The Com­mon­wealth Foun­da­tion has an­nounced win­ners of the 2011 Com­mon­wealth Con­nec­tions In­ter­na­tion­al Arts Res­i­den­cies. Ja­maican dancer and chore­o­g­ra­ph­er, Neila-Ann Ebanks was award­ed the first dance res­i­den­cy, which will take place in Cana­da lat­er this year. Oth­er win­ners from a di­verse se­lec­tion of artists in­clude the first win­ner from the Pit­cairn Is­lands, Mer­al­da War­ren, who wish­es to en­gage with tapa mak­ers across the Pa­cif­ic; and Trinida­di­an pho­tog­ra­ph­er, Rodell Warn­er, who will trav­el to South Africa to im­merse him­self in its dy­nam­ic arts scene and to work along­side the renowned pho­tog­ra­ph­er Pieter Hugo.

Com­mon­wealth Con­nec­tions In­ter­na­tion­al Arts Res­i­den­cies en­able artists from Com­mon­wealth coun­tries to work along­side artists in an­oth­er Com­mon­wealth coun­try in a two-way cul­tur­al ex­change. Twelve in­ter­na­tion­al judges, all ex­perts in their fields, took part in the rig­or­ous judg­ing process, where sev­en artists were se­lect­ed from near­ly 200 ap­pli­ca­tions to re­ceive awards of up to £8,000 to spend time liv­ing and work­ing in an­oth­er Com­mon­wealth coun­try. The win­ners will un­der­take orig­i­nal and in­no­v­a­tive projects that promise to be of ben­e­fit not on­ly to them­selves, but to their coun­tries of ori­gin and their host com­mu­ni­ties.

WIN­NERS

• Ruth Feuk­oua, in­stal­la­tion art, Cameroon

• Olaniyi Rasheed Akindiya (Aki­rash), in­stal­la­tion art, Nige­ria

• Pradeep Tha­lawat­ta, in­stal­la­tion art, Sri Lan­ka

• Rodell Warn­er, pho­tog­ra­phy, T&T

• Em­ma Wolukau-Wanamb­wa, in­stal­la­tion art, Unit­ed King­dom

• Mer­al­da War­ren, paint­ing, Pit­cairn Is­lands

• Neila Ann Ebanks, dance, Ja­maica

Rodell Warn­er

A pho­tog­ra­ph­er and graph­ic de­sign­er who works in T&T, Rodell Warn­er's pho­tographs range from im­ages of Com­mu­ni­ty-based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme work­ers, to an ex­plo­ration be­tween pub­lic and pri­vate spaces. Filled with en­er­gy, cre­ativ­i­ty and ex­cite­ment, Rodell's pho­tographs pro­vide a spe­cif­ic take on mem­o­ry and ex­pe­ri­ence. Of­ten work­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly, Rodell al­so cre­ates and ex­e­cutes his own projects, con­sis­tent­ly ex­plor­ing and pre­sent­ing new con­ver­sa­tions about the ways we see our­selves. He plans to trav­el to South Africa to work along­side the South African pho­tog­ra­ph­er Pieter Hugo, as well as en­gage with the wider artis­tic com­mu­ni­ty in South Africa.