Becoming Again
Suckoo Chollette’s altar-like installation elevates the domestic to the realm of the sacred, while investigating the lifespan of organic matter. The dried leaves of the plantain were traditionally used to stuff and cushion mattresses in Cayman, playing a central role in family life. However, the ephemeral nature of such constructions (and the disappearance of the skills required to make them) begs the viewer to consider and reconcile the cycles of life — what we value, how we value, and what we consider fodder for the grave.
About the Artist
Nasaria Suckoo Chollette
b. 1968
Born in George Town, Grand Cayman, Suckoo Chollette received a BA in Theatre and an MA in Educational Theatre from New York University. She is a member of the artists collective Native Sons and has exhibited widely both with the group and as a solo artist. An accomplished poet and actor, her work explores themes of female strength and empowerment, race and the repercussions of enslavement, as well as the erosion of Caymanian cultural traditions. In 2006 Suckoo Chollette won first place in the McCoy Prize competition for her painting Maiden Plum, and in 2019 she was the Bendel Hydes award winner in the inaugural biennial exhibition for her work Becoming Again (2019). In 2021 she was also the recipient of a Gold Star for Creativity at the National Arts and Culture Awards Ceremony. Her work is included in the permanent collections of NGCI and the Cayman Islands National Museum, and is featured in Art of the Cayman Islands, the islands’ first formal art history (Scala Fine Art Publishers Ltd., Fall 2016). NGCI exhibitions include: Native Sons’ Fahive (2005), The Persistence of Memory (2011), Metamorphoses (2014), All Access (2015), tIDal Shift: Explorations of Identity in Contemporary Caymanian Art (2015), Native Sons – Twenty Years On (2016), Speak to Me (2016), Mediating Self (2017), Revive: Contemporary Caymanian Craft (2017), Cross Currents – 1st Cayman Islands Biennial (2019), Island of Women: Life at Home During our Maritime Years (2020), Interior and Interiority (2020), Reimagined Futures – 2nd Cayman Islands Biennial (2021) and The People’s Collection – A 25-Year Cultural Legacy (2022).
