Digital Breeze Blocks (2025)
In Digital Breeze Blocks, I’ve explored the iconic decorative concrete blocks popularised in Caribbean architecture during the mid-20th century. Celebrated for their practical and aesthetic value, breeze blocks provide ventilation, shade, and a distinctive, even nostalgic, sense of place in our homes and communities.
This work merges seascape photography with digitally rendered breeze block patterns. This mix of classic and contemporary materials highlights the balance between cultural continuity and modern innovation, while acknowledging the tension between nature's permanence and inevitable development.
The repetitive patterns reference daily rhythms and shared memories embedded in our architectural surroundings and cultural landscapes. Yet, through digital reinterpretation, these familiar blocks also signal the rapid changes reshaping Cayman’s built and natural environments. By choosing a plastic overlay, a material both practical and problematic, I encourage reflection on our relationship with the environment and its long-term implications.
Responding to the Biennial’s theme, Archipelago, my work invites conversations about what connects us, as individuals, as Caymanians, and as global citizens navigating complex transformations. Just as an archipelago comprises both a singular landmass and a constellation of islands, Digital Breeze Blocks foregrounds the individual and collective threads that shape our moment, cultural, ecological, and architectural. These layered blocks become spaces to discuss how we preserve our cultural past, manage growth, and create new pathways toward sustainable and culturally rich futures.