Projects

__________GLOBAL MARRONNAGE ? __________

Exhibited at the National Gallery – in « Face of Us » 2023

« GLOBAL MARRONNAGE ? » – A dialogue between a sculpture and a photo.
The centerpiece of the dialogue is a mask to deceive facial recognition, directly inspired by the maroon technique of camouflage used during the war against the English.
The leave chosen (coffee, ganja and sugar cane), not native from Jamaica, spoke nevertheless about Jamaican identity and the global/local economy.

In these last years Jamaica (as a lot of other countries) is discussing the use of facial recognition by private operators and by the government.
If maybe useful in fighting crime, it raises a lot of questions on the tightly invasive on private life and on possible misuse of all these datas collected and kept, which could easily become a mass surveillance or control tools.

A way to hidden personal identity when affirming Jamaican identity and, at the same time, questioning it, at the moment where more than 75% of the Jamaican coffee is exported to Japan, where the ganja business is not yet really having benefits for the traditional small farmers but meanwhile authorization were given to import ganja from Canada and where international company as Campari are closing Jamaican sugar factory to buy molasse from abroad to produce “local” Rum.

A mask in the form of a question: what might marronnage be in today’s global world?

Photo by Marina Burnel
Model: Candice Dryden
Stage direction: The Girl and the Magpie

__________NEW YEAR__________

__________TREASURE BEACH DIALOGUES__________

Small challenge to myself: posting every day until Xmas 1 jewel + 1 picture of « my » community #TreasureBeach (South Coast of Jamaica)

__________MOTIONLESS TRAVEL__________

Corona is still around… Even during our Residence2020 and a resumption of studio-activities, we still were dreaming of traveling and visiting friends and family. .. So I took you and my jewellery with me on « Motionless Travel » through postcards received from family and friends (poetic title borrowed from Stephanie Paulus and her beautiful series of drawings made during confinement in Belgium – she borrowed it from a French Singer but that’s her story…).

If you want all the details for each postcard, go this way: click

__________RESIDENCY 2020__________

This spring/summer 2020, we were planning to a do a mobile residency on the European roads.
But, the virus came …
So, we transformed our confinement into a (stationary) residency in the garden
Here a part of our process (April 2020), classified by project. A diary is visible on Instagram in the highlight stories

______AGAVE______

Working with and for the public we have here in confinement.;-)

AGAVE: A ring for an agave

Process: Observing – Collecting – Drawing = A ring for an Agave

video

AGAVE: Underline the Existing

Agave – What is jewellery? (Bijou = jewel)

______EARTH______

For the 4 Elements series: Earth

Given the ecological situation we are in, we have two simple options: grow (with the earth) or (continue to) destroy

Process: Exploring option 1 and 2 – drawing

______Growing______

I choose 2 kinds of seeds:

CALLALOO (Amaranth)- local seeds from previous organic crops >< CUCUMBER – imported hybrid and pre-treated seed which will yield non-fertile seeds

To reach Food Autonomy, in the long run we will have to choose ..

______DESTROYING______

Process: observing – testing

Small, repetitive, human actions

To see the other elements of the series (Water/Air/Fire) – click here

______Resilience______

Process: observing – testing

It doesn’t go always as expected

2nd picture: left – how we expected it will evolved / right: how it really evolved / middle: second test (still in progress)

#FailingIsAlsoLearning