Kevin Adonis Browne is known for his photography, videography and writing. But for his fourth exhibition, he is using objects to reflect his inner self, and the people and places that affected him and his life.

In A Sense of Arrival: An Exhibition of Essays, at Medulla Gallery, Woodbrook, he is showing how much he values their memories.

One of Browne's earlier books, High Mas: Carnival and the Poetics of Caribbean Culture. A hybrid of essays, memoir and photography, won the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature in 2019. It was the first non-fiction book to win the overall prize.

This exhibition contains 30 pieces he calls essays.

“The essence of an essay is the art of wondering and wandering – the art of exploration.”

He says in school, students are taught an essay is supposed to deal with a single subject, have a structure – an introduction, body and conclusion – and a point.

“I am deliberately resisting that. And not just resisting, but deliberately producing work that transcends that...there are no paragraphs here.”

He said he is asking people to feel rather than to think about the pieces, so that they become more about the individual’s ability to interpret and make meaning than the artist’s intentions.

[caption id="attachment_983206" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Roble, 2021, one of the pieces by Kevin Adonis Browne. - AYANNA KINSALE[/caption]

He tried to express beauty, aspiration, peace, expansiveness, strength, power and depth, but there are also references to the Caribbean’s violent history. The pieces include elements such as a pitchfork, hoe, pickaxe, nails, hammer, and bottles, placed “in conversation” with each other.

“You coming in and observing these works, conversing with them in different ways, produces another layer of meaning. So your presence elevates the works. They provide a trigger or portal or platform for you to do this kind of wondering.”

There is also a theme of embedding things in the essays, including salt, sugar, hair from his family members, pieces of San Fernando Hill, his wedding ring, lines of text and blades.

“Arrival, for myself, is about me doing the work of coming into being, producing work that has been on a certain trajectory – not just academic work, but intellectual and artistic work – to understand myself...

“Not just for my own personal gain or pleasure, but to understand my people – my Caribbean people, my Trinidadian people, black people. To think about blackness not just as a simplistic beauty, but a very complicated, multifaceted and multidimensional beauty, something that transcends the limitations of violence and pain and degradation. Something that goes far beyond what other people’s expectations are of our blackness.”

He pointed out that he understands blackness from a Caribbean perspective, where blackness is taken for granted, and not analysed or deconstructed. Unfortunately, he said, this also means black people can easily be persuaded there is someth