Yasmin Nicholas | BWAPEN
Yasmin Nicholas is a British contemporary artist specialising in mixed media including painting, photography and poetry. Born in 1994, the London based artist is a third generation Caribbean (Dominican and St Lucian descent), citing her grandparents, originating from Dominica as a major influence on her work, embracing her heritage and culture strongly.
Graduating with a BA in Fine Art at Middlesex University, Hendon in 2015, Nicholas has had group shows at Beaconsfield in Vauxhall, London and at Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, London in 2015, where she presented her films, ‘Bwapen’ and ‘Metaphors’.
Nicholas’ work draws attention to particular experiences in the form of diaspora related issues, celebrating identity, race and Afro-Caribbean culture. This year, in September, the Londoner showed works at the Elizabeth James gallery entitled ‘Finding Home’.
The Ocean African spoke to Yasmin Nicholas about her short film BWAPEN, the significance of treasuring as well as celebrating heritage and sustaining dying cultures:
THE OCEAN AFRICAN: What does ‘bwapen’ mean?
YASMIN NICHOLAS: ‘Bwapen’ is the St Lucian Kweyol (Creole) word for ‘breadfruit’.
OA: How did the idea of BWAPEN first come up?
YN: Breadfruit was something I grew up eating with my grandparents, I was always told how good it was for you. I decided to use that as a metaphor one day when I bought a whole one from Harlesden market and brought it to university. I soon realised that it was more than food, it was a fruit of knowledge and heritage and felt that it needed to have it’s own voice as a metaphor for the language of Kweyol as well.
OA: Language and linguistics are prevalent in your work. How important is language to you? Do you consider it part of a person’s identity?
YN: I love the idea of discovering an ancestral tongue or mother tongue, I never shy away when I hear people speaking in other tongues, I just think it’s incredible, it feels like we all have these different codes in different sentences in wonderful italics or calligraphy.
OA: Where do you consider home?
YN: I am born and bred here so it would be Britain but Dominica is ‘back home’ as I have been brought up to know as our true ancestral home which is the motherland. I believe your true home is the place that you reside the most within your heart.
OA: BWAPEN carries a lot of abstract symbolism, what symbolism lies in the breadfruit?
YN: The breadfruit is the metaphor for the language and the culture, the more it is consumed, the more we learn. Leave breadfruit for a matter of days, it rots very quickly, meaning; the culture and language can die out quickly when it is not taken in by further generations. I have been learning the language at the same time as writing it, it has been interesting as it feels like I am not only using a second language for writing but gaining a second tongue.
OA: Your grandfather features in BWAPEN speaking Dominican Creole, you mentioned that the film was shot in 2015. How important is your grandfather’s contribution to BWAPEN.
YN: My grandad has been a major influence for me as he was the one to give me the biggest insight into our heritage and culture, I think his storytelling in a way encouraged me to write my own stories and poems, I wanted to address that into the film as well. While I filmed this in 2015, his vascular dementia wasn’t too bad.
I felt that having him featured in the film would be wonderful before things developed even more but also as someone who had experienced, as a young child, what it felt to be like discouraged for speaking his mother tongue as it was colonially enforced to speak English. It was refreshing to film him while these words and wonderful phrases came out so fast.
OA: How many different dialects of Creole are there across the Caribbean and how easy it for you to find people to work and collaborate with that speak the language?
YN: There are many types of Creole! Dozens! There are a few that have also died/are dying out as well but it is good to find out other islands’ interpretations of different words that may be spelt or said in a different way.
I know a few people who are from different islands who speak a similar Creole. Another artist named Cylvans helped me transform one of my poems, alongside my dad into the Creole, it wasn’t completely correct but it fit perfectly. I have a few connections to Dominican associations including Sylvia Mitchell who is from DONA (Dominican Overseas National Association) who wrote a book teaching Kweyol and also teaches lessons in it.
OA: Walk us through your process…
YN: Well when it comes to my photography, I usually set up a place for where the pictures are going to be done, I play music sometimes to get people a bit more relaxed as well. When I’m using different mediums I tend to note what I want to start with first, either mind map or notes, I like to pin them on my wall.
OA: Is there a particular state of mind you must find yourself in as you approach your work; music, scents, that set your mood to work?
YN: Not exactly sometimes it comes to me when I am at work, getting ideas dancing off my head! There are times when I write my notes and poems on receipts! Ha! However, other than that, jazzy hip hop, a bit of funk and soul. Reggae tends to bring ideas off and sometimes touching and seeing different materials. Soca just ends up making me dance, so I can’t! Ha!
OA: Whose work have you seen recently that moved you?
YN: I’ve been to a number of exhibits during the summer, some of them I have forgotten, one of the most poignant was the exhibition in Serena Morton’s Gallery for artists Adebayo Bolaji and Robi Walters in ‘The Power of Now’. It was such a colourful and insightful exhibition and I loved the fact that it had all these elements coming from both Africa and the Caribbean. They have different influences when it comes to their work but they blended so well.
OA: Women play such pivotal role in all our lives - tell us about the women you admire and why?
YN: My mother and my late grandmother, they instilled a lot of things in me that I feel have helped me grow into the person I am today.
OA: What great change in society would you hope to see children of the future enjoy?
YN: There needs to be more funding when it comes to the visual arts. I hope it will get better for the future generations, also in jobs as well. In society, I would also hope that a sense of confidence in appearance and as for now we have Instagram, twitter and other social media sites showing us society’s acceptable version of ‘beauty standards’ and it is so unhealthy.
OA: Where is the art game headed and how can marginalised artists win?
YN: I feel the status of being an artist is changing and it’s social value, also due to social media as well so artists who do not have any art education or little behind them are succeeding at the same rate as educated artists. I feel that sometimes black artists, being an example, are not always given a look-in, whether it be political but within these ever changing times in our society, I see marginalised artists coming to the forefront. It’s for the better. We have so much to give!
OA: What is your earliest painting/art experience?
YN: My mum still has my painting and drawings from nursery, I think from then she knew I’d be a creative.
OA: When did you discover you were an artist. How did you parents take it?
YN: I have always been creative, I think probably when I was in college, I started to develop my own style. I think what encouraged me was a letter I sent to the artist Hank Willis Thomas when I was around 18 and in college and he actually replied back!
I was so happy, I think that was the encouragement that pushed me forward although at that time I still had a few doubts. With my parents, I think my mum was maybe a little skeptical at first but she carried on supporting me through university, my dad as well and they went with it.
OA: Dream walls: where would you love to see your work exhibited.
YN: Tate Modern! For real, I’m going to speak it into existence, I have a long way to go!
OA: Tell us about your legacy through the arts
YN: I hope to leave one behind, being able to freely use text in art, creating poetry and experimenting with languages that are not fully recognized or accepted.
OA: Books you’re reading? Shows you’re watching?
YN: I have been re-watching Living Single online. I went to America when I was younger and fell in love with the re-runs there, I hope they recreate it or something like that, it showed black imagery in a good light.
OA: Drink of choice?
YN: Alcoholic drink: rum and coke! Otherwise, I love blueberry and banana smoothies.
OA: What are you reading?
YN: As a known bookworm, the last book I had read was an old Caribbean book of poems and folktales.
OA: Tell us something you’ve never said to anyone?
YN: I am petrified of slugs and snails!
OA: Tell us whatever you want!
YN: My favourite food is pizza! One of my favourite contemporary artists is Awol Erizku.
OA: Please leave words or art in the Ocean Africa cannon for future generations to vibe to or meditate on.
YN: Believe in what you are doing and don’t do it for anyone else for the sake of them accepting you, learn to accept yourself and the way you perceive your art, art in general and life!
(Video and still courtesy of the artist)