Halina Edwards: Two Worlds Between

31 May to 30 June 2024

Opening: 6 to 9 p.m. on Thursday 30 May 2024

Warm candy pink floorboards guide you up the stairs of a renovated grade two listed Georgian building. Walking up the last level of balustraded steps, your eyes are drawn diagonally towards a beacon. It is a modest hexagon, but its carnivalesque stripes of red, green, black, gold, and white call you in. You cross the threshold into a white space that harbours embedded histories in the fabric of its walls and beams. Nylon stretches, traces, knots and holds the folds of the wooden sleeper. An envelopment, in which the building is hosted parasitically by the fabric. Your gaze is pulled down towards a constellation of bamboo and string, a kite that could also act as a shield or shelter. Another body enters the space, setting off a flickering in your field of vision. You turn towards the undulating landscape of black chiffon, the smoky bubbles of which cast shadows on the wall and floor.

You are between the walls of Steam Works gallery, previously a steam engine factory built during the industrial revolution. A historic period that connects the two locations of St. Andrew Parish (Jamaica) and Dudley (UK), through a network of iron manufacture and enslavement. Black Country (2010 – 2024) is a hand manipulated textile that implicates a terrain of extraction and soot, in which Dudley is rendered ghost-like as it casts shadows back on itself. A haunting that reminds us of when iron was manufactured in the Caribbean but then, in fear of it being used in a revolt, was brought back to towns in the UK, such as Dudley.

The beacon Home Colours (2022) was constructed by Edwards for the St. Mary Kite & Food Festival in Jamaica. It's paper skin juxtaposes the colours of the two worlds that Edwards finds herself between, the country of her birth and the region of her upbringing. Black, gold and green are taken from the Jamaican flag and interpolated with the colours of red, black and white, which correspond to the Black Country. These coloured stripes form the shape of a star, which represents the emancipation from enslavement that can also be found in the Ghanaian flag. Facing each other are two kite frames, which hold the choreography of movements that is archived in Edwards’ body when making. Starting with two bamboo sticks crossing over each other, she weaves the string into a lattice to make a base at the heart of the form. This tradition can be traced through these materials and processes back to previous familial preparations for kite festivals in the Caribbean.

Stretched across and wrapped around the beams are a range of nylon tights that provide a score for a nude tonality of blackness. Body Mapping (2024) is a site-responsive work that captures an improvised performance. A performance that is conducted between the dimensions of the space, property of the materials and Edwards’ manipulation of them. Tights that usually cover legs, or perform femininity, turn into their own worlds. Ladders, curves, ties and tensions become dimensions and portals to experience the differing textures and tones of our cosmetic skins.

Adorned with trinkets passed down through her maternal line, from grandmother and mother to Edwards’ own collection of memory objects, is the vessel Mother Made Me (Memory Jug) (2024). Holding water, this memory jug draws from Africa’s Bakongo culture, which influenced enslaved communities in America and the Caribbean. The Bakongo tradition believes that the spirit world is upside down and that we are connected to it by water. They decorated graves with water bearing items (shells, vessels, pitchers, jugs or vases) which would help the deceased through the watery world to the afterlife. Items were broken to release the loved one’s spirit, to make the journey smoother. Encrusted on Mother Made Me, you might locate the brooch that is missing a black gemstone with other stones ageing over time which is from Edwards’ grandmother. Or you may find a lid from her mother’s Elizabeth Arden perfume lid that still holds the scent. You will see beads of all shades, reminiscent of Edwards’ mother that signals a textile background in the home.

Recent work: Vital Arts for The Royal London Hospital and UNIQLO Arigato Festival