Caribbean Beat — January/February 2019 (#155)

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In yet another Caribbean island, Patterson has performed a quite different work called Buchibushi, part of a 2018 Caribbean Linked arts residency in Aruba. The title, Patterson explains, comes from two Papiamento words: bushi, which is the name for a local cactus, and buchi, an adjective in local parlance conveying hardness and roughness, and which suggested to him a rustic farmer quality. But buchi can also be a derogatory Papiamento term for a homosexual. Patterson’s Buchibushi is dressed in a cactus-green costume with an oversize, cryptic head formed from a large inverted clay vessel. The vessel is hard on the outside but can contain lifesustaining water within. From its top sprouts a flowering cactus plant — a joyful splash of colour, but with its own armour of spikes. It looks both playful and slightly scary. Buchibushi also has a single large opening on its face — an ambiguous eye or mouth aperture (or “one-eyed monster?”) — through which the courtesy adam patterson performer can see without being seen. In the performance, this eerie being wanders in from the wilderness of Aruba’s arid hinterlands to place sustaining aloe vera plants in cracks along a public city road. The character is like a peaceful yet supremely detached alien gardener who gently roots good energy through his aloe plants. Children loved it. People began knocking on his clay-pot head (“That sounded very loud on the inside!”), to connect with the character. Echidna (2016, performance, Speightstown, Barbados) “Depending on the idea, there’s usually a medium that suggests itself,” says Patterson of his creations and performances. “I enjoy working with performance because it offers a lot of space for including text, voice, and the whole creative dimension of costume-making. And I enjoy the theatrical aspect of it, the flexibility of performance.” Among Patterson’s most recent works is a 2018 performance called Bikkel, created under the auspices of Jerwood Visual Arts in London. The Dutch word bikkel derives from a bone in a sheep’s heel, but the word can also mean a bone used in a The whole idea of being looked at, judged, and interpreted according to somebody else’s desires or needs is something Patterson rejects, and fights against dice-like game of chance, or a pickaxe, or it can refer to a very resilient person. In Patterson’s case, he confesses the title came to him from the Dutch brand name of his partner’s bicycle. Patterson’s Bikkel performance features a character in a striking mask of sculptured cloth spikes which erupt where normally you’d expect to see facial features. The hard spikiness of the sea urchin has here been made softer, more vulnerable, moving away from hard brittleness and associated notions of toxic masculinity to embrace a kind of hipster creature in a hoodie with a casual, camp quality. The body costume, says Patterson, was influenced by London and Rotterdam male fashion silhouettes, borrowed from tracksuits, bomber jackets, and hoodies — clothing that tries to suggest a cool, tough masculinity while also being soft and comfortable to wear. While performing Bikkel, Patterson played music from a phone in his pocket, including aggressive dancehall tracks by Vybz Kartel (“Real Badman”) and mellower racks by Rupi (“Tempted to Touch”). Patterson was riffing off expectations of masculinity projected by such popular music, while exploring the idea of a vulnerable, more accessible masculinity, more open to feelings. Part of the inspiration for this performance, he says, came from his reading of American poet, intersectional feminist, and civil rights activist Audre Lorde (1934–1992). “Raising black children — female and male — in the mouth of a racist, sexist, suicidal dragon is perilous and chancy,” wrote Lorde in her essay “Man Child: A Black Lesbian Feminist Response”. “If they cannot love and resist at the same time, they will probably not survive.” It made Patterson reflect on the nurturing role of mothers, and the need for love, connection, and alternative models of manhood which do not extol only hardness, violence, and a cauterising of all gentle qualities, in order to be thought of as a man. As Lorde once famously said, “those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference . . . know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths.” n 80 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
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Contents No. 155 • January/Februa
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eyond ordinary... ...Explore the ex
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A MESSAGE From OUR CEO Dear Custome
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Carnival, Trinidad and Tobago In th
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need to know Top Three PAPJAZZ hits
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Page 70 and 71: ackstory You may not know its name,
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Page 74 and 75: Westend61 GmbH / Alamy Stock Photo
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Page 80 and 81: Hydar Dewachi Adam Patterson’s wo
Page 84 and 85: own words “I’ve always felt, as
Page 86 and 87: into the wider world, you encounter
Page 88 and 89: ound trip All about blue Of all the
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Page 108: In 2017, photographer Caroline Powe
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Caribbean Beat — January/February 2019 (#155)

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