Tracian Meikle
A Lagoon of Curiosities
August 20, 2023
Tracian Meikle completes her residency at the Treehouse with Lagoon of Curiosities - a reflection on the questions that have been explored by artists and thinkers during her residency at the Treehouse. Over the past six months, Tracian Meikle convened the Water Laboratory: Experiments in Swimming and Drowning – a space of artistic experimentation and creative ideation that explored the watery disruptions and connections of people of African descent. It took the form of a series of performances, presentations, installations and conversations; with the aim of learning water together. Invited artists and thinkers explored the ways in which flow can be created communally, what it means to be rooted at the shore, the contradictions of spiritual belonging amidst erasure, fluidity of gender and the shaping of identity through friction. Tracian will reflect on these offerings to the Lagoon and the answers that have risen to the surface.
Tracian Meikle is a Jamaican curator based between Lagos and Amsterdam. Her work focuses on diasporic blackness, belonging and community-building. She has worked in the field of art and culture as a researcher, moderator and educator in a number of institutions including the Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. In addition to her curator-in-residence role at The Treehouse, she leads the work of 1952 Africa, an arts institution dedicated to the support and development of African artists.