the “single story” of POC very often relayed by the media globally to the normal, human states that bind the human family. Vasquez La Roche’s work is a counter-documentation of this pandemic year, one which is comforting, healing and empowering. 

Writing about the “new normal” earlier this year, in her article “The Pandemic is a Portal” Anuradhti Roy writes: “Our minds are still racing back and forth, longing for a return to normality, trying to stitch our future to our past and refusing to acknowledge the rupture. But the rupture exists. And in the midst of this terrible despair, it offers us a chance to rethink the doomsday machine we have built for ourselves. Nothing could be worse than a return to normality. Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.”

Without a doubt, the myriad stories and shifting states, unfolding simultaneously in response to the covid-19 pandemic confirm not only the desire and yearning for, but equally the possibility of new states for humanity. It is amidst this seeming limbo of critical uncertainty, that artists engage in a vital memory work of helping us to remember, and to imagine what could be, in their documentation of these times.  

Whether we are willing to accept it or not, the pandemic has revealed an uncomfortable paradox: there is/are freedom-s to be found in isolation, in confinement. These new found freedom-s may just give us space to deconstruct, tear down the obsolete and reinvent; to create and see: a coexistence of that which is diverse and plural. 

The Pluriverse has never been closer.

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References: 

Aimé Césaire, Letter to Maurice Thorez, Paris: Présence Africaine (1957)

Johan Galtung, Structural Violence; “Violence, Peace, and Peace Research” (1969)

Pandemic Injustice, Frederico Luisetti (2020)

The Pandemic is A Portal, Arundhati Roy – Financial Times ( April 2020)