When I first listened to the radio series #trashDAY, I laughed out loud.
Its creators, artists Kenya (Robinson) and Doreen Garner, are witty, clever and entertaining as they parade through pop culture topics you’d find in publications ranging from The New Yorker to Star Magazine. With good music and no-holds-barred expression, they show their sass and make me wonder if they have a little more than hot sauce in their bags.
Kenya is an MFA graduate from the School of Art at Yale University. Her sculptures have been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
The artist’s performances have been featured at Rush Arts Gallery, MoMA PS1, The DUMBO Arts Festival, The Kitchen, The Museum of Modern Art (NYC) as well as the Home section of the New York Times. She also had residencies at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's WorkSpace program and the Triangle Arts Workshop. Kenya was also the inaugural resident for Recess Activities' online residency ANALOG.
She told me in a phone interview that she and Doreen met at a Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture residency program in 2014. She said they started having conversations between themselves and with others in the program over a glass of Carlo Rossi wine, an ode to a jug of that wine is in the #trashDay image.
“We played ‘Truth or Dare’ and kind of had conversations using an amp,” Kenya said.
The amplified voices, “begged to be recorded, so we recorded it,” she said. “I pressed the wrong button and erased everything. But it stuck in my head as a potential platform for creating expression.”
So the idea to move to radio evolved from there, and the two began broadcasting on Clocktower Radio.
Live Broadcast
#trashDAY is broadcasting a show with a live audience at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA), 7-9 p.m., Friday, December 16. The discussion will center on MoCADA exhibiting artists, featuring guests Keisha Scarville, Glenna Gordon, Theresa Chromati and Doreen.
Kenya said the themes for the show are angst, hustling, sex, self-awareness and “stay woke.” Every broadcast of #trashDAY includes music to go along with the themes.
“For this episode, we asked each of the artists to provide five songs,” Doreen told me.
MoCADA Exhibitions
#trashDAY is presented as part of Keisha Scarville in “Surrogate Skin: The Biology of Objects,” Glenna Gordon in “Diagram of the Heart,” and Theresa Chromati in “Tea Time,” all on view at MoCADA through Feb. 26, 2017.
Doreen’s work is also a part of “Surrogate Skin”:
I have a few works that were curated by Elliott Brown Jr. at MoCADA. It’s a mix of works that have been in other shows. A lot of the work has to do with exploitation of black bodies in the medical industry. A couple of pieces touch on the story of Henrietta Lacks and also Anarcha, Betsy, and Lucy who were tortured by Dr. J. Marion Sims.
And, then another piece is based off the grouping of dead bodies and trash and things that they found in the basement of Georgia Medical College. So it’s a lot of history that isn’t frequently circulated about how black people have been taken advantage of.
The show is called ‘Surrogate Skin.’ I think it’s Elliott thinking mostly about the body and outer forms of defense mechanisms.
MoCADA describes the works as recalling the “medical exploitation of black women’s bodies through grotesque arrangements of silicone, pearls, hair weaves, and surgical instruments.”
Doreen currently is based in Brooklyn. She holds a BFA in Glass from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University and an MFA in Glass at the Rhode Island School of Design. Her select exhibitions include “Shiny Red Pumping,” Vox Populi Gallery, Philadelphia (2015), “Abjection” at the Rhode Island College Bannister Gallery, Providence, (2014), and “Pussy Don't Fail Me Now,” Cindy Rucker Gallery, New York (2015).
She has also completed residencies at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (2015), and is a 2015-2016 Artist in Residence at Abrons Arts Center, N.Y.
What I like about Kenya and Doreen is they are not lofty artists who are disconnected from the people who view and appreciate their work. And the structure of #trashDAY broadcasts is a reflection of that.
“We really are resisting ‘art speak’,” Kenya said. “You know that kind of seriousness and self-importance that people are so wrapped up in. We want to just get rid of that. That’s not what people are connecting to when they connect to a piece of work.
IF YOU GO
WHAT: #trashDAY Live Broadcast
WHERE: MoCADA
80 Hanson Place, 4th Fl. Brooklyn, N.Y.
WHEN: 7-9 p.m., Friday, December 16
TICKETS: $8, includes custom cocktails. Click here to purchase online.