The Grip
The Grip is an audio installation exploring the narrative and memories objects hold. The grip is a poetry artwork in response to my grandad’s migration from Jamaica to London. His suitcase also known as the “Grip” in Caribbean communities, is preserved in a perspex vitrine displayed alongside a designed wallpaper that interweaves the Jamaican motto and crest into a traditional 1970’s flock wallpaper. The installation pays homage to our family born as a result of grandad’s voyage to the UK. It also deals with intergenerational loss and identity.
The Grip
He grips tightly his dreams
Travelling across new lands
Intact his identity bursting at the seams
He grips onto the unrelenting beat
Carried by the tide of destiny
One foot forward is the only salvation to hope
Destination: capital of concrete
He grips onto his confidence and pride with trepidation
The case no more than 3 x 2 feet
Contains might, courage and expectations
He no longer grips, he stores
His future has begun in new lands far away
The grip becomes nostalgia and connection
A symbol of those long lost shores
She grips the box, empty it’s function no more
Her connection to a forgotten ancestral heritage
Her grip on identity slowly fades and leaves her wanting more
Over the years it starts to wear, over the years it slowly fades
Their identity stuck between two lands
Neither here nor there
Over the years it slowly fades
The artefact laid before you
A mere shell of its former glory
A legacy of travel and freedom
Paths crossed, boundaries broken
The family now born from that one hand
That one foot, that took that step
That held that grip