The one question at the forefront of America’s public mind right now seems to be: Does race still matter? We see it in the debate over Barack Obama’s presidential run, the media’s claim that there is one “Black Church” (a.k.a. Jeremiah Wright), and art exhibitions like Black Is Black Ain’t curated by Hamza Walker (The Renaissance Society, Univ of Chicago on view 4/20/08 – 6/8/08). Meanwhile, artists like Chanel Kennebrew are creeping on a come up, taking Booker T.’s bootstrap mentality, Dubois’ words on propaganda and Warhol’s use of reproduction to foster a new socio-economic art model: self-reliance, healthy interdependence and conscious capitalism. 

(Chanel Kennebrew, Narcissism from the Good Housekeeping series, mixed media, collage.)

Chanel Kennebrew’s movement from the art marketplace, the gallery and the corporate design firm, to independent artist/entrepreneur status has been a process. One laced with stints on the west coast, in the Midwest, abroad in Toronto and finally in Brooklyn, USA for the last 2 ½ years. Her journey has also included study at the Ontario College of Art & Design and the usual artist hustle – a million and one side jobs. After a historical look at stereotypes and binary oppositions through her series of 12 prints called Good Housekeeping for the New Negro Woman, completed at university, Chanel found herself revisiting the surface exploration of race and gender in media through her work at a NYC design firm. Soon, it became clear: 1) Chanel needed to make art for the people…not the scene; 2) the mainstream media doesn’t represent the actual populous, it represents the ‘ideal’ populous; and, 3) she was getting stifled trying to create for curators and buyers. Hence, her leap into entrepreneurship and strictly freelance work with the launch of her own on-line store, Junkprints.com.

(Chanel Kennebrew, Ladies of Soul, 13″x19″, archival matte print, edition of 50, also available as a tee.)

Chanel’s artwork and art-inspired products are in part designed to approach social matters from multiple perspectives. She told Cultureserve, “One thing I try to stress in the work is that discrimination based strictly on being unfamiliar is harmful to communities as a whole and the results can be absurd to just sad. The specific topics are just the tip. The core of the problem is lack of understanding. As simple as that sounds, that lack of understanding affects the victim and the oppressor and causes strange spin offs such as over compensation by power holders and self segregated communities built strictly on visual appearance. I rarely come to conclusions in my work. I’m just presenting my audience with some healthy options.” Along with her own line of junk (clothing, zines, prints, etc.), Chanel donates a percentage of profits from specialty tee’s (Jena 6 & Immigrant Beater) to support social causes and keeps it democratic by offering her art direction services to both large and small companies.

(Left to right: Monitor Mania Jacket, In Support of the Jena 6 Tee, by Junkprints. Below: Chanel Kennebrew.)

Chanel designs all Junkprints’ graphics and prints all garments on sweatshop free tees, hoodies and up-cycled materials in Brooklyn. All of the bags are hand made and the core of the line is made in editions of 50. Contact/Shop Chanel!

What constitutes a classic? Who gets to decide? Why not me? So, as a lover of the b-boy uprock danced to a classic b-boy cut, I declare Sanford Biggers’, Mandala of the B-Bodhisattva II video work, made in 2000, a classic.  What are the parameters for this particular classic, the supreme weaving of the spiritual nature of breakdancing (exquisitely explored in the current film Planet B-Boy), with the Mandala, a diagram that serves as a collection point for universal forces.  (Watch the video!)

(Sanford Biggers, Mandala of the B-Bodhisattva II (2000), video still, 16ftx 16ft hand-carved colored rubber tiles, Formica backing. Battle of the Boroughs breakdance competition.)

The sacred circle where the community gets down and individuals merge with divine oneness and the eternal moment, once again found itself in the dance ciphers of early hip-hop culture, and subsequently became a global phenomenon known as breakdancing. What Biggers so eloquently puts down here, in video form, is a contemporary cultural manifestation of a centuries old global tradition. Not only is this video work a sublimely layered riff on perspective and transculturalism, it highlights the symbiotic relationship between the individual, the group and the cosmos. While the volume is loud the message is clear, one love, one aim, one destiny - union with the ultimate - whether you’re a b-boy, b-girl, Buddhist or otherwise.

(Sanford Biggers, Creation/Dissipation (2002), colored sand poured unfixed to floor and realtime projection of the performance shot from an overhead camera and projected on an adjacent wall.)

As a group, there are a handful of Biggers’ video works that suggest a fascination with the dance between the cosmic or metaphysical and the day to day movements of human beings. Creation/Dissipation (2002), Hip Hop Ni Sasagu (In Fond Memory of Hip Hop) (2004) and Cosmic Conundrum (2006) all show an appreciation for what could be described as movement between the polarities of energy and matter. Spatial relationships between music and dance, silence and sound, the individual and the group, light and dark, the intimate and the infinite, converge into moments of contemplation filled with the residue of the familiar and the possibility of the unknown.

(Sanford Biggers, Lotus (2007), 7ft diameter, hand etched glass, steel and LEDs. The image etched onto the glass is based on drawings of the cargo hold of an 18th century slave vessel.)

Many of Biggers’ video pieces are accompanied by installations, objects and performances that also speak to his transcultural/transcosmic inquiries.  Keep an eye out for Biggers’ participation in the following shows in 2008:  US Biennial: Prospect 1. (curated by Dan Cameron) New Orleans, LA; Neo HooDoo: Art For A Forgotten Faith. (curated by Franklin Sirmans and traveling to PS1, New York) The Menil Collection, Houston, TX; and, (Yet Untitled). Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York.  Also on tap in 2009, The Cartographer’s Conundrum (funded by Creative Capital), an installation, film and website inspired by artist, scholar and Afro-futurist John Biggers. A cousin of his subject, Sanford Biggers’s goal is to both study and expand the emerging genre of Afro-futurism, which engages science-fiction, cosmology and technology to create a new folklore of the African Diaspora.

(Sofia Maldonado, Skate Bowl, 2008. Photo: Alfred Ruiz. Location: Somewhere in Puerto Rico…)

Read Cultureserve’s Issue #4 feature on Sofia Maldonado, the artist behind Skate Bowl, here!

Sofia’s next show, The Tropical Storm, is a three-part project blending elements of street culture (skateboarding, punk rock and graffiti) with a feminine Latina aesthetic and the chaotic natural energy of the Caribbean.  The different elements of the project -The Bowl, Broken Boards and The Skate Bags - originate from the artist’s objective to open up dialogue on the renovation of neglected public spaces and how fashion and consumerism influence counterculture youth movements (particularly how these movements are integrated into products and industries).  A skate mini-ramp will be installed in the center of the gallery, designed and painted by the artist and will be available for local urban daredevils to attempt during the opening. On view at Magnan Emrich, NYC, 5/15/08 - 6/23/08. Contact Sofia!

Based in Los Angeles, The HeArt Project creatively links overlooked teenagers in alternative high schools with professional artists, cultural centers, and communities to imagine, produce and present new work. The organization believes that overlooked young people are extraordinarily creative, that artists are a significant civic resource, and that their ideas, collaborations and work benefit the entire culture. 

(Left to right: Man One, A student presents a portrait of Tejana singer Selena, at the Getty Center, created as a group project during a workshop series with Man One.)

Each year The HeArt Project hosts its annual evening of art benefit to raise funds and awareness for the organization’s comprehensive arts programs through an exhibition of student work, a silent auction and special presentations to honorees made by HeArt Project students. This year’s event, on May 15, 2008, will feature one special honoree, the beloved International Muralist, Graffiti Artist, HeArt Project Artist Instructor and local Los Angeles Art Activist, Man One. Some folks know him for his downtown LA graffiti outpost/store/art gallery, Crewest, and others, like the HeArt Project students, also know him for his stature as a muralist in their own communities and city. The Crewest gallery philosophy to “cater to art that speaks to the heart and soul as well as the mind,” is also clearly evident in Man One’s dedication to arts education via the HeArt Project.

(Man One and the students of Amelia Earhart High School on a field trip to the artist’s gallery and one of his murals.)

Since 1992, in partnership with institutions and professional artists, The HeArt Project has served as a pathway for its students to move from dropping out of high school to re-engaging in their education, lives, and futures. The HeArt Project operates at 24 sites on a conceptual “ladder” philosophy, offering students the opportunity to advance through four levels of increasingly advanced arts programs – workshops and public presentations, after-school residencies and leadership training, scholarships to art programs for high school students at local colleges, and alumni support. Support strategies at each level, help students “climb” the ladder while exploring opportunities in the arts, working toward high school graduation, and transitioning into post-secondary education.

For more information on the HeArt Project fundraiser location, sponsorship, tickets, and silent auction, visit www.theheartproject.org or contact Suzy Foster at (213) 744-1404 / suzy@theheartproject.org.  

Lady Pink, an icon to female street artists, graf writers and creative ingenues with an ear to the street, once again claims her queendom with the brush via her latest series, BRICK LADIES. She first dropped a taste of this series, The She Temple, in a YOUNITY exhibition (fall ‘07), and revealed more of the series in her latest 2-woman exhibition at Ad-Hoc Art in Brooklyn, NY (Spr ‘08), alongside fellow artist, AIKO.

(Images left to right: Lady Pink, Queen Matilda, 6′x4′, acrylic on canvas. Lady Pink, A Lovely Entrapment, 40″x72″, acrylic on canvas.)

With a strong nod to the omnipresence of feminine energy, Lady Pink’s BRICK LADIES series brings to the forefront, in concrete terms, the reality that the divine feminine is at the root of existence in all its material forms. The integration of core strength and fluid sensuality, in image and brush stroke, permeates dichotomous mind states positioned in critique and effortlessly invokes understanding from a position of union. The work brings to mind the Native American maxim, “Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength.”

(Image left to right: John Grigley, Lady Pink. Lady Pink, PINK-C Train, New York 1983)

Lady Pink began her painterly excursions in graffiti in 1979, and starred in one of the first cult film nods to a burgeoning hip hop movement, Wild Style - a film that just celebrated its 25th anniversary this past year with events all over New York City. Her work has also been canonized in the collections of several museums including: The Whitney, The MET and The Brooklyn Museum, all in New York City, and the Groningen Museum in Holland. So telling is Pink’s work as a representation of organic creative process, that the Museum of Modern Art in NYC recently jumped on the bandwagon and screened the world premiere of SprayMasters, a documentary featuring Lady Pink alongside legendary graf artists Lee Quinones and Zephyr. Pink’s pioneering efforts in art, from trains in the 80’s to murals in the 21st century, are undoubtedly an inspiration to all. Look for the Pink essence to be re-incarnated in a vinyl figure for Kid Robot in May 2008.

Artist Tracy Snelling’s recent sculpture-video-mixed media- building-neighborhood corner- miniature replicas, last on view at PULSE NYC, are powerhouses in their own right.  Immediately captivating, the work brings out the nosy busy-body in all of us. Tracey’s mash-up of miniature replicas of actual buildings, infused with clues that suggest an imagined storyline surrounding the buildings inhabitants, encourages the fantastical in viewers who happen upon her work.  Most compelling are the mini video pieces launched in the windows of the buildings.  The viewer gets to become the voyeur of both Tracey’s mind and building occupants, living out lives full of romance, partying, conversation, or sheer mystery.  

(Paris Bayan Kuaforu, Istanbul, 2008, 21″ high x 27″ wide x 23″ deep, wood, paint, lights, digital images, lcd screens, media players, speakers, transformer)

To view more of this refreshingly original and organic new media work click here.

“I was in Cuba in 2004, rented a car and drove around the island for three weeks. As you can easily imagine, I saw thousands of political images constantly, all of them trying to convey the message that the Cuban Revolution was more than a political fight. By using the universal values of igualdad, libertad, fraternidad, esperanza, justicia, educación, respeto y la idea de la posibilidad de construir un mundo mejor, the leader of the revolution is made to appear like the new Messiah. The way the leader and the message are represented sounds quite familiar to me. I am a Spanish artist who grew up in Franco’s time. Spain is deeply Catholic, and religion and politics are extremely united. I am very familiar with the manipulation that has constantly surrounded religion and politics for centuries.  We now have new examples that try to replace a spiritual fight with a political revolution. However, show us political leaders like the spiritual ones? Ghandi, Jesús Cristo, Confucio, etc. are now el Che, Fidel, Mao, Stalin, etc…..We can not forget that the first leaders created a non-violent revolution with their ideas and the second created change through war and society. This painting represents in fact, how WE HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR THE SAME VALUES with different tactics and different leaders and hence, different results….A universal hope for a better society, bienestar, libertad, igualdad, justicia, educación, and respeto, are what we have been fighting for since the beginning of our culture more than two thousand years…and still we are doing, como diria el Che, HASTA LA VICTORIA SIEMPRE.” - Vicente Lopez as told to Cultureserve.net.  

Contact Vicente.

A while back I heard a quote, “No one chooses to be an artist. You just are.”  So, in a sense, it’s a spiritual calling and the work produced a reflection of the inner evolution, excavation and unveiling of a human being - for better or for worse.  In the case of Barkley L. Hendricks, it appears he’s had a pretty groovy journey and one that is 30+ years later, entirely of the moment.  Hendricks’ achievement of a certain liberation through the sensuality of the body in his work is timeless.  A lived existence emerges that is not born primarily of rationality, but of swagger and spirit.  An aura permeates the physical presence of his subjects that precludes and overpowers the projection of a storyline.

(Images from left to right: Barkley L. Hendricks, Misc. Tyrone (Tyrone Smith), 1976. Oil and magna on linen canvas, 72″x50 1/4″. Courtesy of the artist. Barkley L. Hendricks, Bahsir (Robert Gowens), 1975. Oil and acrylic on linen canvas, 83 1/2″ x 66″. Collection of the Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University.)

Just as Hendricks’ work reverberates in the African American contemporary art scene through artists like Mickalene Thomas, Kehinde Wiley and Jeff Sonhouse, he reflects the liberated spirit of Harlem Renaissance painter, William H. Johnson. A description of Johnson’s work by Art Historian David Driskell in Harlem Renaissance: Art of Black America, is quite apropos to Hendricks’ own oeuvre, “His self-imposed aesthetic rules and restrictions, relating to what he called ‘primitive painting,’ freed him from academic traditions and permitted a lyrical artistry to flow from his brush.”  Although Hendricks’ work is not exactly primitive it is most definitely lyrical, and has often lived outside the confines of the academic and art establishments.  Hendricks’ painting of portraits that show three views of the same subject (i.e. Bahsir (Robert Gowens), above, and Sir Charles, Alias Willie Harris) suggest a lineage to Johnson’s own, Self Portrait (triple), housed at the Hampton University Museum, and  taken together, reinforce the notion of a gaze that allows for the multidimensional nature of man. 

(Images left to right: Barkley L. Hendricks, Icon for Fifi, 1982. Oil and combination leaf on lined canvas, 60 1/4″ x 50 1/4″. Courtesy of the artist. Barkley L. Hendricks, Tequila, 1978. Oil and acrylic on linen canvas, 60 3/4″ x 50 1/4″. Collection of Butler Institute for American Art, Youngstown, OH.)

This multidimensional nature alongside, the vibrant auras captured in many of Hendricks’ portraits, finds it lyrical metaphor in soul music.  Without even hearing a sound, his work leaps of the wall (or page) and into a smooth groove that is oh so divinely and sweetly, Black American.

Hendricks’ work is currently on view at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University until July 13, 2008.  The show is accompanied by a highly recommended catalog with essays from multidimensional art world cognoscenti: Franklin Sirmans, Trevor Schoonmaker and Thelma Golden.

For those of us on the east coast, we may know about Boricuas and salsa legends from Tito Puente and Celia Cruz to Willie Colon and Hector Lavoe.  Or we may even know that a large portion of east coast Mexican immigrants come from Puebla, Mexico and Cubans hold it down in Miami.  But, one thing is for sure, most of us don’t know a damn thing about the Chicano Movement of the west coast, and its cultural hub in East Los Angeles.  Enter, Self Help Graphics and Art, a legendary community arts organization in the heart of East Los that has nurtured, cultivated and provided a platform for a myriad of Chicano and Mexican artists across generations.  Self Help Graphics and Art and THE VEX club, formally housed on its premises, offers a point of departure for The Claremont Museum’s upcoming exhibition, VEXING: Female Voice and East L.A. Punk, that explores the East L.A. scene in the late 70’s and early 80’s, and its subsequent influence on a younger generation of artists.

(Images left to right: Shizu Saldamando, Cindi and Asma in the Ladies Room, 2007, Colored pencil, collage on paper Collection of Sam Lee and Karen Rapp.  Dawn Wirth, Alice Bag, Jensen Rec Center/Silver Lake Film Festival, 2007, Silver-halide/C print. Courtesy of the artist)

The exhibition was designed to document, “a vital moment of artistic and musical interchange in Los Angeles, with women staking out a position between and within punk rock, East LA and the downtown art scene.” Vexing: Female Voices from East LA Punk is on view from May 18 to August 31, 2008 at The Claremont Museum of Art in Claremont, California.  Stay tuned for a forthcoming catalog on the exhibition and a documentary on The Vex by Pete Galindo, Willie Herón and Lysa Flores.

Trash. That’s one thing all human beings have in common.  For artist Renata de Andrade it’s the one thing she chooses to make art about and with, on two continents, South America and Europe. More specifically, within Brazil and The Netherlands.  With exhibitions in galleries and museums as well as street interventions in multiple Brazilian cities, Rotterdam and Amsterdam, Renata’s art practice takes form in both public and private space.

(Newsface43, 2008, acrylic and latex on cardboard by Renata de Andrade)

Through murals, assemblage, sculpture, graffiti, photographs, two and three dimensional painting, drawing, and installation, garbage is re-configured, re-used, re-purposed and believe it or not, made quite beautiful.  The natural trajectory of trash from public space, where it is purchased as a product, to private consumption, to it’s ultimate voyage back into public space, the trash dump, ends for most of us in a mystery.  However, for Renata, this is where trash becomes a subject of inquiry and her artwork becomes a glaring metaphor for what it means to consume, generate waste and recycle.

(Marp2, 2006, spraypaint, garbage bag filled with plastic bottles by Renata de Andrade)

Renata has exhibited work in galleries and museums including, Museu de Arte Moderna (São Paulo), Museu Victor Meirelles (Florianópolis), Museu de Arte Contemporânea do Ceará (Fortaleza), Museu de Arte de Ribeirão Preto, Museu de Arte de Londrina, in Brazil, and Jan Cunen Museum (Oss) and Arti et Amicitiae (Amsterdam), in The Netherlands. To view more of Renata’s work click here.

(Renata de Andrade (left) and Streetpiece01, 2008, cardboard boxes (right))

For more on the trajectory of our consumption and the mystery of garbage when it’s not made into art click here.

South African born artist, Thomas Mulcaire’s 2007 video piece, Study for Solaris, is a sublime visual voyage across planet earth’s southern most continent overlying the South Pole, Antartica. The piece was filmed between Dec 2006 - Feb 2007 onboard the South African research ship SA Agulhas en route from Cape Town to Neumayer Bukta and RSA Bukta, and on surface and air transport in Dronning Maud Land within 200km of SANAE and TROLL bases.  Study for Solaris is stunning in it’s composition and movement and offers a deep meditation on sound, silence, water, land and sky - a stark contrast to the human drama of city life.

Study for Solaris debuted at the Govett-Brewster Museum in Taranaki, New Zealand, in an exhibition called New Nature curated by Rhana Devenport. It’s next screenings will be during the inaugural Johannesburg Art Fair from March 13-16, 2008 and as part of the Arts Unlimited show, which will take place during the Basel Art Fair in Switzerland, June 2008. Watch the video!

Study for Solaris is an ITASC production for the International Polar Year.  Email Thomas.

(Gloria, 2008, by MUCK) Installation at the Bronx Museum’s Making It Together: Women’s Collaborative Art and Community exhibition (see Art + Culture Diaries, below, for details). Who is Gloria?

From 3/2/08 - 8/4/08, Making It Together: Women’s Collaborative Art and Community will be on view at The Bronx Museum of the Arts.  The exhibition highlights the response of women artists to the Feminist Movement of the 1970’s and their subsequent use of collective artistic production to engage communities and address social issues. “Artist teams and groups have become an increasingly fashionable mode in recent years,” says guest curator critic Carey Lovelace. “Feminist Art laid the groundwork for this, challenging ideas about authorship, particularly the myth of the solo male artist.”  Pictured below is the work of Suzanne Lacy and Leslie Labowitz, whose landmark, multi-part event, Three Weeks in May (1977), was at the forefront of the movement against sexual violence. For 2008 work with a graffiti twist, contemporary graffiti artists Toofly, Lady Pink, DONA, and MUCK created an installation, at the entrance to the Museum, that includes paintings of four women activists. Toofly’s portrait is of Elvira Arellano, a Mexican mother and immigrant who was deported, while her son Saul was left in the United States because of his American citizenship. Elvira has since become a voice for immigrant rights. The installation also includes 70+ names of various historical women activists. Toofly told Cultureserve, “It’s a big collaboration. It looks like a graffitied up wall with realistic images and facts about women’s issues and fights throughout the years.” (See the FLAVOR section to view MUCK’s portrait of Gloria Steinem.)

(Three Weeks in May (1977), Performance by Suzanne Lacy, with Leslie Labowitz. Photo courtesy of Lacy/Labowitz) 

Bi-coastal artist Adia Millett has found a new space in which to create that lies somewhere between her signature miniature houses and museum comissioned installations, a garage.  The project, Change, is an ongoing installation that changes every week inside a 10′ x 14′ garage space in Southern California. Designed to house memories, dreams, stage sets and beyond, the installations are meant to push thought outside the box we call “reality”. The works take on a second life on-line where a photographic representation of them accompanied by wordplay by Adia can be viewed by the public. Click here to view Change.

(Garage, 2008 by Adia Millett)

Canary Island born and London based artist Karina Beltran has exhibited work in London, Madrid, Dakar and the Canary Islands.  Pictured below is her work APARICIONES. Launderette., one example of a style that embodies the experience of human reflection and the inevitability solitude.  Her work will be on view at CIRCA Puerto Rico in April 2008 with Galeria Raquel Ponce.  View more here.

(APARICIONES. Launderette., 2006, by Karina Beltran)

Judy C. is at it again.  Ms. Chicago along with her non-profit, Through The Flower, is launching her first juried New Mexico Feminist art show. The exhibition entitled, New Mexico Feminist Art: Feminists under 40, will be on view on-line and at the galleries of Through the Flower and the Belen Hotel in Belen, New Mexico, 3/3/08-5/30/08.  Whether you appreciate Chicago’s aesthetic sensibilities or not, there is no arguing the fact that she compiled a priceless archive of western women’s history in her controversial landmark work of art, The Dinner Party, now housed at The Brooklyn Museum.  Kudos to her for efforts to restore the Divine Feminine to its rightful place in human consciousness!

(Untitled by Anonymous, 2008, by Diana McClure)

Founded by Fernando Afable, Foto Baryo brings the art and pleasure of photography to children in the Philippines. Although raised in the Philippines, it was Afable’s tenure as an employee at the International Center for Photography in New York that provided the backdrop for his growth in knowledge and love of the medium.  During this time, over 10+ years, as he moved from Security Guard to Darkroom Manager, Afable collected discarded books, enlargers, cameras and film, and built a school on his family’s land in Manila. The result of his efforts is Foto Baryo, a venue where cross-cultural and cross-class dialogue thrives and exposes young people to the diversity of planet earth.  The school is heavily involved in outreach to Philippine youth living in Manila, squatter communities, and autistic children.  Images and exhibitions in galleries and public community spaces are produced by the children year-round. Foto Baryo’s most recent work will be exhibited at the Philippine Consulate in New York on June 5th, 2008.

(Fernando Afable, photo courtesy of PhilippineBusiness.com)

What is equally amazing is the fact that all the work has been produced by discarded equipment and expired film!  Read more on Foto Baryo here or for more information contact Cres Yulo or Amor Rodriguez here!  (Special thanks to Lauri Lyons for this post.)

Twice in the last 6 months, London based photographer, Jennie Baptiste has touched down in the land of the Maroons (Accompong Town), on the island of Jamaica, in an effort to share the vibes of one of the Caribbean’s most recognized groups of self-liberated peoples. On her first trip, six young adults traveled and photographed with her (see Cultureserve Issue #4). Her second trip, sans youth, coincided with Jamaica’s annual Maroon Day (Jan 6). People from the countryside, around the globe, both young and old, as well as dancehall queens dressed to the nines, shared in the reverie and celebration of over 250+ years of Black independence at the biggest celebration of the holiday, the Accompong Maroon Festival. Jennie B.’s work coincides with the celebration in England and the English speaking Caribbean of the 200th anniversary of the end of the British trans-atlantic slave trade. In contrast, the US has yet to acknowledge the 200th anniversary of Jan. 1, 1808, the day the importation of slaves into the United States was prohibited.

Jennie B.’s work has appeared in museums and galleries across Europe including the traveling shows, Black British Style (2006) and Hip Hop Immortals (2004).  After a local show in Fort Greene, Brooklyn (2007), she was invited to donate work to Russell Simmons’ Rush Philanthropic Foundation - Art for Life Benefit (2007) and continues to make moves stateside with a show on tap for 2008 in New York City. Her images of the Maroons will be exhibited alongside her youth photo brigade’s work in 2008 at The Museum in Docklands (London) and The Institute of Jamaica (Jamaica).

(Images: Dancehall Queens, Accompong Maroon Festival, Jamaica 2008 (top and bottom right), Jennie Baptiste (bottom left))