Artist Biography:
Simon Benjamin is a Jamaican multidisciplinary artist whose work encompasses installation, sculpture, video, photography, and printmaking. His practice often considers how current realities are shaped by both visible and less visible histories. His work has been included in exhibitions and screenings at Documenta 15, Kassel, Germany (2022 – forthcoming); Kingston Biennial, Jamaica (2022 – forthcoming); Trinidad & Tobago Film Festival, Trinidad and Tobago (2021); NYU Gallatin at Governors Island, New York NY (2021); 92nd Street Y, New York, NY (2020); the Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn, NY (2019); Hunter East Harlem Gallery, New York, NY (2019); the Ghetto Biennial, Port-au-Prince, Haiti (2018); the Jamaica Biennial, Kingston, Jamaica (2017); New Local Space Kingston, Jamaica (2016); and Columbia University, New York, NY (2016).
Statement:
Simon Benjamin is a Jamaican artist and filmmaker living in New York, whose work includes experiential installations, photography, film, and sculpture. Through research, oral history, and critical fabulation, he calls attention to the contradictions entangled in the enduring myths and images of the Caribbean as tropical paradise–a carefully constructed imaginary that replaced the harsh reality of the exploitative plantation. With the intention of moving beyond critique and pointing to systems and power – he creates open-ended poetic and lyrical moving images and objects, which bring together the immaterial and the tactile. Rethinking the relationship of margin to center in archival representation, vernacular materials, such as cornmeal and fish traps, become sculptural elements, embedding multiple temporalities and narratives.
Artist Website: http://www.simonbenjamin.com/