Art at a Time Like This Announces Collaboration with Jamaica Art Society to Present Exhibition of 2021 JAS Fellows

Art at a Time Like This has announced its collaboration with Jamaica Art Society to present 2021 JAS Fellows in this context of an online exhibition.

Titled Scaffolding Time, the exhibition reframes the stereotypes of leisure and "island time" as extensions of a colonialist legacy. With four artists working in sculpture, painting, video and photography, curated by Jheanelle Brown, also a JAS Fellow, this presentation is a living embodiment of the recent developments in contemporary art from Jamaica and the Caribbean diaspora.

"Scaffolding Time invites viewers to think through, above, around, and beyond terrestrial time in the hopes of charting a pathway with liberation at the center," says Brown who is film programmer and board member of the Los Angeles Filmforum and a faculty member at Calarts. Her previous shows include Black Radical Imagination: Fugitive Trajectories which screened at the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture, among other institutions.

In the works of Camille Chedda, viewers literally encounter the construction and deconstruction of Jamaican landscapes, captured and framed in cinder blocks. Simon Benjamin's sculptures, installations, photographs, and films work to elevate what he terms the "anti-tropical," or an undoing of the myth of the Caribbean as only paradise. Leasho Johnson's charcoal drawings create a space of safety and eroticism for queer black bodies, independent of the tourist gaze. Jasmine Thomas-Girvan's practice reclaims and uplifts African and Taino spiritualities as a way to examine mythologies and histories across the Black diaspora.

MAY 18 AT 12PM

Here is the conversation registration link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMtfuqorzMjG9Y_33l9EWfvP6uTlR6wDQ6W

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

The Jamaica Art Society, founded in 2020, celebrates and promotes art from Jamaica and the diaspora by presenting exhibitions and offering fellowships. Its inaugural group of In Focus Fellows, selected in 2021, brought six fellows of Jamaican descent into dialogue with a broader art world through professional mentorship and workshops with their cultural partners, including Art at a Time Like This. JAS founder and director Tiana Webb Evans launched ESP Group LLC in 2014, a leading brand strategy and communications consultancy. She serves on the board of Laundromat Project, Project for Empty Space and the Female Design Council as well as the Chair's Council at BRIC and the advisory board of Art at a Time Like This.

Art at a Time Like This is a 501c3 not-for-profit arts organization that serves artists and curators facing the 21st century, presenting art in direct response to current events. Now, celebrating its third year in operation, ATLT has addressed a wide range of issues, from the pandemic and George Floyd's murder to mass migration in Latin America and global warming. It has provided a platform for artists caught in crisis, from Mexico, India, Hong Kong, Afghanistan, Ukraine and the U.S. mass incarceration system. Our mission is to present artists and curators as thought leaders, envisioning our world in ways surpassing the imagination of politicians.