Join us on for an online event on the 11 January 2022 at 12:00-13:15 GMT for a preview of the next episode in The UP Podcast series featuring Sonia E Barrett’s upcoming digital commission for UP Projects digital commissioning programme This is Public Space. The event will delve further into the themes of Barrett’s new commission; Rush Me which is due to launch in June 2022. Taking the Windrush Generation as its starting point, Rush Me investigates narratives including migration, belonging, identity and hybridity.
The event will begin with a creative activity devised by Sonia E Barrett followed by an in-conversation between Barrett and curator, producer and Caribbean Community Engagement Consultant Melanie Abrahams chaired by journalist and critic Hettie Judah.
The event will take place online in The Hall, UP Projects’ digital participation space. Book your free ticket now.
The UP Podcast is a new podcast series curated and commissioned by UP Projects and hosted by journalist and critic, Hettie Judah. The podcasts take an in-depth look at UP Projects most recent commissions - exploring the themes, processes and implications surrounding these artworks through the voices of the artists themselves and those they have collaborated with.
Rush Me by Sonia E Barrett is generously sponsored by Barrington Hibbert Associates.
Accessibility
Live captioning and British Sign Language interpretation will be available during this events. Should you require British Sign Language interpretation please email info@upprojects in advance of the event so we can ensure to provide you with dedicated access links to the event.
Hettie Judah (she/her)
Hettie Judah is senior art critic on the British daily paper The I, and contributor to Frieze, The Guardian, Vogue, The New York Times, Art Quarterly, Numéro Art and other publications with 'art' in the title. Her recent books include Art London (ACC Art Books, 2019), Lives of the Artists: Frida Kahlo (Laurence King, 2020) and Caroline Walker: Janet (2020.) Her forthcoming book on stone Lapidarium will be published next year by John Murray. A campaigner for the rights of artist parents, she is currently working on a book on art and motherhood.
Sonia E Barrett (she/her)
Sonia E Barrett performs Composites of plants, animals, elements and people to create interventions that presence their objectification and commodification, she also thinks about how to change perceptions of phenomena in “nature” that are a given. The work seeks to create new questions where there was a kind of certainty that has to do with the hegemony of normative wester European values. Born in the UK of Jamaican and German parentage Sonia E Barrett grew up in Hong Kong, Zimbabwe, Cyprus and the UK. She studied literature at the University of St Andrews Scotland and her MFA at Transart Institute Berlin/New York. Her work unpacks the boundaries between the Determined and the determining with a focus on race and gender, She makes sculptural works so she can run her hands alone the fissures and manifest strategies for multiple compatible existences and mourn. Her sculptural practice includes place making with a view to assembling communities under the threat of climate to (Re) claim space as well as instituting permanently. Sonia is a MacDowell fellow and has been recognised by the Premio Ora prize, NY Art-Slant showcase for sculpture and the Neo Art Prize. She has exhibited by the National Gallery of Jamaica, 32 degrees East Gallery, Kampala, Uganda, the Heinrich Böll Institute Germany, the British Library, The Museum of Derby, and the Kunsthaus Nürnberg. Her work has been shown at a number of galleries including the OCCCA California, the NGBK Berlin, Tete Berlin, The Format Contemporary in Milan and Basel and the Rosenwald Wolf Gallery Philadelphia. Her works have been published in the International Review of African American Art, Black History 365 Journal, Kunstforum International, Protocollum, ELSE journal and the Contemporary & Platform. She is a co-initiator of the AIPCC in Bavaria.
Melanie Abrahams (she/her)
Melanie Abrahams Hon FRSL FRSA is an arts curator and producer, visiting lecturer, and a mentor who has channelled a love of words and books into initiatives. With over 17 years’ experience in curating, she consistently pushes for greater diversity in the arts, with a focus on narratives of race, class, mixed-race identities and intersectionality. Of Trinidadian and Jamaican heritage and part of the Windrush generation, Melanie has instigated and curated many events, exhibitions and festivals including Caribbeanfest at the British Library (2019) and online (2020) and London Is The Place For Me, a three week festival with co-curator Dominique Le Gendre for the Trinidad and Tobago High Commission as part of their London 2012 Olympics cultural offering. She has collaborated with organisations and partners including V&A (Jamdown Meets Liming), Chris Ofili and Victoria Miro Gallery (Freedom One Day), Bluecoat (Liverpool Liming), Black Cultural Archives, The Centre for Research in Race and Rights and Nottingham Contemporary (Unspeakable Things Unspoken), Watchmen Agency (KIN) and Site Gallery. Melanie has been working with UP Projects since 2020, providing curatorial and Caribbean Community Engagement consultancy to the National Windrush Monument commissioning team.