[Many thanks to Veerle Poupeye (Critical.Caribbean.Art) for bringing this item to our attention.] Moderated by Adele Todd, and featuring participants Chaney C.G. St. Martin, Anna Serrao, Taya Serrao, Natalie Melas, and Tao DuFour, the artist’s talk on “Forest Notebooks,” by Mario Lewis, will take place on Wednesday, December 13, 2023, from 7:00 to 9:00pm, at Medulla Art Gallery (located at 37 Fitt Street, Woodbrook, Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago). The “Forest Notebooks” exhibition closes on December 20, 2023.
To join via Zoom, please see link and details: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7138504072… [Meeting ID: 713 850 4072; Passcode: JYhnt9.]
ABOUT THE SHOW: “Observation is essential in science and art. Unintentionally; I use some aspects of the natural sciences to carry out my artistic process. I draw to collect and record my interactions, fascinations and theories. Learning new knowledge about my encounter in nature, heightens my sensitivity which I try to record through text and translate through my drawings. I seek evidence to help me figure out which of my theories is correct as such. My solitude experiences in the forest help me to unravel unconscious thoughts about concepts on food, health, preservation, the molecular structure of cells, the function of microorganisms and roots in the soil, to the physical characteristics of the landscape.” Mario Lewis 2023
ABOUT THE ARTIST: Mario Lewis is an artist who lives and works on the island of Trinidad and Tobago. His work involves collaborative and participatory research and focuses on product development specific for agricultural sustainability. This includes working hand-in-hand with soil and climate scientists, networks of farming practitioners and creative thinkers in developing projects and pilots that focus on zero-waste, carbon sequestration, and agroforestry. Mario integrates contemporary art making into his research such as drawing, sound, video and site-specific installation, exploring and experimenting with concepts inspired by nature, science and personal encounters.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:
Dr. Chaney C.G. St. Martin describes himself as a farmer at heart, and a curious person who is genuinely interested in positively impacting lives. He is an International Technical Specialist in Water and Soil Management at the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) and currently leads IICA’s Agricultural Climate and Sustainability Actions in the Caribbean. Dr. St. Martin has served on High level Technical Panels/Committees at the global, hemispherical and regional level on climate change and disaster risks management, and food and nutrition security. He is currently a member of the UNFCCC expert group on agriculture and food security and knowledge to action hub, a core member of the Coalition of Action 4 Soil Health (CA4SH), and a founding member of IICA’s Living Soils of the Americas Initiative. Dr. St. Martin who Co-led the Global Soil Hub-Solution Cluster under Action Track 3 of the United Nations Food Systems Summit is also a certified Trainer of Trainers in Climate Risk Management and damage and loss.
Anna Serrao was born in Guyana. Studied sculpture and drawing in London at Camberwell school of art and the Slade school of art. In the late 1980s began practicing as an industrial designer. She designed and built the chandeliers and alter light in the cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Port of Spain. Anna also has had a long career in teaching.
Taya Serrao (b. Port of Spain, Trinidad) is an artist working in painting, video and installation. In 2018, Serrao received a BFA from the Cooper Union School of Art, New York, NY, during which she received the Vena T.Carroll Award in 2018, and was the 2015 John and Evelyn Kossak Foundation Cooper Fund Scholar. Selected exhibitions include In Lieu of Flowers, Medulla Art Gallery, Trinidad (2021); Twenty-Ten, 2010 College Point, Flushing NY (2020), Running Shoe, 41 Cooper Square, New York NY (2019).
Natalie Melas is a postcolonial comparative scholar at Cornell University studying and teaching Caribbean literature and thought (in French and English) as well as modern Greek, French and occasionally German poetry. She is the author of several books and essays. Recently she is collaborating with spatial theorist Tao DuFour and documentary filmmaker Kannan Arunasalam on a transmedial project on Caribbean environmental experience.
Tao DuFour is an architect and spatial theorist. He is Assistant Professor in History and Theory of Architecture at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow at Trinity College Cambridge. Tao’s work investigates questions of embodied spatial experience, intersubjective and intergenerational understandings of architecture, landscape and territory, and the ways in which these both constitute and are embedded in the historicity of environments. He is currently working on a collaborative documentary film project with post-colonial scholar Natalie Melas and documentary filmmaker Kannan Arunasalam, titled “Possible Landscapes,” a two-year research project investigating environmental experience in the Caribbean with a focus on Trinidad & Tobago. He is the author of Husserl and Spatiality: A Phenomenological Ethnography of Space (Routledge 2022), awarded the Edward Goodwin Ballard Book Prize in Phenomenology.
Adele Todd is an Artist, Graphic Designer and Lecturer at the Department of Creative and Festival Arts where she teaches both Art and Design courses to Certificate and Degree students. She has been writing about Art and Design beginning in 1997 in the Trinidad Guardian newspaper and online with her own sites sexypink on.tumblr.com and Galleryyuhself.tumblr.com. In her Performance and Contemporary Embroidery Practice she has shown at International Biennales in China, Taiwan, Italy and the United States. At present she is a Director with DaDa+ Projects from its inception to NGO status in 2011 where the body’s focus on Art, Design Aesthetics, the Environment and Communities has produced its first Symposium and Exhibition with guest speaker Dr Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung at the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago.
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[Many thanks to Veerle Poupeye (Critical.Caribbean.Art) for bringing this item to our attention.] Moderated by Adele Todd, and featuring participants Chaney C.G. St. Martin, Anna Serrao, Taya Serrao, Natalie Melas, and Tao DuFour, the artist’s talk on “Forest Notebooks,” by Mario Lewis, will take place on Wednesday, December 13, 2023, from 7:00 to 9:00pm, at
