Writing — Holly Bynoe

Essays, Articles & Musings

–

These writings have been caught in the ladder of my throat for years. They have stumbled in obscurity, tumbled with insecurity, illuminated the path of curiosity for many creatives and now they are making light into this world as a way for me to define presence, criticality and engagement more holistically. Sharing is a lesson in generosity and truth-telling.

This is an assemblage of current and past work from the last fifteen years and is a glimpse into the microcosms of informal art spaces and institutional bodies across the Caribbean and further afield. The words, reflections, exposés and travelogues are portals to other ways of being, understanding and coming to terms with our post-colonial contexts, inherent messiness and transformation.

2021-2022 MoMA International Curatorial Institute Fellow

2021-2022 MoMA International Curatorial Institute Fellow

I am so grateful to have been selected to participate in this year's MoMA The Museum of Modern Art International Program for the 2021 iteration of the Center for Curatorial Leadership (CCL)—International Curatorial Institute. The two-week intensive programme comprises a cohort of 14 senior curators from the MoMA and other curators dispersed worldwide, focusing on areas that are oftentimes blind spots to the Western hegemonic gaze, including influential and creative minds from the Global South.

FellowshipsHolly BynoeMarch 27, 2021MoMA ICI Fellow, Center for Curatorial LeadershipComment

In Conversation: Heritage of Future Past

In Conversation: Heritage of Future Past

The three-day online event Heritage of Future Past curated by the British Council will highlight the value of cultural heritage and its contemporary relevance. Conversations will explore the links between heritage, history and power from the perspective of cultural workers who might continue to grapple with the vestiges of imperial legacies that remain in the Caribbean among other geographies.

TidingsHolly BynoeMarch 27, 2021in conversation, heritage of future pastComment

Letter #1: Throwing seeds, manifesting dreams

Letter #1: Throwing seeds, manifesting dreams

If this all feels like spinning plates, then I have managed to share a large part of my creative process, which involves listening in, being patient, taking risks and daydreaming.

MusingsHolly BynoeMarch 10, 20212020, year of infamy Comment

Beginning and End

Beginning and End

I can barely imagine what it looked like back then: sparsely populated, rolling hills of dry sour grass, small wooden houses with kitchens and tanks as extensions, thatched galvanized roofs, pineapple skirts on mothers, schooner filled harbours, wharf-less shores.

MusingsHolly BynoeMarch 10, 2021spiritual awakening, memory, childhoodComment

A Sense of Place

A Sense of Place

Through this controlled retreat into the past, I explore the fragments of souls given voice again to reflect on territory, on the encircling salt that courses through veins, and on the ever slowly travelling being back and forth wondering and wandering within waves.

MusingsHolly BynoeMarch 10, 2021sense of place, memoryComment

Still Ringing: A project unrealised with John Beadle (1964-2024)

Still Ringing: A project unrealised with John Beadle (1964-2024)

This is a project that wasn’t realized.
It sat in the walls of the museum for weeks before it found its home elsewhere.
It was uncomfortable in space.
It was the one of many orphaned to the institution, yet it is still sounding,
resounding.
A warning and a battle cry.
Bodies are no longer held in check, here they run...they make noise and are unafraid.

EssayHolly BynoeMarch 8, 2021CuratorComment

Bush Medicine Revival

Bush Medicine Revival

“Bush Medicine Revival” uses medicinal yards and storytelling for community healing and environmental stewardship via the recovery of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in the small island community of Bequia, St Vincent and the Grenadines.

TidingsHolly BynoeMarch 5, 2021bush medicine revival, the hub collectiveComment

Announcing, Sour Grass

Announcing, Sour Grass

Sour Grass is a team of creative facilitators who seek to work with visual artists in the Caribbean and across its diasporas, to build relationships with museums, institutions, collectors, biennales, and private and public entities through the development of curatorial projects, seminars, publications, workshops, mentorship initiatives, alternative pedagogy, and various types of discursive programming.

Sour Grass will act as an advisory and bridge to Caribbean-based and international cultural institutions and we will be sharing more news about the platform soon.

TidingsHolly BynoeFebruary 23, 2021Sour GrassComment

Interview: On her own Terms

Interview: On her own Terms

Bahamian Art & Culture shares an exclusive and intimate interview, as I reflect on the work done after four + years as Chief Curator of NAGB. I share my experiences while at the institution, thoughts on the Bahamian art community, all-around successes and regrets, what I would have done differently.

InterviewHolly BynoeNovember 29, 2020CuratorComment

CATALYST: Harmonising Actions and Trust Building in the Caribbean Creative Ecology

CATALYST: Harmonising Actions and Trust Building in the Caribbean Creative Ecology

Martinican poet and philosopher, Édouard Glissant, spoke of a rhizome—a type of powerful lateral-growing root system—and, just like this, we are able to move underground into the subterranean and sprout new growth to transform and shift our spaces. To be innovative, excellent and meet the magic and intensity of our creative minds let's put courage, truth and integrity as the values by which we measure all of our actions.

ReportHolly BynoeNovember 21, 2020orange economy, CATALYSTComment

Videobrasil: Witnessing the Agency of Cultural Diplomacy

Videobrasil: Witnessing the Agency of Cultural Diplomacy

This is a recount from the 18th International Contemporary Art Festival SESC_Videobrasil in 2014 and is a mishmash of travelogue, diary and critical reflection. This first instalment situates itself in the immense physical & cultural landscape that is São Paulo—a city simultaneously worlds away from the Caribbean, yet sharing an undeniable South-South connection—and begins to unravel the deep-rooted impacts of exchange.

TidingsHolly BynoeJuly 24, 2020Videobrasil, WriterComment

Deep Ends

Deep Ends

Prospect New Orleans’ biennial Prospect.3: Notes for Now (P.3) was a phenomenal undertaking curated by Franklin Sirmans that looked at the multifaceted history of New Orleans through cross-cultural perspectives. This photo essay is an encounter which left an indelible mark on me as a searcher, prompting introspection about New Orleans’ unique position in the global North/South polemic.

TidingsHolly BynoeJune 1, 2020Prospect New Orleans, WriterComment

Conversations in Isolation

Conversations in Isolation

"Conversations in Isolation" is a series of ongoing dialogues with artists, writers, social scientists, queer activists, curatorial collectives, historians and indigenous thinkers, around the effects of COVID-19 in our local and global contexts from a Central American and Caribbean perspective. These conversations published periodically in Buchaca Generosa [Generous Pocket], a biweekly digital magazine edited by Daniela Morales Lisac and M. Paola Malavasi, and published by TEOR/éTica. For Buchaca #4, I speak with Miguel A. Lopez about implications for the Caribbean creative ecology and more personally towards the opportunity of this moment.

InterviewHolly BynoeMay 25, 2020Conversations from Isolation, Miguel Lopez, CuratorComment

In Defence of Sour Grass

In Defence of Sour Grass

Bothriochloa pertusa or Barbados sour grass was introduced into the region as pasture and grazing options for livestock. This is a plant with polarity and duality, being steadfast in its uprightness during each dry season, yet extending the structure underground to help reduce soil erosion once rainfall returns to the parched territories. Barbadian artist, Annalee Davis, finds this plant underfoot during her morning walks and connects it to the remediation of the land and the quiet revolution that is happening within the internal landscape.

EssayHolly BynoeMay 25, 2020Sour Grass, WriterComment

Towards Opacity

Towards Opacity

Opacity is not transparency. Opacity is not an imposition from the West. Instead, it is an inward turning engagement with self, a knowing that allows space and being to be rendered with the past, present and future simultaneously.

EssayHolly BynoeMay 25, 2020Comment

Epitaph

Epitaph

In 2010 the lesson was death.
I inherited the gift of ARC through death.
It emerged from ash, from the salt and body of life, to find its own breath, colour and witness.
And now, it returns to ash.

EssayHolly BynoeMay 25, 2020ARC magazine, ArtistComment

An Autopsy on Awakening

An Autopsy on Awakening

In her solo exhibition ‘...there are always two deaths’ Tessa Whitehead speaks towards the landscape, violence, cycles of life and the inner workings of nature in conjunction with the sacred feminine. This writing takes us into her world of myth, magic, family trees, secrets and transformations.

EssayHolly BynoeMay 25, 2020CuratorComment

Son of the Soil

Son of the Soil

Storytelling, mythology and ritual are at the heart of Lavar Munroe’s practice. The narrative arc of ‘Son of the Soil’ parallels Joseph Campbell’s ‘Monomyth’, where the hero embarks on an adventure, finds mentorship and hones in on skills while sinking ever deeper into the abyss, until he is sharpened in the darkness to ascend from the unknown realm of spirit with new gifts. How does one learn from the hard lessons of the loss we encounter during the hero’s return? Here, the cycle is exposed, articulated and formed.

EssayHolly BynoeMay 25, 2020Lavar Munroe, CuratorComment

Unpacking Identity

Unpacking Identity

National institutions in the Caribbean are in a unique position to focus on expanding beyond the "National," by cultivating an ethos that impacts its local audiences that can be felt beyond their shores through dynamic programming which remains critical of its position, history and stories. Dominican artist Joiri Minaya unearths the intention behind her socio/political and feminist pracitce as a part of the Double Dutch series of intra-Caribbean exhibitions.

InterviewHolly BynoeMay 25, 2020CuratorComment