Alicia Milne
Holiday in Hangzhou
In September 2020, I entered China after being stranded abroad for eight months. Before returning to my home in Beijing, I spent two weeks in a mandatory hotel quarantine in Hangzhou. This period coincided with the Mid-Autumn festival holiday. During this period many people have time off of work to visit family. My work documents the view of normal daily life outside of my quarantine window. It was also a pleasant way to occupy my time.
Sino-Caribbean Plates series
Alicia Milne’s gaze settles on Trinidad & Tobago and the Caribbean region in her Sino-Caribbean plates ( previously presented at the Perez Art Museum Miami, PAMM FL, 2019 Exhibition “The other side of Now”). Initially created to represent the bridges which could increase mobility/ inter island travel within the region as a result of mass 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. In 2019, each island state in the Caribbean is outlined in red, or even covered in red (colour of emergency, urgency, fragility, stop). Was this a premonition of a danger to come ?
As pittoresque and nostalgic as these Sino- Caribbean plates are, during a critical time such as 2020, the geographic position of Caribbean region: “in the middle of the deep blue Caribbean Sea” is the blessing and the curse…for as 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 – (…)” (Foreword, So Many Islands).
Curator’s notes.
Bio
Alicia Milne (b. 1986, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago) is a multi-disciplinary artist who makes objects with found materials, fibers and ceramic bodies. In 2013, she received a Prince Claus Fund Travel Grant for the Open Ateliers Zuidoost Artist in Residence Program (the Netherlands). She has also participated in residencies at Beta Local in Puerto Rico (2014) and Red Gate Residency in the People’s Republic of China (2017). Her works have been exhibited in many group shows at institutions such as the National Museum and Art Gallery (Trinidad and Tobago), Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (USA), Museo de Arte Contemporaneo (Venezuela), the Anthology Film Archive (USA) and the Perez Art Museum Miami, PAMM (USA).
She holds a BA in Visual Arts and Minor in Cultural Studies from the University of the West Indies and a Postgraduate certificate in Education from Moreland University. She has worked as an Art Educator for the last nine years and currently lives and works in Beijing, China.
BACK TO HOME PAGE