Mi waan go a country go look mango: Kedisha Coakley

30 Jun-29 Jul 2023

PV 29 Jun 2023, 6-8pm

Bronze seed casts, 2023, Cast Bronze. Credit: Courtesy of the artist

Overview

Mi waan go a country go look mango is a new commission from Sheffield-based artist Kedisha Coakley that stems from her long-term research of colonial plant life, particularly that of the Caribbean. She is showing a series of related works at Sheffield’s Millennium Gallery concurrently, in response to the Dutch Flower Paintings exhibition on tour from the National Gallery. Both bodies of sculptural work investigate the intricacies of colonisation and Black identity.

As plant specimens were removed from their tropical surroundings, so too were their associated knowledges. Mi waan go a country go look mango, taken from Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze’s dub poem ‘Riddym Ravings’, attempts to reassemble some of these knowledges on the one hand while challenging Eurocentric categorisations and archiving conventions on the other.

The project brings together Kedisha’s bronze casting practice, a new spoken word piece (by Sheffield’s first poet laureate Otis Mensah), and workshops with different groups, including the Sheffield & District African & Caribbean Community Association (SADACCA). Together, the range of processes unpick the charged narratives of horticultural lives by asking ‘how, as Black people, do we relate to [our] landscape when Empire and Colonisation are so closely linked with the land we now live in?’
 
Kedisha Coakley lived most of her life in London, moving to Sheffield 13 years ago where she lives and works with her two children. Her practice spans sculpture, photography, printmaking, predominantly casting in bronze, through which she interrogates Black histories and experiences. 

Kedisha’s work begins as a personal investigation of self, childhood memories and ritualistic practices in the lives of Black communities, and what they signify universally in the world. A timely expression of Black identity, she investigates the overlooked by remixing aesthetics, techniques, and cultural references throughout her work. She has been selected as one of five Platform 22 artists between 2022-24, a Freelands Foundation artist development programme overseen by Site Gallery, Sheffield. She was the recipient of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park Yorkshire Graduate Award 2020 and the Omni Artist award 2020; was part of Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2021; and completed her MFA in 2022 at Sheffield Hallam University with distinction.

Recent exhibitions and projects include Dark Echoes at Site Gallery, 2023; The Box at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture International, Sculpture Network, 2022; Eden Project, Cornwall, 2022 and Jack Arts Your Place or Mine billboard campaign, Celebrating Joy 2022.

Supported by Arts Counciul England and Henry Moore Foundation