otras montañas, las que andan sueltas bajo el agua

The exhibition underscores the power of improvisation~freestyle as both a tool and an aesthetic strategy that can be used to transcend terrestrial and extractivist perspectives for our planet, expand the ideas of what is possible in the creation of systems for sustaining life, and grapple with entrenched notions of power.

The main themes of The Current IV have been developed into the two semesters TBA21–Academy’s online learning initiative OCEAN / UNI (2024/2025), this year entitled “bárawa” (“Ocean” in the Garífuna language of Guatemala).

Nadia Huggins was born in Trinidad and Tobago and grew up in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, where she is currently based. A self taught artist, she works in photography and, since 2010, has built a body of images that are characterized by her observation of and interest in the everyday. Her work merges documentary and conceptual practices, which explore ecology, belonging, identity, and memory through a contemporary approach focused on re-presenting Caribbean landscapes and the sea. Huggins'photographs have been exhibited in group shows in Canada, US, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Barbados, Ethiopia, Guadeloupe, France, and the Dominican Republic. She has had solo shows in US at KJCC/NYU, NYC and at The Betsy Hotel, Miami, and in Europe in London and at Now Gallery. Her work forms part of the collection of The Wedge Collection (Toronto, Canada), The National Gallery of Jamaica (Kingston), and The Art Museum of the Americas (Washington DC, USA).

Tessa Mars is a Haitian visual artist who explores gender, landscape, migration, and spirituality in relation to Haitian history. Working primarily in painting and papier maché, the artist takes distance from colonial narratives to reconnect to a Haitian perspective of the world and embrace other forms of collective belonging. Mars received a BFA from Rennes 2 University in France in 2006 and is now based in Haiti and San Juan Puerto Rico. She has had solo exhibitions at Le Centre d’Art and the French Institute in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and has participated in collective exhibitions at Tiwani Gallery, London, UK; Denver Art Museum, CO; Art Africa Miami, FL; Ateliers ’89, Oranjestad, Aruba; Musée du Panthéon National Haïtien, Port-au-Prince, Haiti; 30th International Symposium of Contemporary Art of Baie-Saint-Paul, Canada; Alice Yard, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago; and Cité international des arts, Paris, France. Tessa Mars was part of the first Haitian pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale.

Yina Jiménez Suriel is curator and researcher based in the Dominican Republic, with a master’s degree in visual studies. Her practice is an ongoing investigation into contemporary emancipatory processes and the construction of imaginations. She is the TBA21–Academy The Current IV Curatorial Fellow, a three years research project entitled otras montañas, las que andan sueltas bajo el agua. She is Adjunct Curator for the 14th Bienal do Mercosul (2024) and Associate Editor of the magazine Contemporary And (C&) for Latin America and the Caribbean. Among the exhibitions she has curated are: Vehículos. Una revisión (2018) at Casa Quien (Dominican Republic); one month after being known in that island (2020) at the Kulturstiftung Basel H. Geiger (Switzerland) curated with the artist Pablo Guardiola and co-produced by Caribbean Art Initiative; and the first chapter of the research project de montañas submarinas el fuego hace islas (2022) at Pivô (Brazil) co-produced with Kadist and took place between São Paulo and Santo Domingo. Jiménez Suriel is part of the curatorial team for the section Opening at ArcoMadrid for the editions of 2023 and 2024.