Adam Patterson (aka Ada M Patterson) was born in Bridgetown, Barbados in 1994, and moved to London c.2012 to study at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, London, graduating with a Foundation Diploma in Art & Design (2013), Diploma in Professional Studies (2016) and BA (Hons) Fine Art (2017). Exploring strategies of resistance to particular neo-colonial structures and issues surrounding notions of masculinity, his multidisciplinary practice encompasses masquerade, textiles, performance, video and poetry, while his writing has featured in numerous publications. In 2021 his work featured in Tate Britain's survey exhibition 'Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s-Now'.
Artist, writer and educator, Adam Patterson (aka Ada M. Patterson) was born in Bridgetown, Barbados in 1994. Undertaking further education in England c.2012, he received his Foundation Diploma in Art & Design (2013), Diploma in Professional Studies (2016) and BA (Hons) Fine Art (2017) from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, London, from which he developed his wider artistic practice. In Patterson’s own words, ‘A lot of my work has responded to experiences of climate crises, specifically intensifying hurricane seasons in the Caribbean. It takes the form of short films, performances, and poetry interwoven into film. I don’t usually write prose’ (Ada M. Patterson quoted in Brianna Baker, 'In this writer’s vision of our climate future, trans girls are the only survivors', Grist, 14 September 2021). In other words, he works with masquerade, textiles, performance, video and poetry, ‘telling new stories or rethinking old stories in new recuperative ways’ (Framer Framed website). As a trans woman ‘Trying to account for the complexities of bodies otherwise unaccounted for, bodies queered by crisis, bodies named invisible, dispensable or ungrievable, bodies confronted with the very real material conditions of a world not built for their survival’, her ongoing work ‘hopes to imagine elegies for bodies and moments always already out of time’ (Framer Framed website).
Patterson explores strategies of resistance to particular neo-colonial structures, working to subvert perceptions and deconstruct tropes associated with the post-colonial Caribbean. Responding to particular constructions of masculinity, Patterson presented a new performance for Sensational Bodies in 2019, entitled Bikkel. Referring to the Dutch word for a man with an inauthentic strength or toughness, the title adopts and re-imagines the motif of the sea urchin, depicting the spiked marine animal, not as hard, brittle and defensive, but as elastic and porous, with the capacity to be held and squeezed. Patterson’s approach to masculinity in Bikkel is inspired by American writer, feminist, and civil rights activist, Audre Lorde’s turning to love and softness as a means of survival and a tool of resistance against social expectations of gender (International Curators’ Forum website). For Patterson, ‘Lorde’s criticism of hardness and welcoming of softness, as these notions relate to opposing characteristics of masculinity and femininity respectively, really pushed me to reconsider certain approaches I have previously undertaken in my work which, for me, are now questionable and thus subject to scrutiny, reflection and revision. It led me to consider my own masculinity and the various social sources of masculinity that may have unconsciously shaped me between my upbringing in Barbados and my time of study and living in both London and Rotterdam. [...] Bikkel comes from this place of expectation of masculinity and failing to perform certain expectations, alongside the conflict that comes from such conditions, and how this may or may not be reconciled’ (Ada M. Patterson quoted in Jessica Taylor, Sensational Bodies: An Interview with Ada M. Patterson, International Curators’ Forum website).
In 2016 Patterson undertook a residency with online arts publication The White Pube. Later in the year he participated in the ‘Caribbean In/Securities and Creativity: Diasporic Dialogues’ conference held at Goldsmiths College and, in 2017, in the ‘Caribbean Diasporic Dialogues in the University’ conference hosted by the British Library in London. That same year he was included in Sonic Soundings / Venice Trajectorie; a sound art project coordinated with the Diaspora Pavilion presented by the International Curators’ Forum during the 57th Venice Biennale. The following year his work was included in Sensational Bodies, a performance and film programme curated by Jessica Taylor and Adelaide Bannerman at Jerwood Space, London as part of the 2018 Jerwood Staging Series. In 2018 Patterson was commissioned by the Live Art Development Agency to produce a work which revisited and reflected on any one of a number of seminal performance art events that took place in the UK in the 1980s. The resulting piece, Looking for Looking for Langston, responding to Isaac Julien’s 1989 film Looking for Langston, was presented as part of Edge of an Era: Archive. In 2021 Patterson's work was included in Between the Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s-Now at Tate Britain. His writing has featured in numerous publications including Fresh Milk Arts Platform ARC Magazine, Sugarcane Magazine, PREE, Mister Motley and Metropolis M. Adam Patterson lives and works between Barbados, London and Rotterdam.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Adam Patterson]
Publications related to [Adam Patterson] in the Ben Uri Library