Jacqueline Bishop (MFAST ’16) part of the 2017 Jamaica Biennial at the National Gallery of Jamaica, Kingston

The 2017 Jamaica Biennial is organized by the National Gallery of Jamaica (NGJ), the largest and oldest public art museum in the Anglophone Caribbean. With a focus on Jamaica and Jamaica Diaspora artists with specially invited artists from other Caribbean nations, the Biennial includes 35 invited Jamaican artists, 49 local, juried Jamaican artists and 7 special projects by Caribbean artists.

“Part invitational and part juried, the Biennial is a very inclusive exhibition which brings into dialogue work in traditional and new media and established and emerging artists from Maria Magdelena Campos-Pons’ reflections to recent art school graduates such as Kelly-Ann Lindo,” says Dr. Veerle Poupeye, the Biennual’s lead curator. “There is no imposed theme but for each edition, certain shared themes come to the fore that reflect the concerns of the present moment, such as the politics of race, hair, migration, violence, human rights, and climate change.”

 

The exhibition is on view from February 28 to May 28, 2017.

 

For more information on the artist, please visit www.jacquelineabishop.com.

“When Our Breaths Run”: a site-specific installation by Emily Harris (MFAST ’13) on view at North Willow

In her site-specific installation When Our Breaths Run, Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist Emily Harris continues her exploration of the body, technology and time with breath.

Each glass form is a record of the shape of one continuous exhale into molten glass created by Megan Biddle, an artist and glassblower commissioned by Harris.  A total of five of these glass pieces took shape through Megan’s breath, her movements, through the heated glass bulb, and the external conditions in the fabrication space.

Harris incorporates audio and video components within the installation space, as well as a set of drawings and interactive thread structures which reflect on breath through different technologies activated by the viewer.

This experience of the potential of one’s conscious physical presence in a chaotic social landscape is what moved Harris in the direction for this project.  “Being perceptive and using your body simply, can be the most radical act,” she says.

When Our Breaths Run is on view by appointment through April 9, 2017 at North Willow in  Montclair, NJ.

For more information on the artist, please visit www.emilymharris.com.