Colonialism, community, empowerment – these are the notions addressed by contemporary artist Sonia E. Barrett in her exhibition “Sculpting More Community“. In collaboration with an association of co-creators, she presents until January 13, 2024, a grandiose and relevant installation at Berlin’s alpha nova & galerie futura exhibition site. Interrogating the world’s colonial division and the aforementioned themes, the contemporary artist unveils an unusual creation made of paper maps, clearly and innovatively expressing her perception of the subject.
Originally from Jamaica and Germany, Sonia E. Barrett grew up in different parts of the world, notably England, China and Cyprus. She graduated from the University of St Andrews and the Transart Institute, both in the UK, and was a MacDowell Fellow and recipient of the Boss Harlan Foundation grant. In “Sculpting More Community“, Sonia E. Barrett focuses on maps, because of their materiality and their use in demonstrating our geographical knowledge of the world.
Because of their simplistic and generalist nature, maps are not representative of objective reality. Maps therefore have a much more political connotation, lending them great influence through their ability to define spaces, relationships and even conditions. Able to include and exclude, their strategic use goes beyond the period of European colonization. Using the world map as both object and material, the Jamaican-German artist aims to establish moments of immersive collectivity and exchange between individuals from a variety of backgrounds.
A workshop was designed for the occasion, by and for black women and women of color, through which emerges an imposing contemporary sculpture made from around 40 chopped paper maps. Some of the maps used to create the work are old, reminiscent of the dictatorial Western division of the world. This absolute presence of the great Westerners is rooted in colonialism and the oppressive period of many regions of the world by European powers since the 15th century, whose harmful after-effects of racism, social inequality and rigid frontier regimes of nation-states lead to the present post-colonial.
This self-determined action of shredding maps and reconstructing them into a sculpture, acting both literally and figuratively as a broad network, creates space and time to reinvent and reconfigure maps and, by implication, the worlds that produce them. The technique used to reconstruct these shreds of paper is based on the care and beauty practices used in black women’s communities, to braid or make dreadlocks with the hair.
In connection with exchange and conversation, the participants in artist Sonia E. Barrett’s “Sculpting More Community” project operate beyond the constraints of their own work. Barrett’s “Sculpting More Community” project operate beyond the constraints of celebrated beauty standards. Cards are then woven in place of hair, providing a space where experiences, knowledge and skills are interactive and shared, and other ways of being and knowing are practiced.
Sonia E. Barrett’s work has been exhibited in numerous galleries, including OCCCA California, nGbk Berlin, The Format Contemporary in Milan and Rosenwald Wolf Gallery Philadelphia, the Museum of Derby and the British Library. She has also been awarded the Premio Ora, NY Art prize. Her exhibition “Sculpting More Community” will be discursively expanded through a program of conversations and presentations that critically analyzes urban infrastructures in terms of racism, sexism and also explores decolonial strategies.
An engaging artistic discussion will take place between the contemporary artist and art researcher and curator Sandrine Micossé-Aikins. In this dialogical interview, the two contemporary actresses report on their respective practices and jointly explore the question of what “decolonization in action” might mean in concrete terms from an artistic and curatorial point of view.
