Kingston, Jamaica – March 29, 2019 – The School of the Visual Arts of the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts is pleased to present Manifestations, the 2019 edition of its annual student exhibition. The exhibition will open at the College’s CAG[e] Gallery on Tuesday, April 2, at 6 pm, with Owen Blakka Ellis as guest speaker.
Manifestations features work by students in the Bachelor of Fine Arts programme, from year 1 to 4, and in a wide range of media and styles, from painting, drawing, sculpture and illustration to installation, digital photography, video, fashion design, and fibre arts, and from conventional realist to experimental. The works of art on view were selected from a pool of submissions by a panel of faculty members. No theme was imposed, but there is a strong focus on gender issues in many of the submissions, and in each work, a distinctive emerging artistic voice is evident, hence the chosen title.
The exhibition is curated and organized as a project of the School of Visual Arts’ Introduction to Curatorial Studies course, which is taught by Dr Veerle Poupeye, a veteran art curator in the Caribbean context. The course exposes students to the theory and practice of exhibition and museum curating. The students who are part of the curatorial team are: Derrian Barrant, Janell Blair, Mikheal Deans, Crys-Ann Gayle, Nickeisha Habib, Gavin Holder, Jonathan Mckenzie, Shasha Porter, and Phillipa Watson. The project blog, and the exhibition catalogue, are available at 2019SVAstudentexhibition.wordpress.com.
The guest speaker at the opening, Owen Blakka Ellis, is writer, educator, performing artiste and cultural studies scholar. He is known mostly for over three decades of work as a comedian, either working solo or as part of the famed Bello & Blakka duo, and his weekly column in the Jamaican STAR, which he contributed for 13 years. He was the supervising writer for the popular Ity and Fancy Cat Show and is a script advisor for the new Jamaican sitcom Bigger Boss. He lectures at the School of Arts Management & Humanities of the Edna Manley College and is an adjunct lecturer at the Trench Town Polytechnic College.
Manifestations will be open to the public from April 2 to 15, Mondays to Fridays from 12 noon to 5 pm and by appointment. The CAG[e] Gallery is located in the Edward Seaga Library and Resource Centre, on the Edna Manley College Campus, 1 Arthur Wint Drive, Kingston 5.
For more information, or interviews please contact: marketing@emc.edu.jm or 876 508 5407.
