Caribbean folklore illustrated
‘Spider-like imagination’ … Keisha Scarville’s Within/Between/Corpus (1), 2020
2022 Egg/Statue
The Caribbean limbo dance serves as the inspiration for Keisha Scarville's debut show in the UK, which also features abstract sculpture and photography. Hot/Slow/Step investigates black subjectivity via metaphors of movement, negotiation, and trade using narrative frameworks and archive material. The Huxley-Parlour Gallery in London is hosting Hot/Slow/Step until October 11. All photos are by Keisha Scarville and are provided by Huxley-Parlour.
2022, Between/Within/Corpus (18)
The Middle Passage, the forced migration of enslaved Africans over the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas, gave rise to the Caribbean limbo dance, which Guyanese novelist Wilson Harris characterized as "a metamorphosis or new spatial character" in Scarville's exhibition.
The Middle Passage, the forced migration of enslaved Africans over the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas, gave rise to the Caribbean limbo dance, which Guyanese novelist Wilson Harris characterized as "a metamorphosis or new spatial character" in Scarville's exhibition.
2022, Between/Within/Corpus (19)
"The limbo dancer moves under a bar that is gradually lowered until only what appears to be a slit of space remains through which he passes like a spider" As a folk expression of Caribbean imagination and a "gateway or threshold to a new world," Harris sees the limbo dance. However, more importantly, he sees it as a matrix that encompasses histories of conquest and imperialism across civic boundaries, specifically Caribbean, African, and Amerindian experiences.
"The limbo dancer moves under a bar that is gradually lowered until only what appears to be a slit of space remains through which he passes like a spider" As a folk expression of Caribbean imagination and a "gateway or threshold to a new world," Harris sees the limbo dance. However, more importantly, he sees it as a matrix that encompasses histories of conquest and imperialism across civic boundaries, specifically Caribbean, African, and Amerindian experiences.
14th grade negotiation/maneuver, 2022
The show is framed by a limbo line, both literally and conceptually. Scarville explores the image plane in abstract photography as a place where the body may be re-articulated, changed, and re-calibrated.
The show is framed by a limbo line, both literally and conceptually. Scarville explores the image plane in abstract photography as a place where the body may be re-articulated, changed, and re-calibrated.
2020 Composition, Journey, and Plantation
This illustration from the textbook of Scarville's nephew, who is being asked to hypothetically envisage life on a plantation, discusses the limits of the imagination. It is supposed to be exhibited vertically.
This illustration from the textbook of Scarville's nephew, who is being asked to hypothetically envisage life on a plantation, discusses the limits of the imagination. It is supposed to be exhibited vertically.
2020: Negotiating/Maneuver (3)
The last words of Barbadian poet Kamau Braithwaite's work Caliban serve as the inspiration for the title of Hot/Slow/Step.
The last words of Barbadian poet Kamau Braithwaite's work Caliban serve as the inspiration for the title of Hot/Slow/Step.
2020 Within/Between/Corpus
The FSU Museum of Fine Arts in Tallahassee, Florida, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC, the Center for Photography in Woodstock, New York, the Yale University Art Gallery, and the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York, among other institutions, all have collections of Keisha Scarville's work. Brooklyn is where she lives and works.
2020 Hand/Wall
Scarville attended Parsons School of Design/The New School and received her BS from Rochester Institute of Technology.
Scarville attended Parsons School of Design/The New School and received her BS from Rochester Institute of Technology.
Between/Within/Corpus (13), 2022
The show concludes with a picture of a limbo line becoming tangled up like a web of spiders, alluding to the "human spiders" in Harris's limbo fantasies.
The show concludes with a picture of a limbo line becoming tangled up like a web of spiders, alluding to the "human spiders" in Harris's limbo fantasies.
Thanks to The Guardian whose reporting provided the original basis for this story.
