Transition Group: Sonia Barrett

In today’s blog, we hear from current CVAN South East Transition Group member, Sonia Barrett. 

Currently living in Hampshire, Sonia Elizabeth Barrett was born in the UK and is of Jamaican German parentage. 

Her sculptural practice includes placemaking with a view to assembling communities under the threat of climate to (Re) claim space as well as instituting permanently.

Sonia is a Yale, MacDowell and CCCADI fellow and has been recognised by the Premio Ora prize, NY Art-Slant showcase for sculpture and the Neo Art Prize. She has exhibited by the National Gallery of Jamaica, 32 degrees East Gallery, Kampala, Uganda, the Heinrich Böll Institute Germany, the British Library, The Museum of Derby, and the Kunsthaus Nürnberg. Her work has been shown at a number of galleries including the OCCCA California, the NGBK Berlin, Tete Berlin, The Format Contemporary in Milan and Basel and the Rosenwald Wolf Gallery Philadelphia.

Why did you decide to join CVAN South East’s Transition Group?

I thought it might be a helpful thing to help shape a new commitment to diversity. The process has been interesting and I feel like I have learned a little about what it takes to work in this kind of group.

The Transition Group has recently launched a new survey – ‘Anonymous Testimony of Lived Experience to Guide Us as an Anti-Racist Network’. What do you hope the survey will achieve?

The survey is emerging as a group initiative and so I think that everyone will have different things they hope it will achieve. I hope the survey will move away from previous survey models that almost ask respondents to prove discriminatory behaviour or satisfy a group of people, who are often not subject to discrimination themselves, with the details that they have already predetermined are relevant. The survey is open ended and with only four questions. Two out of the four questions empowering those taking the survey to voice new visions for their arts institutions.

To find out more about the survey and take part, please click here.

Image: Adeola Hahn