Samantha Brown

Spirit is a mixed media installation as PhotoIreland  Festival Relay Mentoring Project 2023 project exploring the themes of my own personal history from Caribbean parentage though disjointed stories. Fragments of the past, the historical telling of world history and its problematic lens of the enslavement trade. Reincorporating my own family history into the landscape of the project using archival material.

Sowing nature into the fabric of the these lost and past memories.

Using Irish native plants as a commentary on indigenous way of life and its medicinal properties. Spirit seeks to embody three notions entailing the spirit of my grandmother's and my non relationship to them.

To the spirit of those taken over the Middle Passage through the lens of the European retelling of history.

The spirit of plants which crossed over with people ensuring their survival into our current food culture. The okra seed was transported in the braids of the ancestors before crossing The Middle Passage. Which has spread globally into Caribbean, creole, and asian dishes.

Yarrow is an indigenous plant found on roadsides and wasteland. Its spirit speaks through its healing properties and folklore. Achilles was said to use it on the battlefield for the wounded, no such luck for him.

Seeds in hair or blown on a wind take root and thrive despite the conditions in which they find themselves. The same can be said of the ancestors whose spirit lives on in the DNA of our day to day existence.

Spirit

Middle Passage Series

This project is in collaboration with Afrobeat musician Gboyega Akerele during our discussions. I wanted to explore the connection of our shared heritage. Many years previously I did DNA to discover some family roots leading me to Nigeria and The Yoruba tribe. Gboyega Akerele was born in Nigeria and therefore has closer family ties to the country. Listening to his music inspired me to walk to the local river, leading me to thoughts of the many people that had traveled by sea in many different forms. Whether as migrants, travellers or explorers.

Middle Passage is in reference to the stage of the triangular trade in which millions of Africans were forcibly transported to the New World as part of the Atlanic slave trade. Combining imagery of the local Irish landscape with text from various authors and their perspective of the enslavement trade. From Lucille Clifton, Derek Walcott, poets, historians, sailors and enslaved people tell their story of the Middle Passage.

As part of Centre for Creative Practices I created this work as a response to the collaboration project New Voices of Ireland Series 8. Migrant artists from various countries Nigeria, South Africa, Romania, Pakistan, Greece, Iran and Ireland and from many different disciplines music, painting, performance, sculpture and photography. Collaborations were formed to create new work under the current COVID goverment guidelines. Very few face to face meetings took place. Ideas were exchanged over Zoom, messages and email.

Listening to Nigerian born Gboyega Akerle Afrobeat lyrics inspired me to take a walk to the local stream, climbing over the fence to watch the still water. I myself through a DNA search discovered that I have Nigerian ancestry thought about the sea and its many travellers in different forms. Taking photographs of the local areas of water in Blackrock and Dundalk Co. Louth. Combined with text from various storytellers on the history of the slave trade using the routes from Europe to Africa to the Americas called the Middle Passage.

Middle Passage Series

Middle Passage Series

Middle Passage Series

Middle Passage Series

Drowning Series

Online PoetryXCollage residency Kolaj Institute, New Orleans

Drowning

Waves page layout PoetryXcollage Journal

Centos Poem PoetryXcollage Journal

Botany of Silence Collage Series

Incorporating my documentary images with research material from social media sites, archival, and the historical context of  the British shoe making industry in the Republic of Ireland. 

Recontextualising  the female workers with the demolition site images while erasing the the male gendered form further repositions the female in the workplace environment.

Solemates II

Miriam Multiplied

All that Alice Clark surveys

Teabreak

Reunion

Ann recurring