The Loisaida Center is proud to announce
2018 Artistic Residency Recipient:
ANTHONY ROSADO
Testourmonials Project
Spring 2018
Overview:
In effort to honor Indigenous Caribbean ancestors while providing their descendants with the legitimacy and empowerment of cultural identity, The Tes-tour-monials Project by Anthony Rosado will research, draft, and present an Indigena Caribe Heritage Day that intends on one day being celebrated internationally. As Founder and Artistic Director of The Tes-tour-monials Project I will develop a campaign and build a case to support city-wide, national, and international celebration of Caribbean Heritage.
The project aims to research, archive, and memorialize the herstory, history, principles, spirituality, practices, and core values of the native peoples of the Caribbean. Following research, the “Ní’Tiñao Heritage Day – Celebration Model” will be drafted. This model will be shared with organizations indigenous to the Ní’Tiñao via interviews, as well as a community engagement workshop and performance components.
Descendants will learn of traditions, practices, values, and foods cultivated by ancestors whose stories are made accessible. The model will consequently be redrafted considering review by active members of the Arawak Tainx community and their modern day practices. Once the model is complete, a proposal will be drafted and campaign launched to consider the “Ní’Tiñao Heritage Day” an annual city-wide, then state-wide, thereafter country-wide, and finally internationally recognized holiday. The holiday will be presented during Summer 2018 via promotion during events, workshops, festivals, and more hosted by organizations who supported the holiday’s culmination.
Goals:
Project aims to use the researched and archived history, herstory, principles, spiritual practices, and core values of the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean as means to follow the “Native Caribbean Day – Celebration Model” being drafted. The Tes-tour-monials Project will host an exhibition at Loisaida Inc. Center opening Monday, March 26 – 30, 2018. The exhibition will be relaying information, sources, reflections, visual art, commissioned photography, and an installation to share the research.
During the research and development phase of the residency, the artist conducted Open Studio Visits every Thursday from 3-6pm.
Outcome: Exhibit:
Restoring the Heart of Ní’Tiñao*
March 23rd through April 26th 2018
Anthony Rosado’s work focuses on historical, indigenous Caribbean definitions of identity and the influence of their values, spirituality, horticulture, and language today, as well as our relation to these definitions right here in Loisaida. His exhibition aims to refute euro-colonial claims that the Ní’Tiñao were a divided peoples who went extinct. Via art and storytelling, We Exist, he tells us.
*Ní'Tiñao means "relative; friend; progenitor" in Kalinago, and is eponymous with the Taíno peoples of the Caribbean.
About the artist:
After graduating Trinity College with a B.A. in theater and dance, Rosado performed in works by Anabella Lenzu, Deborah Goffe of Scapegoat Garden, Lindsey Dietz Marchant, Carmen Caceres of Dance Action, and Leyya Mona Tawil of Dance Elixr. He studied with George Emilio Sanchez during Hemispheric Institute‘s Summer 2015 EMERGENYCPerformer’s Program.
Rosado has choreographed performances for Ange Noir Café via Chez Bushwick’s ’24 hour Choreographer’s Project’, Issue Project Room & the Eden’s Expressway Open Performance Series via Movement Research, Bronx Academy of Arts & Dance via their Blaktinx 2015 & Out Like That! 2016 Performance Series & Dancing While Black’s Masculinities Reborn Series, Gallatin Arts Festival‘s Black Lives Matter series, The Moon Show, and The Judson Church Open Performance Series.
As curator, Anthony has presented the “Universal Humyn Love Series” at Make the Road NY, the “#NativeBushwick Artist Lecture Series” at Brooklyn Fire Proof, here at the Loisaida Center, and Progress in Five Myles Gallery. He was a 2016 artist-in-residence with Chez Bushwick and is currently the 2018 artist-in-residence at the Loisaida Center. Anthony is also curating and organizing group-led workshops, performances, and discussion series as founder of the Testourmonials Project
“Opinions like those expressed while in a panel, presentation, performance or through artwork are expressed by the author in their personal capacity and are the author’s own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of Loisaida Inc., its affiliates or staff.”