Sweet Sugar Rage screening with performance by Alice Rekab

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Image Credits

Grave Side Wish (2022) Alice Rekab. Courtesy of the Artist, Commissioned by Museum Villa Stuck
2022

Sweet Sugar Rage (Sistren Theatre Collective, 1985). Courtesy of Sistren Theatre Collective and
Cinenova Distribution

Alice Rekab’s work reflects on a shifting and expansive understanding of family and personal identity. A range of idiosyncratic references emerges through their sculptures and images, which combine hand-made clay objects, found and reclaimed furniture and ornaments, digital collages using their family photographs and writing. These disparate items are drawn together through Rekab’s Irish-Sierra Leonean heritage, as a way of re-forging a distinct family portrait. Their work is collaborative and by inviting, hosting and mentoring other artists Rekab reinforces an attitude of inclusivity and a broad perspective of what it means to be family. ⁠

Sistren Theatre Collective, which means ‘sisterhood,’ was founded in 1977 in Kingston, Jamaica by working class women in the social, cultural and political context of Jamaica’s socialist experiment of the 1970s following the first decade of independence. Since 1977, Sistren has used art as a tool for social change for the discussion and analysis of gender-based violence and to provide solutions through organisational networks. The founding members included Vivette Lewis, Cerene Stephenson, Lana Finikin, Afolashade (then Pauline Crawford), Beverley Hanson, Jasmine Smith, Lorna Burrell Haslam, Beverley Elliot, Jerline Todd, Lillian Foster, May Thompson, Rebecca Knowles and Barbara Gayle. Assisted by the actor and director Honor Ford-Smith, the Collective was forged through a government initiative to improve employment in Jamaica’s poorest communities. Plays like Downpression Get A Blow (1977), Bellywoman Bangarang (1978), Nana Yah (1980), QPH (1981) and Domestik (1982) along with community drama workshops, presaged the documentary Sweet Sugar Rage in 1985.

Charlotte Procter is collection & archive director at LUX, the UK’s most significant collection of artists’ moving image. In 2013 she joined the Cinenova Working Group, a volunteer collective formed to preserve and promote the feminist film and video collection Cinenova. She has collaborated on international research, preservation and curatorial projects, most recently at Tate Modern, UK, Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola, Spain and Anthology Film Archives, New York.

Project Arts Centre is proudly supported by The Arts Council and Dublin City Council.