IMAGINATION SZN
Imagination SZN (12th April - 11th June)
A season of work holding space for collective imagination, emboldening us to dream up landscapes and reimagine ourselves and reimagine our communities. We invited artists and cultural workers to connect with our wider community through workshops, exhibitions, provocations and resources across three strands:
Imagining YARD
Imagining ABUELOS
Imagining the Neighbourhood
Throughout the season, alongside our programme of incredible speakers, we hosted artists-in-residence at YARD: Ambient Jade, RESOLVE collective, Demi Nandhra, Toni Lewis, Theophina Gabriel, Tobi Kyeremateng and OneFourTwo collective.
Below you can find an archive of artistic responses created throughout Imagination SZN.
AMBIENT JADE: REIMAGINING THE SELF
Ambient Jade’s debut solo exhibition, Reimagining the Self (2021), presented at YARD, produced and curated by MAIA.
As part of Imagination Szn, we commissioned vocal curator Jabez Walsh to create a soundscape in response to the work. Jabez conducted interviews with Ambient Jade about their work and process, using the recordings to create an accompanying audio experience for the exhibition. Listen to it below.
TW: homelessness, racism, depression, suicidal ideation. There is also explicit language used in the piece.
Pictured: Ambient Jade. Photo by Thom Bartley
Hover above the extract for alt captions for the full soundscape.
TW: homelessness, racism, depression, suicidal ideation. There is also explicit language used in the piece.
A lot of the times when we look at renaissance art
It seems at first glance to be very chaotic
However when you start to break it down one by one
You can see the individual stories that are going on within the painting
You can find yourself getting lost in that painting
Orchestrated chaos to me is translating that concept and applying it to life
Taking all the obstacles that life throws at us and trying to decipher it to create a beautiful orchestra
I feel like I wanna slap somebody
Turn around and bitch slap somebody
(Oh my god, did I really do something bad? Am I a bad tenant? Am I a bad person?
You know when everything you feared decides to happen all at the same time, the after effects of lockdown are here. Landlords are legally allowed to start evicting people again.
There’s been over 70,000 Illegal evictions that have happened since the start of COVID and I realised I was one of them, I was about to be one of them.
While I was going through everything.
I’m homesick I haven’t been back to my country in about two years now
I miss my friends, I can’t see me friends I can’t work I can’t do anything
I’m somewhere in limbo right now I don’t know where I stand, but I’ve got a roof over my head and food in the fridge, which was not the truth last year
Everyone keeps on saying we’re in the same boat
We’re merely in the same storm
We’re the ones floating
Hoping to not drown
I first felt alien, when I was about six years old.
I grew up in a small town, well, in a city called Utrecht. Specifically, I'm from a small town called Houten. I was born in Holland. I have a Dutch passport, half Dutch half English. My mom is from the UK. I was told, “Go back to your own country”.
I grew up being the foreigner. I've moved in my life about 40 times probably, I don't really have a GP. I don't have a dentist.
This is the reality for a lot of people like me.
I'm still a foreigner.
It means having to struggle to find your own way.
No matter where I live in the world. I will always be a foreigner.
I want to get away.
I want to fly away
It’s like being stuck, in a vacuum. There's no entrance. There's an exit.
Even though there's not an immediate trigger, all you see is demons and sadness and pain and hurt, and there is no way out.
The void that is depression, feels exactly like that.
The shadows In my work reflect the parts about myself that I would like to hide, Being anything other than white is really hard if you don't have a therapist that comes from a similar background because they don't understand half the struggle that you've been through. And it's something that you can't just explain in a couple of sessions.
When depression hits you, it hits hard.
Anxiety used to be my identity, my safety blanket, my curtain I could hide behind.
Today anxiety is merely something that I live with. A roommate, renting out space. So I have to learn to live with them. It's not nice. But it's possible.
To be a strong black woman means to be fearless.
Means to be emotionless.
Means to be in control, regardless of the situation.
You’re in so much pain.
You need help, but you don't want to come across weak.
So you put on a front, but really and truly, you wish that you could be walking around screaming your head off, because nothing makes sense anymore. Everything is too much.
That’s the narrative that we're told, as women, that we need to adhere to.
“Being strong” meaning, don't ever speak, don't ever feel. Just be a robot.
It means that you can never let your guard down, it means that you cannot cry.
It means that you cannot break.
Ultimately, you're the backbone, but at the same time, you're not allowed to have an opinion.
You cannot stand up for yourself.
You cannot get angry.
You cannot get upset.
Being mixed race, and having lighter skin means that oftentimes I am seen as white.
More soft more gentle.
Why are black women seen as caricatures, if they're not quiet and coerced? Opening up about that sort of stuff, people think that it's just you being loud and attention seeking.
But trust me, if I want to get attention, I’ll dye my hair pink
Hair is also really important in my work. It runs deep.
Cane-rows were maps, so they didn't have to write stuff down.
Cane-rows were food storage where they used to plait rice into the hair if they didn't have food.
I’ve shaved off all my head once because I felt like people were only looking at my hair, and they didn't remember my face.
They didn't know who I was.
I used to get told my hair was unprofessional and now you're using it as a trend? Everyone wants to use the lips, the products, the hair, the knowledge, the style, the music, the influence.
Everything.
We’re just seen as these faceless creatures, loud and obnoxious.
This anger, this pain, this sadness.
It’s all too much
I’m going to take a cigarette break.
I need to calm down
Who wants to listen to the crazy kid in care? Oooo
With age we grow and we learn about ourselves.
I fluctuate between masculine and feminine. I feel like gender is a spectrum. Everyone floats somewhere on that spectrum.
Gender should not be seen as black and white, or blue and pink, but more like a rainbow.
A lot of times when I do self portraits, I do it in moments where I feel particularly, ugly.
It’s easy to take a well lit picture, and to show off everything that you need to see. But the beauty is showing something that's hidden.
A few people told me. Maybe if you try and use your Photoshop in your photography that could bring an element that you don't usually see.
And then I started experimenting with it more and more.
In between stuff that I was doing, I would just shoot, and I wrote my story to it.
People liked it and I started doing it for people as well.
I'm trying to tell people’s stories
In surrealism, a lot of it is white people at the end of the day.
All you see is white people you can't quite identify with it, which I want to change.
My work is inspired mainly by three painters.
I'm inspired by the lighting in Rembrandt's work.
There's always something hidden within the shadows.
I like Dali's take on painting dreams, making dreams become reality.
Frida Kahlo wasn't afraid to talk about her pain, and really let that out and show people what she was going through.
And she wasn't afraid to use her own face in order to do that.
I feel like the love I've been given has always been conditional in one sense or another.
The older I get, the less attention I pay to my environment.
I've noticed the more true I stay to myself, the more gravitational pull I get from people that are just like me.
I'm forever thankful to everyone who stood by my side, and continues to stand by my side today.
I finally feel loved.
If I'm lucky enough, after I die, long after I die. My work will still live on.
The name Ambient Jade was given to me by my dear friend, Izzes Gayle.
Izzes passed away in December.
I was going to invite him to this exhibition, because though we haven't spoken in years, he’s given me such a big platform.
He’s given me my first start when I first moved to this country.
He was one of the first people that I met, that I networked with, and he was such a kind person.
Such a huge heart.
Such huge spirit.
He believed in everything. He knew everything was possible if you just put your mind to it.
He ran a magazine called NUBI magazine, which is where I met Amahra, who gave me the fantastic platform for this exhibition.
I remember sitting in his room and he said to me, “Right. If you want a logo, the first thing that you need to do is come up with a name” and I said “You know what, I've been racking my brain over it” and he came up with Ambient Jade. And at first I was like, oh! Okay.
And now, people might not know me by face, but they've definitely seen my name somewhere. Hopefully.
Hopefully, that's the goal
Izzes gave me the name.
I want to make sure that it's known for something
Special Thanks and Inspirations:
My Aunty Sharon has believed in me from the start, she's always there when I need her and I love her to bits.
My friend Hair by Lauralyn
She taught me about the significance of hair, and what it means to black people, and how you can use it to your advantage.
My friend Emma Hogan who taught me about posing and lighting.
My friend Danny Elahi, who is an awesome friend of mine, taught me about life. He's always there for me, always makes me really nice food.
My friend Truth. Always got my back. One of the first people to get excited about my pictures in the book.
My friend, Sary, from Holland. My best friend in the entire world.
My friend Steffan, in Holland. We used to dance together, still got my back. Living in Holland
My friends here. Everyone knows who they are. I think.
RESOLVE COLLECTIVE: THE PARADOX OF SUSPENSION
RESOLVE, an interdisciplinary design collective that combines architecture, engineering, technology and art to address social challenges, were commissioned to create an immersive experience within one of YARD’s bedrooms. Deepening into our local context, their work “The Paradox of Suspension” was installed in May 2023.
Photography by Vishnu Jay.
IMAGINING ABUELOS: RESIDENCY
An artist residency, inviting artists and cultural workers who think critically about their work in relation to space, place and systems, to explore and inform our vision for ABUELOS.
ABUELOS is a systems demonstrator in development - a concept shaped like a hotel, exploring radical hospitality, circular economics, cultural infrastructure and spatial justice.
Imagining ABUELOS artists-in-residence were Theophina Gabriel, Tobi Kyeremateng, Toni Lewis and Demi Nandhra.
Left to right: Toni Lewis, Demi Nandhra, Tobi Kyeremateng, Theophina Gabriel
Below are some offerings from the artists in response to the conversations we had throughout the residency.
Offering from Demi Nandhra (hover over image for alt caption):
A space for disability
A space can’t be everything for everybody at all times.
I may need to start at a specific time, you may need it to be a flexible time.
You may need complete silence, I may need music.
I may need lights to be bright and bouncy and you may need them dim and sultry.
I may need captions, you may need audio.
You may need squishy and soft surroundings, I may need rigid and hard support.
A space can’t be everything for everybody at all times.
But what it should do is be able to comfortably hold those possibilities with equal importance
An artist visit to Abuelos
Here i imagine you will meet lifelong friends
Here i imagine you will create something your truly proud of
here i imagine you to be less hyper vigilant
here i imagine conflict to not hurt as much
here i imagine food that will help your mood
here i imagine you find out what your capable of
here imagine you find out your limits
here i imagine you take responsibility
here i imagine you will be find comfort and safe risk
here i imagine you will find your team
here i imagine you will be inspired AND find tangible ways to follow through
here i imagine your needs will be held
here i imagine you will be a sponge
here i imagine you able to sleep quickly
here i imagine you’ll be able to leave your mark
here i imagine you won’t have to buy anything to sit
here i imagine you will make mistakes
here i imagine you will be witness to important moments for others
here i imagine you may start organising
here i imagine you may mobilise
here i imagine you to unpack harmful thinking
here i imagine you to be called in not called out
here i imagine you will find something of importance for you.
Below is an extract from a short story by Theophina Gabriel, ‘With Sustenance, In time’:
Hover over the extract for alternative captions.
The blood-orange bricks glowed as they sucked in the sunlight. Samantha set her backpack down at the foot of the first flight of steps, straining her neck as she counted five more rows stretching up towards the building entrance. A large curved yellow door sat on top of the hill of red bricks like a half-sun. To the left of the steps, she noted a long slide – the same shade as the door – and chuckled. It didn't seem out of place, strangely, even though it could have easily been more at home in a fairground. Looking down the length of the burnt red building with its arching glass windows, Samantha could already sense a different type of energy buzzing inside ABUELOS; there was an air of boldness that seemed to outline it, a certain invisible feeling that felt like why not, and who says, and just because.
Who creates a fifty-foot slide to get down five flights of stairs? Samantha chuckled to herself, pressing down the assistance button on the left pillar of the steps with her knuckle. She rested her aching forearm on the wheel of her chair as a voice began to crackle.
'Hey!' it beamed through the silver hatched circle above the orange button and Samantha found herself smiling back involuntarily at its warmth.
'Hi! I'm Samantha and I'm staying with ABUELOS under the uh, 'Mentor' Agreement? I've been in touch with Amber? I've come from Highgate.' She wiped her hands on her yellow overalls as she spoke, wrapping a stray black lock back into place around her bun.
LOCAL ARTIST RESIDENCY: ONEFOURTWO COLLECTIVE
OneFourTwo collective, who we share the neighbourhood of Ladywood with, spent a week at YARD, imagining how to use the space to support their creative practice.
Pictured: OneFourTwo collective
Below are screenshots from the music video they made during their time in residence. You can find more of their work here.
“We are living in a time of a crisis of imagination – the decision-makers and governors of our world either cannot see beyond what exists or they refuse to.” - Amahra Spence.
Here at MAIA, we believe that imagination is a form of resistance which has the power to change the world; in the words of Walidah Imarisha, “we cannot build what we cannot first imagine”. Thank you so much to our artists in residence, and to everyone who participated in Imagination SZN, for joining us in this resistance.