Alberta Whittle at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

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Alberta Whittle, between a whisper and a cry (installation view) (2023). Image courtesy of the artist and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Photo: Jeff McLane/ICA LA.

The walls that housed Barbados-born and Scotland-based artist Alberta Whittle’s recent multimedia installation between a whisper and a cry at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA) were dressed in a rich cerulean hue. At the mouth of the gallery, a string of colorful glass and plastic beads hung from the ceiling, catching light from a nearby skylight and permeating a refracted glow like an underwater kelp forest. Complete with cowrie shells, white teddy bear clips, and assorted textiles, the beaded tendril was anchored to the floor by two large spider conch shells (Coiling beneath the waves, the sand reminds us to believe…, 2023). Around the corner, an air of instability materialized in the gallery, as the concrete floor appeared to subsume the remains of a nearly subterranean chattel house (exhibition copy of Memorial for “The Great Carew” aka Neville Denis Blackman, 2019). Almost immediately, Whittle created the illusion of being submerged underwater.

Projected onto the toppled tin roof of a second sunken chattel house—a style of Barbadian wooden architecture rooted in the country’s colonial period—the exhibition’s namesake video between a whisper and a cry (2019) played on a loop. A compilation of archival and filmed footage, including satellite imagery of hurricanes and meteorological renderings, the video is broken up into five chapters named for each month of hurricane season (June through October), and narrates a desire for respite and community in a world made unstable by the lingering effects of colonialism and slavery on the island of Barbados and beyond. In her book In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (2016), writer and Professor Christina Sharpe utilizes “the weather” as a central metaphor for describing the conditions of systemic, anti-Black oppression that shape the lived experiences of Black individuals and communities across the globe.¹ Whittle uses meteorological and hurricane-related footage in direct reference to Sharpe’s metaphor, pointing to the reality that Black and Brown individuals are disproportionately affected by political and ecological climate changes—the Caribbean archipelago, once the site of some of Europe’s most lucrative plantation economies, is especially vulnerable to climate disaster. Yet glimmers of resistance against our rapidly changing climate are found dispersed throughout the installation. Packed into opposing corners of the gallery, poly tarps evoked both preparation for and the aftermath of inclement weather, when tarps act as tools of protection and reconstruction.

Glossy cowrie shells also emerged in the video and throughout the installation as objects that withstand all types of weather, representing powerful forms of resistance against oppression. Historically valued as a form of currency across disparate cultures, the cowrie shell played a significant role in the transatlantic slave trade.² Archaeologists have also found that cowries—which were widely found in Western and West Central Africa—were among the few objects that enslaved people could carry with them across the Atlantic.³ Throughout the exhibition, cowrie shells appeared in an array of forms—they draped across the poly tarps, laced into the tendrils that hung from the ceiling, and decorated the trim of the sinking chattel houses. In Whittle’s video, they take the form of bodily adornments.

Today, cowries are symbols of prosperity and protection and are associated with water spirits, a motif that Whittle repeats across the exhibition. Titled “June too soon…”, the first chapter of Whittle’s film features dancer Divine Tasinda dressed in sailor’s garb grooving to the cosmic sounds of the Sun Ra Arkestra inside the Clydeport building in Glasgow, Scotland. Situated along the River Clyde, the baroque structure reflects the wealth amassed by Glaswegian tobacco lords, who reaped fortunes from the transatlantic slave trade.⁴ Spliced with archival black-and-white footage of a Barbadian sugar plantation, past and present convene across oceans, converging in the rotunda where Tasinda’s hypnotizing choreography takes place. Reclining upon platforms at the front of the marble and French walnut-clad meeting room, Whittle and fellow artist and curator Sabrina Henry wear opulent accessories made of shiny cowrie and spider conch shells. Their rest becomes a potent symbol of resistance, a brief moment of defiance against the unrelenting cruelty of enslavement and displacement that built the structure of the film’s setting. The institutional setting evokes fraught colonial histories, while the cowrie crown, choker, necklaces, and earrings that adorn Whittle and Henry’s bodies symbolize the resilience of their cultural heritage.

Later on, in the chapter “August, come it must,” Whittle appears seated in a small wooden boat floating on the calm waters of Senegal’s Lake Retba. Dressed in a silky cheetah-print outfit, a belt of cowries is fitted snug around her waist. Set to a sonic composition by Yves B. Golden consisting of static crackling, ceremonious drumming, and the distorted sounds of water droplets, Whittle stands, drops her head back, and opens her chest to the sky, arms gyrating like the Coriolis spin of a hurricane. The materials in this scene forge a connection between movement and memory—the wooden boat evokes the vessels that traversed the Middle Passage; the cowrie belt, an abiding link to Whittle’s home in the archipelago.

Back in the gallery, a steel chain with a dusty red-and-white patina snaked between rows of stackable plastic chairs, disappearing beneath the blue and brown poly tarps in the corner of the room. While the chain conjures far-reaching legacies of colonization and enslavement, the tarps have an immediacy because of their ubiquity in Los Angeles as a resource often used by our unsheltered neighbors. In early September, when an unprecedented tropical storm rumbled toward Southern California, nonprofit organizations in the city passed out tarps and zip-ties to unhoused communities. Such expressions of care—acts of resistance in themselves—are reminders of the value and strength of community across generations and geographies. Though this exhibition is rooted in Whittle’s Barbadian heritage, it also resonates with a global audience for whom climate catastrophe and systemic oppression are ongoing existential threats.

This review was originally published in Carla issue 34.

Alberta Whittle, between a whisper and a cry (installation view) (2023). Image courtesy of the artist and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Photo: Jeff McLane/ICA LA.

Alberta Whittle, between a whisper and a cry (installation view) (2023). Image courtesy of the artist and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Photo: Jeff McLane/ICA LA.

Alberta Whittle, between a whisper and a cry (installation view) (2023). Image courtesy of the artist and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Photo: Jeff McLane/ICA LA.

Alberta Whittle, Between a Whisper and a Cry (film still) (2019). HD film, 45 minutes. Image courtesy of the artist; The Modern Institute/Toby Webster Ltd., Glasgow; and Nicola Vassell Gallery, New York.

Alberta Whittle, Between a Whisper and a Cry (film still) (2019). HD film, 45 minutes. Image courtesy of the artist; The Modern Institute/Toby Webster Ltd., Glasgow; and Nicola Vassell Gallery, New York.

Alitzah Oros is an art historian currently based in Los Angeles.

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