After the Fracture

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.After the Fracture, a collaborative performance created by interdisciplinary artists Marvin Fabien and Nyugen Smith, is a para-fictional epic. It imagines, in future, a fracture between continental plates as continents drift and The Fracture causes the Caribbean plate to rise and float away as the others surf toward each other. Island nations from the Caribbean archipelago, once divided by water, are now together on what is called The Island, and separated only by time. The historical timeline on The Island is referenced as Pre/Post-Fracture. In its new location, The Island has escaped climate catastrophe. New folklore, language, festivals, musical forms, and systems of governing predicated on preservation of life and care for the environment emerge. 

After the Fracture is the duo's fourth meditation on climate change affecting the Caribbean, coastal cities in the United States, and fragile sites populated by black and brown people across the globe. It is a continuous three-act work, scored my Fabien's dynamic soundscapes in proximity of a Bundlehouse. Bundlehouse, a term coined by Smith, refers to his on-going work based on shelters constructed from detritus by those forced to flee their home/land. Bundlehouse is also a metaphor for rebuilding one's life from what remains. 

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This performance is in conversation with and a continuation of Nyugen Smith's work within The Other Side of Now: Foresight in Contemporary Caribbean Art. Following the performance, Smith and Fabien discussed the performance as it is situated within the future of Contemporary Caribbean Art with exhibition co-curators María Elena Ortiz and Marsha Pearce.