Unstoppable Yes You

Gherdai Hassell is a contemporary artist, writer, and storyteller who celebrates Black females through multimedia and collage-like art. The 2022 Winner of the Best of Bermuda Visual Artist Award and has participated in solo and group exhibitions in her home country, Cape Town, South Africa, the United States, and China. Gherdai received an MFA from the China Academy of Art and currently lives in Manchester, UK.

In this episode, learn how Gherdai ties her experiences and academic research to cultural, historical, and political understandings to create unexpected narratives surrounding identity.

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For Martiniquais artist Lionel Perrot, painting is an opportunity to let go to the rhythm of the music that systematically accompanies his creative process. Lionel let himself get carried away by the color, canvas, and tools. The modern artist has exhibited locally and hopes to one day take his works to an international stage.

In this episode, Lionel Perrot gives us an introduction to the origin of his works.

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Akilah Watts is a 27-year-old contemporary artist from St. James, Barbados. Her life-like portraits draw inspiration from her personal life, as she recreates images of her childhood in the backdrop of the island's beautiful scenery. In 2022, Akilah completed a residency with ArtleadHER and the Monira Foundation. She has exhibited locally and internationally - from New York to San Francisco to Miami.

In this episode, hear how Akilah is pushing the age-old portraiture genre in new directions.

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For over a decade, Trinidadian-Korean impressionist artist Marissa Lee has been perfecting her work, which consist of portraits and figures in oil, watercolor, charcoal and pastel. Known for her oil portraits of Caribbean Mas performers, Marissa draws inspiration from the connections with her subjects. Marissa's work has been exhibited locally and internationally, including the Art Society of Trinidad & Tobago, the Coco Vivo Gallery in Charleston, South Carolina, and the Rotunda Gallery.

Learn how Marissa brings her ideas to life.

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Virgin Islands native Ama Dennis had an interest in art for as long as she can remember. So upon her return to the Virgin Islands after hurricane Maria, she made a career change from electrical engineering to photography. Today, she showcases the beauty of her hometown and its rich history and culture in her gallery.

In this episode Alma shares how she made the transition successfully.

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April Bey is a Bahamian-American visual artist whose work represents icons and anti-heroes of Bahamian and American culture and contemporary pop culture. April's work is crafted around the perspective of the fictional planet Atlantica, an Afrofuturist alien world which redefines Blackness outside the context of white supremacy and colonial suffering.

Listen to this episode to learn how April uses painting, printmaking, collage, and video to broaden her vision for acts of reparation.

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Kishawnie Henry grew up in the Paul M. Pearson Gardens housing projects, also known as the ghettos, in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. He became a product of his environment and was shot and paralyzed at seventeen.

While writing music was Kishawnie's first love, he decided to explore his talent as an author. In this episode, Kishawnie discusses his upbringing, and how it influenced his debut novel, Dark Paradise. 

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Shakirah Bourne is an award-winning author and filmmaker based in Barbados. Her novel, a Caribbean middle-grade fantasy, Josephine Against The Sea, was published by Scholastic, a multinational publishing and media company, as part of a three-book deal. It also won the School Library Journal Best Book of 2021 Award.

In this episode, Shakirah talks with host Curlis Phillip about the authors who influenced her work, her inspiration for the Caribbean folklore Josephine Against The Sea, and how publishing her first novel influenced her writing process including embracing her Bajan dialect.

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Sharma Taylor is a lawyer by profession and a writer by passion. This celebrated Jamaican author won the 2020 Frank Collymore Literary Endowment Prize for her collection of short stories. She was also the winner of the 2019 Bocas Literary Festival's Johnson and Amoy Achong Caribbean Writers Prize for emerging writers and was shortlisted four times for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize.

In this episode, Sharma discusses her debut novel, What a Mother's Love Teaches You, which has been described as a powerful story of belonging, identity, and inheritance. She also offers tips on how to select a literary agent and get a book deal.

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Jeunanne Alkins is a prize-winning author and creative director from Trinidad and Tobago. She is passionate about design and the difference it can make in how children learn. Jeunanne has published three children’s books, including The Most Magnificent Stories, which launched May 2022.

In this episode, we talk with Jeunanne to learn how she channels the spirit of her Caribbean childhood in her books to showcase the little things that make these islands special. 

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