Ada M. Patterson
b. 1994, Bridgetown, Barbados. Lives and works between Rotterdam, Barbados and London.
Ada M. Patterson is an artist and writer based between Barbados, London and Rotterdam. She works with masquerade, performance, poetry, textiles and video, looking at the ways storytelling can limit, enable and complicate identity formation. Her recent work considers grief, elegy writing and archiving as tools for disrupting the disappearance of communities queered by different experiences of crisis. Patterson was the 2020 NLS Kingston Curatorial and Art Writing Fellow.
Recent exhibitions include ‘Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s – Now’ at Tate Britain, London and ‘The Whole World is Turning’ at TENT, Rotterdam, and a residency at Documenta Fifteen, Kassel hosted by Alice Yard from Trinidad and Tobago.
Her writing has featured in Sugarcane Magazine, PREE, Mister Motley and Metropolis M.
Upcoming projects include a residency and collection assignment at the TextielMuseum, Tilburg, The Netherlands, and the publication ‘Broken from the Colony’ included in ‘Afterglow: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors’ published by The New Press (NY, USA).
Patterson’s solo exhibitions include ‘to be rewritten on banana leaves’, Copperfield, London; Kanga for the Present, Manifold Books, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2022), Hotel Maria Kapel, Hoorn, Netherlands (2021), The Whole World is Turning, TENT, Rotterdam, Netherlands (2020), Things You Threw in the Gully, Roodkapje Rotterdam, Netherlands (2019).
Her group exhibitions include Here Comes the Sun, Art Gallery of Burlington, Ontario, Canada (2022), Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s – Now, Tate Britain, London, UK (2021-22), A Paradise for the Smiling Alligators, Lecce, Italy (2022), Worlds between Words, Showroom MAMA, Rotterdam (2021), In the Eye of the Storm, Z33 Kunstcentrum, Hasselt Belgium (2021), Re: Re: Re: Re:, Mourning School, Galleri Nef, Stockholm, Sweden (2021), Departures, Expoplu, Nijmegen, Netherlands (2020), To that Special Someone, part II, Hotel Maria Kapel, Netherlands (2020), Mood Ring, Roodkapje Rotterdam, Netherlands (2019), Edge of an Era: Archive, Live Art Development Agency, London, UK (2019), Sailors, Alice Yard, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad & Tobago (2019), Sensational Bodies, Jerwood Space, London, UK (2018), Caribbean Linked V, Caya Grandi & Ateliers ’89, Oranjestad, Aruba (2018), I’m Not Who You Think I’m Not #14, Berlin Biennale X, ZKU, Berlin, Germany (2018), Artistic Interventions, The Barbados Museum & Historical Society, Bridgetown, Barbados (2018), Punch-In 2 Reveal, Morningside Gallery, Barbados (2018), Transoceanic Visual Exchange, Fresh Milk Art Platform, Barbados (2017), Sonic Soundings: Venice Trajectories, 57th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2017).
Patterson had been selected for artist residencies internationally, including: LIVE WORKS Free School of Performance, Centrale Fies, Dro, Italy (2022), CCA Glasgow + Primary Performance Residency, Barbados (2022), On Shelter, Hotel Maria Kapel, Hoorn, Netherlands (2021), NLS Kingston Curatorial Fellowship, Kingston, Jamaica (2020).
