Alberta Whittle

Alberta Whittle’s (b.1980, Bridgetown, Barbados) expansive practice encompasses drawing,

digital collage, film and video installation, sculpture, performance and writing. Grounded in

research, her work considers historic and contemporary expressions of anti-blackness,

colonialism and migration. Weaving together networks of ancestral knowledge and future

possibilities, Whittle explores manifestations of resistance through community, compassion

and collective care.

In her practice, Whittle combines materials that carry contemporary meanings, such as

the hoodies of contemporary sweatshirts, with those that carry older resonances, such as

woven lace doilies, objects meant to invoke forms of handcraft that add beauty to intimate

and domestic spaces. A recurring motif in her works is the addition of beaded coils that are

affixed to the fretwork on the frames. In her depictions, Whittle leaves her family in their fine

frocks; but in a gentle side-stepping of the photographer’s middle class wishes, the artist

swaddles both her ancestors and their land up tightly, in shawls of hoodies, of lace and of

cowrie shells. Reaching through time and reconfigured space, Whittle ensconces her people

and her home in alternative talismans for protection.

31 x 22 inches

78.7 x 55.9 cm

Courtesy of the Artist and Nicola Vassell