PLAY AH MAS, PLAY YASELF 

2023

Charcoal & Graphite Mural 

8ft H x 15.5ft W

 

Artist Fellowship

Caribbean Cultural Institute at Pérez Art Museum Miami 

Bakehouse Art Complex 

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‘Play ah mas, Play yaself’, explores the dialogue between Caribbean Carnival and the female masquerader, speculating on how women have historically challenged the boundaries of corporeal autonomy and spatial engagement through ritual, assumption of persona and collective action. In the case of the Trinidad Carnival, women have used these festivities to assert their claim over performance spaces and in so doing, situate the female body and its movement as a site of liberation.

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As a point of departure, the colonial laws prohibiting masking in the streets of Port of Spain in the early 19th century are placed in contrast with the development of multifaceted, female storytellers, whose power is derived primarily from the creation of new personas which exist (only) on the Carnival road. 

 

This piece was transformed through performance at the mid point of its installation, an act which is intended to emphasize the ephemeral cycles present in the Carnival. It pays homage to the beauty and inevitable sense of loss which accompanies histories that exist in the performance realm. 

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‘Play ah mas, Play yaself’, is part of 'Beyond Representation', a research and exhibition project for the Perez Art Museum's Caribbean Cultural Institute Artist Fellowship Program, organised by Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Associate Iberia Pérez González