Exhibitions Rianna Jade Parker
March 27 - April 24, 2024 Project Space Studio
Us an’ Dem, media installation, 2021. Directed by Rianna Jade Parker, Edited by Daniel Amoakoh. © Rianna Jade Parker. Courtesy of the artist.Project Space Residency
Open Studio: Thursday April 11, 6-7pm
Rianna Jade Parker is a writer, historian, critic and curator based in South London where she studied her MA in Contemporary Art Theory at Goldsmiths College. She is a founding member of artist-collective Thick/er Black Lines, whose work was exhibited in the landmark exhibition Get Up, Stand Up Now: Generations of Black Creative Pioneers at Somerset House, London. She is a Contributing Editor of Frieze magazine and co-curated War Inna Babylon: The Community’s Struggle for Truths and Rights at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London. Her first book ‘A Brief History of Black British Art’ was published by Tate in 2021 and her second book ‘Image and Belief’ is forthcoming from Frances Lincoln/Quarto.
My practice-based research in fine art uses various manners and methodologies of inquiry, embracing a pluralistic approach towards research that unfolds through the written word, moving images and printed matter. A video essay – like a written essay – develops an argument and critical commentary on a defined topic.
Caribbean political leaders, writers and social actors are unique emblems of the politics of race and empire in inter-war and post-war London, New York and the Caribbean. With a collated mosaic of sound and text, interspersed with newsreels, found footage, and still photography, I will construct a new argumentation of the development and distribution of Caribbean Black Power, through poetic affect and aesthetic form, for a general and non-commercial audience.
Anchored in aesthetical and technical value, Seven Miles of Black Star Liners will explore the relationship between these different modes of political practice through an audio-visual study of the response of Black West Indian activists to the Caribbean labour movement and decolonial processes in the early 20th century.
VSW Project Space Residencies are supported by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the New York State Legislature, Monroe County, and Joy of Giving Something.
