Grenadian artist Suelin Low Chew Tung’s solo exhibition entitled ‘I Dream of Grenada…in other places’ opens at the Grenada National Museum on July 23, 2014, from 6-8pm, and runs through July 25. The show is an opportunity to help support her upcoming trip to Europe, where she will engage her creative practice and give a presentation on art in Grenada. In the following article, she shares a personal statement about ‘home’ as an experience that is transported with her when she travels, and the ways in which she can find resonances of home beyond the shores of Grenada. Low Chew Tung also presents dreaming and art making as complementary acts that can speak to opening up possibilities and intentions to make a positive difference on the island of Grenada. Read her full statement below:
I Dream of Grenada… in other places, is just that. I carry home with me when I travel, and speak about it often, drawing similarities to my present locations, and noting the differences, to return home to share what I have observed with the local artistic community.
On 29 July, 2014, I leave Grenada to paint in Eastern Europe with artists from across the globe, who will all meet for cultural and creative exchange. The invitations came from previous artist networks built at art camps in Ordino, Andorra (2008) and Petion Ville, Haiti (2013). At both camps, I was the only one from the southern Caribbean, and it is possible I will also be the sole Caribbean representative in Slovenia and Romania.
Eight days in Kamnik Slovenia, at the Velika Planina Artists Workshop, courtesy the Tone Kranjc Artist Association, will be followed by two weeks in Aiud, Romania, at the 19th Inter-Art Foundation International art camp. In Aiud, I have been invited to do a solo exhibit, as well as a 15-minute presentation on art in Grenada. Both art camps provide accommodation, lodging and materials. I am responsible for travel and visa expenses.
The Grenada National Lotteries Authority, family and friends have generously given support towards my travel. I also created an online crowdfunding campaign to raise USD 2000 towards return airfare and internal transport, crossing 5 countries: England, Spain, Italy, Slovenia and Romania. I was thrilled when the campaign raised 95% of the funds, and distressed when I had to refund the monies, because, despite having a US bank account, I did not have a Social Security Number, and so could not access the funds.
I Dream of Grenada… in other places is a three-day exhibition of works which represent some of the countries I have been to, participating in women’s conferences, art policy workshops, and so on. The exhibition opens Wednesday 23 July at the Grenada National Museum, with 20 paintings plus a photo presentation and artist talk.
In a small island state with so much untapped artistic talent, a place the world talks little about (apart from the revolution years, and especially after the Granada-Grenada mix up), my dreaming contemplates the possibility of doing something here – a city-wide public art programme to enliven and add interest to the capital, for example, as I have seen in several world cities. The simple stories which accompany my paintings describe my thoughts on location, my contemplating the Grenada possibility.
Suelin Low Chew Tung, I Dream in Melbourne.
Suelin Low Chew Tung, I Dream in Melbourne 2.
The dreaming also speaks to cultural connections that remind me of home. I Dream in Melbourne 1, 2 were both inspired by my 2011 trip to Melbourne to attend the IFACCA 6th World Summit on Arts and Culture. The rituals, symbols and designs of the Aboriginal Dreamtime really resonated with me. Our first peoples – the island Amerindians – probably had a similar dreaming, and elements of this untold story are in the over 100 petroglyphs carved on rocks across Grenada, which I have yet to fully explore.
In 2008 I was at a Vital Voices Summit of the Americas global women empowering conference, having tea with one of the Argentine delegation. We were served tiny roast beef sandwiches and I asked if Argentinians ate much corned beef, because tinned corned beef is standard fare at home. “Corned beef? Why would we eat that, when we have grass fed fresh beef?” was the reply. And yes, they do have the most marvelous, mouthwatering beef steak. In a city where many of the streets are named after women, I Dream in Buenos Aires notes that conversation.
… in other places can also mean domestically. I Dream in Carriacou (one of our Grenadines) for example, is of an open window in a battered wall, all that remained of a building of some sort, along the main road in Hillsborough. Through it I could see the sea, and next to it, a man was selling fish and fruit. Carriacou is the unspoiled, genteel Grenada.
My exhibition is titled I Dream of Grenada… in other places. Sales from the show will support my Slovenia-Romania residency. By purchasing artwork and/or by gifting USD 50 or more, as a Thank You, sponsors will receive a link/pdf of blog posts made during the art camps. Additionally, for support of USD 100 or more, sponsors will receive an original unstretched, unmounted painting created in Slovenia or Romania… and I will have 5 more countries, 5 more places, in which to dream of Grenada.
Suelin Low Chew Tung, I Dream in Carriacou.
About Suelin Low Chew Tung
Suelin Low Chew Tung is a mixed media artist from Grenada. She uses acrylics and oil pastels with other media, applied to canvas and repurposed construction waste. She has recently concluded an extended artist residency at her studio with Haitian colleague Jean Renel Pierre Louis, whom she met at an art camp in Haiti last year. She has participated in group exhibitions in Grenada, Haiti, Trinidad, Andorra, Shanghai and the US, as well as three editions of the Biennal d’Art de Corbera d’Ebre in Tarragona Spain.
Grenada’s Traditional Mas characters feature strongly in her works, as seen in two solo exhibitions Bois Causeur (Wood Talker) 2012 at the Grenada National Museum and ICON: ShortKnee as Art, 2011 at the Grenada Arts Council. Her exploration of the carnival ShortKnee takes indigenous performance art from the streets of Grenada and translates it onto canvas and other surfaces. She has positioned the ShortKnee as a central figure in several of her Caribbean studies conference papers, three of which have been published. She is also the author of A Patch of Bare Earth – short stories of the Human Grenadian Landscape, which was recently reviewed in the March 2014 edition of Caribbean Quarterly.