The Weight of Water

PHOTOGRAPHER Abigail Hadeed's art exhibition The Weight of Water is about “several things". The artist, who turned 55 yesterday, said, "One, it is like a catharsis for me, so it is going to be like a celebration of my birthday, of life, giving thanks for everything – but also just being present and mindful about how we as human beings impact the environment.”

The exhibition opened yesterday with approximately 60 pieces depicting The Weight of Water in some form or fashion.

“My pieces are very philosophical pieces – they do global warming and sea sargassum and so on. It is not literal. None of this exhibition is a literal exhibition. It is speaking to reasoning, but in a non-literal way.

"In other words, I’m not shooting cans of rubbish in a river, but it speaks to these things in other ways. It speaks to global warming and the amount of seaweed that we have in our seas. So it is a look at spirituality, because of the feminine nature of water, and in the beginning there is a lot of stuff on the turtles...it is a big conceptual show.

“Unpeopled and introspective, it is a meditation on nature, spirit, and alienation…pollution, consumption, and the link between environmental and spiritual degradation. It is also my most personal exhibition to date, and reflects my search for belonging within the perpetual currents of life and death. While loss and grief are constant companions, I know that I am safe in the discomfort of change and growth.”

She described The Weight of Water as a decade-long search through Trinidad’s waters as far north as the Bahamas archipelago.

Both born and formed on an island, Hadeed questions water’s importance in her life and in the region, first as a means of the earliest migration of the indigenous people of South America. That was followed by the arrival of Columbus, the draining of TT’s resources into colonial vessels bound for Europe, the cargoes of slaves and indentured labourers, and the wash of immigrants from all corners of the planet.

Hadeed also asks some questions through her work. “The Weight of Water addresses what it means to be multi-ethnic societies, where we often confront instead of coming together; and, too, our own warring feelings and desires.

"Why is an image of a dead bird also beautiful? Is it so we may salvage something from loss? Or are we as unconstrained, as boundless, as unknowable as any sea?”

Hadeed has been documenting the Caribbean and the Americas for the past 30 years, and is known for her black-and-white photographs of steelbands, traditional Carnival, theatre, Caribbean descendants in Central America, and the indigenous people of Guyana’s Rupununi savannah.

She has had several solo exhibitions here, where her work is collected both privately and by select companies. Her images are part of the permanent collection of Light Work, a photography centre in Syracuse, New York, and her work has been featured at the 1998 São Paulo Art Biennial, the 2006 Havana Biennial and in 2011’s Wrestling with the Image, at Washington’s Art Museum of the Americas and the World Bank. She has also exhibited in Spain, Costa Rica, Panama, Belgium and Guyana.

Asked how she feels about this particular exhibition and if there is anything special about it, she responded: “Yes, it is my most conceptual body of work yet.

"It doesn’t deal with Carnival, though most people know me for my Carnival imagery. I think it is a very personal show for me, in that it deals with things that are very close to my heart – the environment, spirituality, sexuality – so from that point of view, it is a special show for me because I am in the mid-career of my life.”

Hadeed’s Weight of Water runs until November 24.