on view: August 30 -September 22, 2001
Opening reception: August 30, 6-8pm

Panyard

Terry Boddie + Nicole Awai

Terry Boddie and Nicole Awai are two Caribbean visual artists living in New York City. Both artists are recent alumniof the Artist-in-Residence program at the Studio Museum of Harlem (1999-2000). This summer they will collaborate on a multi-media installation at five myles, evoking the physical and the psychological space of the panyard, the incubator of the Caribbean carnival. Evolved from the Canboulay procession in the 19th century, a dancing and singing theater in ‘white face’ and masks that celebrated the freeing of theslaves, the pan has always represented an arena of resistance as well as celebration. Boddie and Awai focus on the physical site of the panyard, the indenture in the ground used for stick fighting, and historically a generator forcarnival activities. The shape of the pan of the steel drum references this indenture.

In this installation the masquerading figures surrounding the pan are archetypes belonging to the carnival celebration, they are drawn on the wall in fluorescentpaint and reveal themselves to the public as they enter the gallery. Other figures are three-dimensional allusions to limbo dancers. The artists’minimal approach isa deliberate attempt to draw the viewer into a meditation on the origins of the dynamic and lavish West Indian Dayparade, annually celebrated along Brooklyn’s Eastern Parkway; this year it takes place on September 3rd, four days after the opening of the Panyard exhibition. This connection to history has largely been forgotten, and it is the artists’intention with this installation to re-establish the link.

about the artists:

Terry Boddie is a recent recipient of a NYFA ArtsFellowship and a Knight Foundation Fellowship. He was an artist in residence at the Studio Museum of Harlem and has exhibited at the Graduate Center, CUNY, the Smithonian in Washington, DC, Smack Mellon in Brooklyn, and The Project in New York, among other venues.

Nicole Awai has been an artist in residence at Hunter College and the Studio Museum of Harlem. She exhibited in the Greater New York exhibition at PS1 and most recently at the Big River 2, International Artists Workshop in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, among others. The Dept. of Cultural Affairs in NYC has commissioned her work for the Cambria Heights Library. She was awarded a Puffin Foundation grant in 1998.

DIRECTIONS:

Take 2, 3, or 4 trains to Franklin Avenue. Walk two blocks against the traffic on Franklin. Walk ¾ block to 558 St. Johns Place. FiveMyles is within easy walking distance from the Brooklyn Museum.