Photographs
by Jeffrey Chock
Michael Lee Poy is a current participant on the Local Artist-in-Residency Programme
at CCA7, Centre for the Contemporary Arts. On Tuesday 6th May, in conjunction
with his joint Artist Talk with Venezuelan artist, Jeanette Ramirez, he presents
‘en route(s)’ on the Wall Space at CCA7. ‘En Route(s)’
is an assemblage of projects based on ideas surrounding identity, as a result
of cultural displacement and familial migration.
The Residency Programme, along with other fundamental resources, allowed Lee Poy, who was raised in Canada, of Trinidadian parents, the opportunity to surround himself with the roots of his family heritage, an understanding of his parents, himself and coming "home". Almost an understanding of being Trinidadian.
He says "the Caribbean historically is a locus of displacement. It is a place of constant migration. What is the sense of home? Where is home? What is identity? How is home made? Systems are not lost in travel, on a boat ride, on a plane trip." There are many West Indians who travel far and wide, and tend to refer to the West Indies as "home", no matter how many years they have lived away.
For example, the nomads of the Sahara exist seemingly in a constant state of flux, and have survived for centuries following sources of food and water. They move between, around and through "official" boundaries and frameworks by choice and not by necessity. Their landscape is some of the harshest in the world. Their space is matrilinear and gendered: women construct the architecture that they build. The women are the cultural carriers, and the technology for living is passed on from mother to daughter which support the essential rituals of living, using the available resources at hand for packing, unpacking, cooking, building and birthing. This methodology is specific to a geographical area and a people.
In this scenario, "home" is no linger a physical place, but a series of intermingling systems – languages, gestures, colours and rituals, etc. In a local sense, it brings to mind our own complex society with its input from many nations. One only has to look at our wealth of culinary treats – toolum, kurma, salted prunes and jub jubs.