Memory Palace exhibit set

SAINT AUGUSTINE – The Crisp-Ellert Art Museum on the campus of Flagler College announced a forthcoming exhibition of new work by Miami-based multi-discipline artist Jamilah Sabur. The exhibition, entitled “Memory Palace”, will include work from a new series, entitled “Mnemonic alphabet,” as well as a new sculptural installation. The exhibit opens on Friday, Oct. 4, and includes an artist walkthrough of the exhibit at 5 p.m., followed by an opening reception until 8 p.m. in conjunction with First Friday Art Walk. The exhibit runs through Nov. 26.

 Over the past several years, Sabur has developed her research-based practice, working across disciplines, including video, performance, sculpture, and installation. Sabur’s influences are far reaching, from language and memory, to geology and mapping, and she employs  a variety  of materials to best convey her conceptual framework. The works are always a negotiation of space, the artist’s endeavor at connecting the personal to the universal, and further, a consideration of the present moment through the “lens of history.”

 Many of the ideas and themes in Sabur’s newest body of work have developed over the past two years as a result of the historical research she undertook while in St. Augustine, more specifically her interest in the Franciscan texts that were translated to the Timucua language, an extinct language of the indigenous tribe of St. Augustine, for the purposes of converting the indigenous population to Catholicism. The significance of language is most present in the Mnemonic alphabet series, five of which new works will be included in “Memory Palace,”which include words in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Timucua. About the piece “Mnemonic alphabet (S/Saudade),” as included in Oolite Arts’ current exhibition “It will never become quite familiar to you,”the curator states that Sabur “underscores the limits of language when trying to convey concepts across places and peoples” through her choice of words that have no direct translation to English. The artist frames these words with imagery that reference her family history, as well as her connection to Miami and the place where she lives, in an attempt to collapse these barriers to understanding.

 Jamilah Sabur is a Miami-based multidisciplinary artist born in Saint Andrew Parish, Jamaica. She received her MFA in Visual Arts from the University of California San Diego in 2014 and her BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art in Interdisciplinary Sculpture in 2009. Recent solo exhibitions include “Un chemin escarpé /A steep path” at The Hammer Museum as well as “Ibine Ela Acu/Water Sun Moon” at the Cornell Fine Arts Museum. Sabur has been included in group exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Perez Art Museum Miami, Frost Art Museum, Miami; ICA London; The 39th International Festival of New Latin American Cinema, Havana, Cuba; (S8)Mostra de Cinema Periférico, A Coruña, Galicia, Spain; Busan Corner Theatre, Busan, South Korea.  She was an artist-in-residence at the Crisp-Ellert Art Museum in 2017 and has given lectures at Design Miami; Coral Gables Museum, Florida; Innis Town Hall, University of Toronto and Flagler College, St. Augustine. Sabur is currently an artist-in-residence at Oolite Arts in Miami. 

 For further information on our programming, please visit the website at www.flagler.edu/crispellert, or contact Julie Dickover at 904-826-8530 or crispellert@flagler.edu. The museum’s hours are Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturday, 12 to 4 p.m., while classes are in session.