art

ROADMAP TO JOY EXHIBITION

ROADMAP TO JOY

(Philadelphia, PA – June 2021) – “Roadmap to Joy” is a public-art exhibition curated by Atiba T. Edwards and Mz. Icar Collective in partnership with The Culture Rooms, FOKUS and Arts and Crafts Holdings.   This exhibition features a collection of artists answering the question of what is joy, how do we get there and what does it look like?

“Roadmap to Joy” is a multi-location public art exhibition. “Roadmap to Joy” runs through the summer of 2021 and is on display at 1004 Spring Garden St., and 1124 Spring Garden St. in the Spring Garden area of Philadelphia, PA. Featured artists include Paul Ayihawu; Sa’Diyya Dunkley; Gina GilesJoelle St. Julien and Andre Walls

 

“Joy is the journey we take – knowing, like with any road traveled there will be speedbumps, potholes and smooth roads – as well as the place we find ourselves during and at the end of each day. Joy is a combination of making peace with where and who you are and having a sense of where and who you want to be in your life. The four artists featured truly capture this and help to suggest paths to joy for all!” – Atiba 

About Atiba T. Edwards

Atiba is the co-founder of FOKUS and the COO of the Brooklyn Children’s Museum. Born in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, he grew up in Brownsville and studied engineering and liberal arts at the University of Michigan.

 

About Mz. Icar 

Mz. Icar is an anonymous interdisciplinary art collective. Their colorful mixed-media, visual narratives celebrate Women, Global Blackness, and Play.

FEATURED ARTISTS:

Andrea Walls

See Andrea’s work in person at 915 Spring Garden St (and Green St)

Gina Giles

See Gina’s work in person at 1124 Spring Garden (Ridge Street Side)

Joelle St. Julien

See Joelle’s work in person at 1124 Spring Garden (Ridge Street Side)

Paul Ayihawu

See Paul’s work in person at 1004 Spring Garden

Sa’Diyya Dunkley

See Sa’Diyya‘s work in person at 1124 Spring Garden (Ridge Street Side)


The Culture Rooms

The Culture Rooms is a multi-room experience under one roof that taps into the multiplicity and value of Black Culture today and our hopes for tomorrow. Through multi-sensory installations, performances, and workshops, we present you with a new way to connect Blackness, creativity, culture, and community.

FOKUS

FOKUS uses the arts to educate, empower and unite communities. This is accomplished through community-based events, arts education curriculum and programming, publishing INSIGHT magazine. By increasing the public's access to the arts, the importance and need of the arts is further realized and supported.

Arts + Crafts Holdings

Arts + Crafts Holdings is an active investor and the leading developer on the northern edge of Center City Philadelphia. Affiliates of Arts + Crafts Holdings currently own in excess of 2,000,000 SF of commercial, industrial & mixeduse real estate.


STUDIO VISIT: MAS

MAS

My earliest memories consist of watching my grandmother, her sisters, and brothers wine to the wee hours of the morning to tiny whiny and various old school soca tunes. I often joke that soca is the techno of black music. If you want to hang at a soca jam it requires stamina. There is no standing on the walls there is no chilling off to the side. Soca envelopes you.

In 2016 I attended Trinidad’s carnival for the first time. Being of Caribbean descent, carnival, soca music, and the culture, in general, was very familiar. This trip was special because it was the first time that I experienced this culture fully embraced by society. In Toronto you have Caribana and it’s fun but the city tolerates Caribana because it brings in so much money. In New York you have the West Indian Labor Day parade and that’s a good time except for that time I almost got ran over by a cop trying to disperse crowds. New York also seems to tolerate the West Indian Day parade. But Trinidad is down for the whole thing. Municipal buildings are closed carnival in Trinidad. This is a nationwide celebration. Throughout the days leading up to the Mas, You can hear various steel pan ensembles practicing throughout Port au Spain from late at night till the early hours of the morning. You can peek into storefronts that are filled with costumes in various states of completion.

To experience that particular version of carnival was a freedom that I had never ever seen. One of the great things about it is that it’s a multi-generational event So you see your grandma, your auntie’s, the children everybody participating. The whole place shuts down just to have this release. It’s a celebration of color, movement, dancing, everything and it seems like everyone understands that this releases imperative to the workings of society.

Waiting to get through customs I conversed with a gentleman who told me he had been slowly upping his intake and alcohol so that he could be ready for the amount of fetes that he was going to have. A fetes a party, or lively gathering, for many of them the ticket price includes food and liquor. You have breakfast fetes, boat fetes, dinner fats lunch fest pre carnival fetes etc. Throughout carnival you’ll often see people with multiple plastic bracelets that act as tickets to various fetes.

Before we get into these lovely bodies and reminders of warm sunlight on our skin, let’s get into the history of the celebration. Carnival is a Christian festive season that occurs before the liturgical season of Lent.The main events typically occur during February or early March, during the period historically known as (or Pre-Lent). Carnival typically involves public celebrations, including events such as parades, public street parties and other entertainments, combining some elements of a circus. Elaborate costumes and masks allow people to set aside their everyday individuality and experience a heightened sense of social unity.Participants often indulge in excessive consumption of alcohol, meat, and other foods that will be forgone during upcoming Lent.

From an anthropological point of view, carnival is a reversal ritual, in which social roles are reversed and norms about desired behavior are suspended.

And like most things in this region of the world black folks got a hold of carnival and took it to the next level, these elaborate multi-day celebrations. They were not invited to the ceremonies of their masters and would put on their own festivals making fun of their masters and so this became a partially satirical event.

This whole experience got me really thinking about the idea of being completely free losing one’s inhibitions and being able to practice ceremony without judgment, over-policing, or unnecessary parameters. Basically, what’s it like to be free? How do we cultivate ways in which we can perpetually tap into that experience?

Years later many some of the images I shot on this experience would be used for various design projects particularly for Machell Montana’s soca volume one and soca volume two both of these design projects sit extremely dear to my heart as they depict current visual representations of us by us. They depict rarely publicly displayed cross-generational expressions of freedom and joy within blackness.

I’m reflecting on this experience in a chilly 23 degree Philadelphia artist space. I’m sharing this because in a time where it’s so challenging to gather, be around people and share this type of energy I hope these images serve as a reminder that it exists and It’s part of our narrative.


THE FUTURE...IF YOU WANT IT

THE FUTURE... IF YOU WANT IT

In this week’s studio visit we do some time traveling in this video and we play outside. Please check it out and share with yer friends and frienemies.

Enjoy our latest studio visit and share it with a friend.

There are a lot of things you shouldn’t really be sharing these days but this vid isn’t one of them 🙂


STUDIO VISIT: THAT NEW NEW

THAT NEW NEW

This period of isolation has been wonderful for us in the studio. There are so many concepts, ideas, and collaborations that we have started and have been unable to finish due to commissioned work. This break from traditional gathering and socializing has allowed us to dive into these more and focus our efforts on that work.

That being said we do feel a lot of guilt around finding pleasure in this and our hearts go out to everybody who has been affected by this virus. The death toll is insane and very hard for us to wrap our heads around, as well as the economic and emotional effects that this has had on the world. We also have our emotions around the treatment of Black Folks, senseless murders and attacks on joy.  We do believe at any given moment multiple realities and perspectives are going on all the time. There is the reality and experience that we are having and there is the reality and experience that every other being is having as well. We acknowledge and hold space for all of those.

Let’s chat about our lastest processes, experience and manifestations. In this studio visit, we share our process, our thoughts, our themes of exploration as well as our collaborative projects. We are gearing up for a show called ‘The Church of expansion’. It will include a series of collages prints canvases banners and other mixed-media works. It also includes the collaboration print series with Erin Patrice O’Brien. We also chat about the origins of our character Matilda and an animation project that has Tanya Farmer teaching her (and you) yoga.

Enjoy our latest studio visit and share it with a friend.

There are a lot of things you shouldn’t really be sharing these days but this vid isn’t one of them 🙂


LOVE LESSONS: STUDIO VISIT

LOVE LESSONS

There are so many ways to love. Some are so complex and others are so simple. It’s always been amazing that you can tell the way a person or creature has been loved often by the way they carry themselves and express love. Unfortunately, when love is lacking sometimes folks interact with that person as if they do not deserve to be loved. When I was a child I use to get so annoyed with my mother priming me. She would carefully do my hair to ensure there were no fly-a-ways. She should make sure I never left looking wrinkled or full of holes or dirty and the most agitating was that right before she would drop me off at school she would lick her thumb and get my eyebrows right. While I would pull away and say stop licking me. As an adult, I realized that she was creating visual markers to tell the world that I was cared for, valued, and should be treated as such. It was her way of putting a lil love bubble around me before I went into a space without her. That’s one example of sharing and expressing love, and there are tons. This group of work explores a few of them.

Enjoy our latest studio visit.

All of these pieces are available hit us up if interested mz@mzicar.com


WIGGED OUT

WIGGED OUT

Let’s chat about hair. Particularly the hair that grows out of the top of most folks head. This crown and glory is often a hot topic in the Black community,  often representing politics status, and culture. Basically we don’t play when it comes to hair. This hair thing has a long history and has often been a battle and struggle for many women when it comes to acceptability politics, natural vs processed. We love that our hair represents something ‘unique’ for some audiences but at the same time in the past we have had trouble with the amount of time that this consumes with Black folks, ‘is this hair appropriate?’ thinking, hours spent in salons, decision making such as not swimming to ensure not ruining the hair. Time is a valuable asset, careful how it is spent, but grooming and self-love practice is never wasted time. Is it a practice of self-love to create or desire something that you don’t have, or is the costuming fun and games? It’s just a matter of finding balance. Basically we just have trouble with things that hold folks back and often wonder if hair falls into that. Years ago (and to this day) we occasionally take on the topic of hair, as both a celebration and a weight.

Enjoy our latest studio visit which explores Hair.

All of these pieces are available hit us up if interested mz@mzicar.com


THOTS ON ARCHIVING

THOTS ON ARCHIVING

I’m not going to lie. We spend a lot of time running around like our heads are cut off. This quarantine time has been a good moment for us to collect our thoughts, align with purpose, get our inventory together and just take a breath.

Before world war COVID broke out we had a chance to get up with our friends and visit the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture for a talk on archiving. They were specifically discussing hip hop journalists archiving, under the overarching theme of archiving Black culture. As collage artists and magazine junkies, this was so up our alley. Funny enough we happened to be in the middle of our own archiving process. We were painstakingly going through all of Junkprint’s old work categorizing measuring, storing and pricing all work to make all pieces available for purchase. Because after all if it hasn’t been archived did it even exist? And if you are relying on social media networks to create your archives keep in mind, it’s rough to build your house on other people’s property.

This time of isolation allowed us not only time to work on new pieces, but It also allowed us space and time to carefully curate video studio visits. Each week we will be pulling between 3-5 pieces of artwork and explaining the context and process of creation and how they came to exist. This group of work will be a combination of Junkprints archives as well as new Mz. Icar work.

We will be releasing the videos on YouTube, IGTV, and here every Wednesday at 11:00 a.m. Enjoy the first one below