Isla York

Isla York is a culture curating collective with a pan-Caribbean diasporic focus established in 2014. Committed to furthering the integration of music, art and culture in New York City, Isla York hosts artists of different backgrounds, and invites them to exhibit and share their work.

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This past Saturday, July 12, Tamara Renée, one of two spirits from Isla York, performed an intimate set at #NewRenaissance exhibit curated by Harlem photographer, Sonia Louise Davis. Tamara was accompanied by musicians Alexander da Silva and Javi Santiago.

Photo Credit: Vincent Theodore

This exhibit is part of No Longer Empty's “If You Build It,” at Broadway Housing Communities' Sugar Hill Development. 

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bruja and Tamara Renée from Isla York had a really fun shoot with Ivan Forde. We will be releasing more photos soon!

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Join Coco Lopez, our artist-in-residence, for a free #arte fun-filled day with the Isla York collective, as they respond to her work and research. Stop by and experience the process with live DJ music, poetry readings, and more. Families are also invited to have their portraits taken and/or record their oral histories at El Museo. It is also the last day to visit the current artist-in-residence before the next studio rotation. Presented as part of “Office Hours” (OH), a project by Nicolás Dumit Estévez in collaboration with El Museo del Barrio’s staff, artists and audiences.

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Triangulation Coconut Sugar

guest post by Maria Monegro, of happy caribbean

Happy Caribbean ‘Pink Bridge Baby Sunlit Bubbles everyday I just wanted to let you know I could’ve had that ass on my zebra rug’

Thelma Vahani

Hace tanto calor que se seca todo a tu alrededor o eso crees pero es mentira.

Apenas se puede decir que hay temporadas pero al final del dia nada es permanente.

La constante pregunta de que; ¿cuando nos vamos?

La respuesta es directa y constante: cuando vuelen los cerdos.

No quiero moverme de lugar y no quiero un nimbo, no quiero tardes tristes y atardeceres entrecortados…quiero todos los dias verlo, entero, y no observar solo porque se que puedo, y  nunca tener que irme para apreciar su belleza.

Y quiero el mar, no quiero ríos ni lagos, agua salada necesita mi alma…

Y quiero la jungla, de monos y pájaros, donde me pierdo caminando, no quiero la jungla de concreto… muy simple es lo que quiero; quiero el camino verde.

Thelma Vanahi

Crecer en el Caribe es un asunto complejo. No se ven muchas hojas caer, si, llueve en Mayo y en Santo Domingo la temperatura no baja debajo de los dieciséis grados celsius (fenómeno que solo sucede en los meses de Enero y Febrero, meses donde a la mayoria de ustedes se les esta congelando el culo).

Preguntara mi querido amigo televidente del porqué hablar sobre la realidad de la casi atemporalidad del verano en la isla de Ayiti*, la respuesta querido amigo es que eso hace que el tiempo pase de forma muy diferente y por ende se da la casualidad de que el comportamiento de los habitantes de dicho espacio sea diferente, can you believe that? (OMG SARCASM).

Ahora que sucede cuando uno de estos cuerpos que sufren de la atemporalidad del verano se mueve para otra isla en el norte (Neiba Yol, Nueva Yol, Nueva York, New York) de los Estados Unidos donde casi no se ven estrellas y donde las cosas pueden cambiar en el instante en el que te paraste en medio de la acera porque te llamó la atención una cosita ahí que se veía en la parte de arriba del edificio ese mientras alguien caminaba detrás de ti con dicho ritmo que no le permitió evitar a este cuerpo que sufre de la temporalidad del verano.

Llegar a la isla del Norte es un tueste. Un tueste y que se te fría el cerebro son sinónimos.

De pronto el lenguaje comienza a perder sentido y sientes que debes andar con la virgencita acuesta todo el dia o se puede acabar el mundo o el puente que une a los dos lugares.

El desplazamiento del alma que causa este proceso que comienza con el viaje inicial*. Un desplazamiento opcional que se me movido ya sea por necesidad o por querer ‘mejorar’ alguna posición económica.

Ahora lo interesante de este proceso es que realmente te lleva a cuestionar tu identidad. Displacement creates space where you cannot be present… you are forced to think about who you were. Everyday in this first new world there is a questioning of who you are, where you are from, what are you and how valid is your voice if you even have a voice you begin with.

Displacement: moved by the tread of being an alien.

Thelma Vahani

_________________________________________________________________ *Utilizo la palabra Ayiti porque hace mucho más sentido que decir la isla de Santo Domingo pero me refiero a la isla que comparten Haití y República Dominicana.

*Viaje que para mi siempre hará referencia a cuando nuestros ancestros fueron sacados de sus tierras y traídos a estas tierras ‘nuevas’ para que unos hombres blancos pudiesen completar su sueño de darle permanencia a todo ante el miedo de morir congelados de frio. 

_________________________________________________________________ ABOUT Maria Monegro

photo by hash harper

Maria Monegro is a multdisciplinary artist. 1990 / Born: Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Currently in: New York, USA. For more on Maria, visit happycaribbean.tumblr.com or her website. She can also be reached at [email protected]. 

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Untitled

guest post by Akeema-Zane (@kissingtherain)

I arrived; bore between her waning silence and those overlooking the wonder of body travailing spirit. The freshness of her blood stained my entry into the cold of the white room and I screamed, witnessing what resided outside the hollow of her womb. Eyes competed for my attention while ripping me away from her core. The shock of my separation from her body would never return to me unless it was I who laid flat, knees raised to the ceiling and legs spread to the air enduring creation.

She laid on the hospital bed, straining her body to sit upright while awaiting the moment she could hold me in her arms.  It was the day before the holiday. She was preparing the turkey and her body urged her to the hospital. She walked there in the rain from the home I came to know as my own. She took to the streets in heels, alone, pacing the concrete while strangers glanced in awe- clearing a path for her to glide through. A man wearing a bright green shirt offered himself and escorted her to emergency room. He left white chrysanthemums for her at the receptionist's desk upon her exit.

For a while it was just us. No reminiscence of those who greeted me with the dress I donned at my christening, no recollection of the crib I slept in. Just the smell of her breath when she sang to me, the warmth and savor of milk from her breast, the reflection of myself in the whites of her eyes.

Her voice no longer pranced against the amniotic fluid whose comfort only the touch of her skin could mimmic. The armor needed to shield me outside of her womb was more than tarnishing. But every Sunday, after washing my hair with garlic shampoo, she played dub and sat me between her legs on the red living room carpet to braid my hair. If her favorite song came on, she'd get up to dance in front of the three foot mirror which hanged on the wall of the dining room. She'd sing along-her voice as clear as the roosters crowing outside Aunty Helena's guest bedroom window, waking me to the crack of dawn to greet the sun of Carnival's season. By six o'clock we'd eat callaloo and rice with oxtails and macaroni pie and potato salad and I'd close my eyes and remember home like I felt it in the core of her gut.

I, this hybrid, this crossroads between old and new, of migration conquered, would come to be the consequence of a dream unfeathered. She'd leave notes across my pillow after waking to break her fast. They read: Stay full of ammunition for the battle ahead is tall and unwavering; Work nor wealth is defined by the girth of ones wallet, but the garden from which one feeds the family and thus the spirit; Home is the seat to the soul.

_________________________________________________________________ ABOUT Akeema Zane

photo by sonia louise davis

Akeema-Zane is a multidisciplinary and aspiring multimedia artist born and raised in Harlem, NY with significant childhood memories in Trinidad W.I of which she is a descendant. She received a self-designed interdisciplinary BA from Eugene Lang College with an emphasis in Anglophone Caribbean studies. While attending a predominantly white, all girls boarding school in Connecticut, art became a primary avenue to express her intellectual development- one that differed tremendously from her peers. Akeema-Zane has displayed visual works in various exhibitions, performed in short films/music videos and plays, and read her written works in various galleries. Most recently, she was an artist-in-residence at Groundation Grenada where she led a writing workshop in Grenada, W.I., and published a short piece about her expatriation to the Eastern Caribbean on the organization's blog. She considers writing her primary mode of expression and spent the bulk 2013 based in Trinidad doing personal research and writing on her family and the cultural capital of Trinidad and other Eastern Caribbean countries. 

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photo by ivan forde

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we have a lot in the works. but if you have any questions...

[email protected] is your best bet. love+light, bruja