Jeffrey Meris hosts a unique project at NAGB.

Artist Jeffery Meris has taken the popular Bahamian practice know as “asue” and translated the concept into an interactive art show. “Asue 20/20” is a series of participatory objects, from the Yorubic tradition.

Mr. Meris invited 19 people throughout New Providence to interchange objects in response to a prompt or object he creates. Much like an economic asue, each week one person receives all 20 objects created/exchanged until the cycle is completed and all 20 participants have received an item.

This cultural practice of communal saving is quickly dissipating from the Caribbean Diaspora. Mr. Meris examines the cultural institution, while simultaneously building bridges that technology is dismantling.

The work, according to the artist, is also positioned in relation to blackness, as the practice of asue was a form of cultural resistance formed in response to slavery and the aftermath, which prohibited black people from saving money in banks.

Read the full article in The Tribune’s “Weekend”

Visit Jeffrey Meris’s website