Transcommunality

“Transcommunality” focuses on the decade-long project she pursued with stilt-walking communities in Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, and Brooklyn. “The Transcommunality exhibition aims to connect various cultures through the platform of contemporary art in order to initiate collaborations, exchange, and knowledge. Through this exercise of shared experiences and cultures, we are able to recognize and value each tradition as its own manifestation, which connects us to the past while projecting us towards a future in which all voices have a place and are supported by each other,” says the artist. The show includes dynamic costumes, stilts, maquettes, videos, and photographs that relate her commitment to performance, social practice, and her long-term engagement with distinctive creative communities. “Transcommunality” highlights the vitality of the moko jumbie stilt-walking tradition and demonstrates the possibility of using this storied art form as a platform for social contemporary performance, group participation, and protest. The word “moko” is derived from the name of an African deity, and “jumbie” is a West Indian word for “spirit” or “ghost.” Amy Galpin, Curator of the Cornell Fine Arts Museum comments, “For fifteen years, I have been following the work of Laura Anderson Barbata. It is an honor to share her Transcommunality project with Central Florida. Anderson Barbata’s imaginative and ethereal works included in this exhibition are the result of powerful collaborations between distinctive communities and suggest both the perseverance and evolution of tradition.”

-ArtDistricts

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