THE SPIRIT OF CARNIVAL
PHOTOGRAPHY INSTALLATION CURATED BY HARPER BELLA
Open June - November 2023
FABRICATED BY TOM BAUMANN TURTLE GRAPHX
SPONSORED BY CREATIVES REBUILD NEW YORK ARTIST EMPLOYMENT PROGRAM
FEATURING THE WORK OF FOUR PHOTOGRAPHERS
Harper Bella
Installation Curator, Designer, and Featured Artist
Harper Bella is an award-winning fine art photographer and curator in New York City. Her practice pulls from historical data and the lives of contemporary Black people to create narratives through her striking photographs. These works illuminate the multifaceted world of the Black experience in the United States.
Bella’s photography has appeared at the Rockefeller Center, the Museum of Contemporary Arts in Long Island, Miami Art Week, both private and public collections, as well as multiple publications. Her international shows include events in Spain, Italy, and London. Bella is the recipient of various grants, including the Creatives Rebuild New York and the 2022 Demystifying NFT Award.
Today, Bella is the current curator for the Babylon Citizens Council on the Arts, where she champions underrepresented voices.
Website: harperbella.com
IG: @harperbella.jpg
Jaadyn Rogers
Featured Artist
Jaadyn Rogers, originally from Long Island, New York, is a creator who has developed their artistic skills from the tender age of three. Being immersed in the world of theatre, and now conceptual photography, has been their path, a developed skill and moreover, a deep passion for them. Jaadyn is currently pursuing a B.F.A in Theatre Arts Administration at Howard University where they continue to hone and develop their craft as a creator; together with an insight to the managerial aspects of theatre and film. Their goal is to use their skills and talents to curate creative visions meant to challenge and inform all viewers; in hopes of leaving a perennial mark.
Website: https://jaadynrogers.wixsite.com/creativeportfolio
IG: @jaa.dyn
Leah Gordon
Featured Artist
Leah Gordon (born Ellesmere Port, UK) is an artist, curator, and writer. Her work explores the intervolved and intersectional histories of the Caribbean plantation system, the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, the Enclosure Acts, and the creation of the British working-class. Gordon’s work amplifies ‘histories from below’ and recognises the role of carnival, folk traditions, and grassroots religion in both performing and sustaining radical histories. In the 1980s she wrote lyrics, sang, and played for a feminist folk punk band. Gordon’s film and photographic work has been exhibited internationally including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; the Dak’art Biennale; the National Portrait Gallery, UK and the Norton Museum of Art, Florida. She is the co-director of the Ghetto Biennale in Port-au-Prince, Haiti; was a curator for the Haitian Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale; was the co-curator of ‘Kafou: Haiti, History & Art’ at Nottingham Contemporary, UK; and was the co-curator of 'PÒTOPRENS: The Urban Artists of Port-au-Prince' at Pioneer Works, NYC in 2018 and MOCA, Miami in 2019. In 2022, her award-winning feature-length documentary Kanaval: A People’s History of Haiti in Six Chapters, was broadcast in selected cinemas and on BBC 4’s Arena. In 2022, Gordon also exhibited in and curated the Atis Rezistans | Ghetto Biennale exhibition at St Kunigundis Church at documenta fifteen, Kassel; her work showed at MOCA North Miami; Power Plant Gallery, Duke University, NC, USA; and Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany. In 2022 Gordon’s Caste Portraits were acquired by the Kadist
Collection.
Website: https://leahgordon.co.uk/
Amanda T. McIntyre
Featured Artist
Amanda T. McIntyre is the creator of the Dolly Ma and Dolly Ma Brigita Baby Doll masquerades. She is the founder of Dolly Mas Carnival Arts. She is credited with introducing the terms “Contemporary Baby Doll Masquearade” and “Contemporary Caribbean Baby Doll Masquerade” to Carnival scholarship following the publication of several essays documenting the development of the Baby Doll Masquerade in the Caribbean from 2010 onwards. Amanda’s art practice includes design and performance. The work has well established feminist, queer and diasporic politics, advocating for marginalized populations in the Caribbean. Amanda is the current Art Director at Pride Trinidad and Tobago. She has curated exhibitions, workshops and panels promoting the work of queer artists in the Caribbean. She was previously the Art Administrator at New Local Space (NLS), a contemporary art studio and gallery based in Kingston, Jamaica. In 2020 Amanda was a faculty member for the La Pràctica Artists Residency and an advisor for the NLS, Curatorial, and Art Writing Fellowship. In 2020 she was awarded a Futuress Coding Resistance Fellowship for her project Mapping Queer Carnival. In 2017 she was awarded the title Ole Mas Champion by the Bocas Literary Festival and the National Carnival Commission of Trinidad and Tobago. McIntyre is a member of the Women in Carnival International Research Network of Scholars and Artists.
IG: @amandatmcintyre
Department of Economic Development and Planning
BACCA’s programs are made possible in part with public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the County of Suffolk, County Executive Ed Romaine and the Suffolk County Legislature, the Town of Babylon, Supervisor Rich Schaffer, the Town of Babylon Local Development Corporation (LDC), the Lindenhurst Business Improvement District, and from membership and private contributions.