Our eight issue features artists all based in Jamaica, with Anna Pollack as Guest Editor.

Featured Artists

ART - Hope Brooks, Nurse Signs by Christai Lynch, Pearl de Luna and Dennis Morris, Anna Pollack, Rebecca Williams, Ania Freer, St. John, Bingy, Bamboo King, Racquel Brown, Georgie, Rankine, Camille Chedda by Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow

WRITING - Kayla Wheeler, Zuri Marley

STYLE - Nas and Tennille Chalmers

12 AND UNDER - Nas

PET PAGE - Montego Bay Animal Haven

Scroll down for Editor’s Notes

MILAH LIBIN - EDITOR IN CHIEF’S NOTE

When I began writing this note, I asked guest editor Anna Pollack to remind me of when and where we first met so that I could include an anecdote of that encounter. As it often goes with native New Yorkers, neither of us could recall the exact moment and, when asked by others, the answer is typically: “I don’t know, from around.” However, what I do know is that my relationship with Anna has grown in the last decade from casual run-ins to a solidified friendship and, in the last few years, to being creative collaborators as well. In Spring 2019, Anna came to me with an idea for a book. She had already completed most of it and, upon showing me the materials, I was immediately down to publish it through Dizzy. The book, titled JAMAICA JAMAICA, collects Anna’s photographs, video stills and found ephemera from her first visit to her mother’s home country. Overlaying paintings with these various mediums, as well as hand written text and motivational messages from her twin uncles living in Kingston, Anna collaged together fragments of her lineage. Exploring her family’s past through observing the present, JAMAICA JAMAICA memorializes Anna’s time spent with individuals who crossed her path on the trip. Anna explained to me that this experience illuminated the perseverance of the island.

One year after the release of JAMAICA JAMAICA, in Summer 2020, Anna and I were approached by Juan Pablo Siles, the founder of region(es), an annual free performing arts series promoting contemporary and non-traditional artists with roots in Latin America and the Caribbean. At that point, Anna’s films had screened at the region(es) Caribbean film festival, as well as BAM's "See You Next Time" Series, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, Le Cinema Club, and more. Juan Pablo had seen Anna’s book and, through zoom conversations in the early months of the pandemic, his engagement and excitement about her brought us to the idea of a Jamaica focused issue of Dizzy. The Japan issue had just been released, and the Mexico issue was in its early stages of development. The concept of location-specific issues had unfolded organically, almost surprisingly, and wasn’t something I was sure we would do again. Yet, once Juan Pablo sparked the conversation, the idea of a Jamaica edition felt just as natural and personal as it had with Japan and Mexico, due to Anna’s own relationship, investment, and enthusiasm at the prospect. 

With Juan Pablo’s encouragement and support, we applied for a grant from the Brooklyn Arts Council to help fund the making of this issue. With the passage of time becoming even more strange as we re-shaped our way of operating day to day in this new reality, Anna and I were both surprised when we received an email notifying us that we had been awarded the grant. Emboldened by this accreditation, we began putting together the magazine.

One of the wonderful elements of publishing Dizzy is connecting with artists and, after seven issues, it was energizing to be able to share this experience and have a new voice in the mix. Although in many ways our interests overlap, Anna’s sensibility for the art and people she is drawn to is intuitive and of course unique to her. As a filmmaker and photographer, she has “an eye”, and uses it to quietly observe, knowing just the right moments to press record. Her work is often character driven; she is captivated by subjects and stories that may not otherwise be told. Using the word ‘character’ when speaking about Anna’s work is not limited to humans. She is just as interested in the personality of a friend or stranger as she is with the ocean or the sky, and significantly, Jamaica. The island is a main character.

Curating and publishing Dizzy has allowed me to create a fluid intersection of my different artistic mediums, and I found a kindred spirit when seeing how Anna approached her role in this issue. She is thoughtful and specific, integrating her voice and lived experiences throughout the following pages. Only Anna could have curated this issue. She chose artists whose work, although without a doubt informed by their home of Jamaica, is authentic to them as unique individuals, much like the subjects in Anna’s films. I am thrilled to have her as the guest editor because this is not only a new issue of Dizzy, but an extension of Anna as an artist herself.

ANNA POLLACK - GUEST EDITOR’S NOTE

It was the first time I’ve ever been somewhere and felt like I totally belonged. Everything felt right, everything fit.

Becoming part of the landscape

I was totally enamored with my surroundings and my interactions with them.

My appearance -

My freckled face, warm skin being hit by a cool breeze

in the sun, set to the right temperature bringing me to the perfect tender crisp.

I remember laying on the shore in lime cay. right where the water on the two opposite sides of the cay met. Remember feeling that if a huge wave came I wouldn’t budge, it could take me with it.

This over romanticized cliche that behind great beauty there is great pain / vice versa

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve wanted to shed this naive belief. It’s not healthy.

You don’t have to be depressed, you don’t have to be ostracized, you don’t have to be under an immense amount of pressure in order for something powerful to occur, develop or come about.

On my first trip to Jamaica in 2017, when thinking about the island, my history, the country’s history, my family, and my upbringing, I began contemplating that skewed ideology again.

knowing that I was on an island with a very dark past and history, a history Rihana's with culture, it was also the most beautiful place I had ever seen and experienced.

I look at my mother and I see it. I look at some of my favorite artists and I see it. Heroes too…

It caused a shift.

But I’ve realized I was wrong to question this. There’s not just these two extremes. It is not one thing countered with the other. It is a web.

I do not want to linger on what is “bad”, “painful”, although it is important to acknowledge and necessary.

And what it all results in is resilience and that, to me, is what makes Jamaica so haunting, so beautiful, but above all powerful.

I have family members still there. My mother left, I know she had to in order to survive, and I don’t play with or romanticize that idea, but for myself now, I constantly wonder about what would happen / what it would be like if I returned. And stayed.

The Jamaican flag is young. It was designed and presented for the first time only 60 years ago, upon the islan'd’s political independence from Britain. It is the only national flag that does not contain a shade of the colors red, white, or blue.

Black + Gold + Green

I began to think about the people who have stayed, who live there, who call it home.

I think of the island and its influence on a global scale. How it is the backbone for so many influences across music, fashion, art. I think about representation, and the lack of it. How this tiny island has still undoubtedly made a name for itself. How it deserves recognition. How such a beautiful and spiritual place transcends many mediums, but for the most part has only been highly regarded and praised for its music. I grew curious about the visuals arts in Jamaica, specifically. I thought about the colors, the landscapes, the stories, the materials. I think of the colors on the flag. It was not until working on this project that I knew what the colors of the flag stood for:

Black - creativity and strength used to face the nations difficulties

Gold - “natural wealth” + “beauty of the sunlight”

Green - agriculture and hope

In a day and age where so much is accessible, I can’t help but wonder what gets left behind.

Existing and working in this machine of sorts, where things are taken in and rapidly spewed out, one can’t help but question how much proper attention and care is given. I personally feel that there’s often a lack of detail, depth and shared experience with a lot of the content that’s made easily available. Having a print only magazine does raise some concerns - accessibility, materials, quantity, etc.

But I believe it also demands a level of intimacy between the reader and the content, and I am so happy to say that this issue includes what I find to be a strong and captivating ensemble of artists and work which combats just that, and has left me personally satisfied.

This issue features a variety of perspectives through a diverse group of artists - working in different mediums, and spanning regions, age groups, and levels of visibility. Some of these artists live in Jamaica now, and some were born there and have since left, returning throughout the years.

Yet every single one of them, through and through, encapsulate was Jamaica means to me, what she’s been through, and what she stands for.

the difficulties, the promise of light, and the impenetrable future

Dizzy Magazine Issue #8 is sponsored, in part, by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by Brooklyn Arts Council (BAC).