Multidisciplinary Canadian / Trinidadian artist Asia Clarke (@wild_moon) will present her new work, FREE WILL: Manifestors of Realities, at the FUZE Caribbean Art Festival, taking place October 22–26, 2025 in Nassau, Bahamas.
FREE WILL: Manifestors of Realities consists of five hand-carved wooden masks adorned with Afrocentric hair aesthetics designed by Asia Clarke. Each mask pays homage to a seminal figure of Afro-Caribbean resistance and liberation: Maurice Bishop (Grenada), Queen Nanny (Jamaica), Cécile Fatiman (Haiti), Carlota Lucumí (Cuba), and Frantz Fanon (Martinique). These leaders are remembered not only for their courage but for their enduring legacies of collective struggle, freedom, and radical imagination.
By integrating craft traditions, hair artistry, and sculptural form, Clarke bridges ancestral narratives with contemporary diasporic futures. The masks become both vessels of remembrance and speculative portals, embodying the wisdom of the past while inviting audiences to imagine new possibilities of liberation and unity.
“This work is about honouring the revolutionary spirits that live within us. Through these masks, I hope to celebrate our interconnected struggles and remind us that the power of resistance is carried through generations.” — Asia Clarke
This year’s FUZE theme, “All A We”, speaks to Caribbean kinship, unity, and shared heritage across geography and generation. Clarke’s masks embody this spirit by drawing together freedom fighters from across the region, showing how individual acts of courage are bound to a collective story of resilience.
FREE WILL: Manifestors of Realities was developed with the support of the Ontario Arts Council. The work builds on Clarke’s long-standing practice exploring Pan-African identity, ecological and social justice, and the transformative symbolism of hair in Black culture.
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Asia Clarke is a Toronto-based multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans sculpture, hair art, jewelry, installation, and community-based projects. Her work explores Afro-diasporic identity, ecology, and cultural resilience, often weaving together craft traditions with speculative storytelling. Clarke has exhibited internationally in Ghana, South Africa, and Europe, and is recognized for her dedication to anti-colonial artistic practice.
FUZE Caribbean Art Festival is an international multidisciplinary event that showcases the creative excellence of artists from the Caribbean and its diaspora. Through exhibitions, performances, and cross-cultural exchange, FUZE highlights innovative practices that affirm the region’s shared histories, rhythms, and futures. FUZE Caribbean Art Fair 2025, sponsored by Scotiabank, brings together over 50 booths, 18 countries, and 120+ artists in the region’s most dynamic showcase of contemporary art. For the first time, FUZE presents an overarching theme: All a We… — a celebration of collective identity, shared histories, and the power of community.
Instagram: @fuzeartfair @bahamarfestival
Source: ameyawdebrah.com/
