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ada_patterson_

@ada_patterson_

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Artist & Writer, b. Barbados, 1994.
Amsterdam, London & Barbados.
Representation: @copperfield_london
2023-25 Resident: @rijksakademie

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just wanted to share a cute warm memory of a guided reading / writing workshop "Now is not a time to live without a practice", i facilitated at @metro54 this summer, during the 2026 Black Art Summer School: Black Arts. Black Pedagogies. Black Futures. we collectively read an essay from Alice Walker's "We are the Ones We have been waiting for" (2006):

"This is not a time to live without a practice. It is a time when all of us will need the most faithful, self-generated enthusiasm (enthusiasm: to be filled with god) in order to survive in human fashion.

Whether we reach this inner state of recognized divinity through prayer, meditation, dancing, swimming, walking, feeding the hungry or enriching the impoverished is immaterial. We will be doubly bereft without some form of practice that connects us, in a caring way, to what begins to feel like a dissolving world.
In addition to contemplating the Hopi message: know your garden and where is your water, we must also ask, What is my practice? What is steering this boat that is my fragile human life?"

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Photos by Francoise Bolechowski taken in Metro54 by @ada_patterson_

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18 days ago

MEET THE PANELISTS! Tomorrow, September 24th, we're kicking off our fundraiser with Don't Go We Will Fund Them with a panel talk on crowdfunding for transition costs. Swipe to meet the people on stage 👉

Stella R. Portal (she/her) is our very own Head of Door at TILLATEC and will host and moderate the talk. She just finished her Master's in Gender and Women's Studies with a thesis on how Amsterdam-based trans DJs experience transitioning across both gender and genre.

Ada Maricia Patterson is an artist, writer and educator based between Barbados, London and Amsterdam, working across drawing, masquerade, music, performance, poetry, textiles and video.

Youssef Mahmoud (they/them) is a Cairo-born, Amsterdam-based community builder, door host, drag artist and political scientist whose research covers trans healthcare policy, pinkwashing and queer safety.

Together they'll share first-hand experiences with crowdfunding for transition: how it can be an act of community care and solidarity, and also where it falls short, especially when it comes to online visibility and privacy.

Tickets are pay what you can, starting from €10. Every euro goes towards transition costs that insurance rarely covers.

Come early for the talk, stay for the food, performances and DJ sets. SEE YOU TOMORROW! 💋💋💋 taken in Tillatec by @ada_patterson_

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19 days ago

22 mei 20:00 | doors open 19:30 | tickets from € 10,00 | language: English |

Forsaken in the wilderness, talking to God when God feels absent, floating directionless in open seas, 'to she who treads water' offers a score that wails, grieves, rages, yearns and loves.

A Perdu Avond with Ada Maricia Patterson, Yael Davids, and M. Maria Walhout , who call and respond through poetry, voice, sound, music and movement.

Hosts: Marija Cetinić & Jimena Casas.
More info: link in bio.
Poster design: @alix.chauvet & @ada_patterson_

@ada_patterson_
@mmariawalhout
@jimena999999999999
@em_sea__ by @ada_patterson_

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5 months ago

💫✨ working on an upcoming performance around my poetry

thankfully returning to @rijksakademie for rehearsals

video mostly unrelated, just me playing around a bit taken in Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten by @ada_patterson_

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5 months ago

@fertile_ruins_amsterdam_ is proud to present @ada_patterson_ for our 9th Edition at @lolalieven

Ada Maricia Patterson is an artist, writer and educator based between Barbados, London and Amsterdam. She works with drawing, masquerade, music, performance, poetry, textiles and video, considering the connections between storytelling, transformation, crisis, grief, rage, disappearance, discretion, self-defence and survival. She is an alumna resident artist of the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam taken in LOLA Lieven by @ada_patterson_

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7 months ago

Thrilled to be back at @lolalieven for @fertile_ruins_amsterdam_ 9th Edition raising money for an amazing community project @elsufra

Fertile ruins + @mimefabriek invite you to performances by @tonikritzer & @rawany_3ishq Raoni Muzho Saleh & @ada_patterson_

March 13
@ Lola Lieven
Rodenrijsstraat 43, 1062 JD Amsterdam

Doors @ 8pm
Show @ 8:30pm

Produced & curated by @eellzzss @rrrrrrri7a @bkcubcake Jacob @mimefabriek

Masks are mandatory for this event for community accessibility.
Please Covid test (rapid) before coming. We will have masks and some test available on site. We will also have an air filter as well.

#queer #queerart #queerperformance #amsterdamart #amsterdamqueerart taken in LOLA Lieven by @ada_patterson_

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7 months ago

Now on view: “Beyond Representation,” the second edition of our performance and video series presented in the Auditorium and on PAMMTV.

Explore the full series online at pamm.tv

This year’s selection examines the body in public space, foregrounding the vital role Caribbean artists play in shaping contemporary performance. In a moment marked by shifting policies and heightened conversations around migration and belonging, these works explore displacement, care, confrontation, and resilience through embodied presence.

Featuring works by David Pérez Karmadavis, Miguel Braceli, Tania Bruguera, Ada M. Patterson, Nibia Pastrana, and Zachary Fabri, Beyond Representation invites viewers to consider how performance can illuminate our political realities while imagining new forms of solidarity and hope.

Watch the series now on PAMMTV through the link in bio. taken in Pérez Art Museum Miami by @ada_patterson_

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a year ago

“the first symptom is refusal” by Ada Maricia Patterson depicts a starfish with a severed leg hanging from a fishhook, barely connected to its body by a long, beaded tendon. Most starfish can regenerate damaged or lost parts of themselves; they even shed arms as a defence mechanism. However, several starfish are dying out due to the overlapping effects of the climate crisis, which make regeneration impossible. In an attempt to survive, they sever their limbs in the hope of regeneration, but it doesn’t work. This work is not only a commentary on climate change, but also a metaphor for the social crisis that is occurring in our human world: the survival strategies of others who are vulnerable, such as communities of trans people across the world.

Following the disaster that hurricane Dorian brought to the Caribbean in 2019, Patterson started using kangas, a practice she learned through her mother. The kanga is a garment that wraps around the head, shoulders, or waist, which is popular in East Africa. Each kanga contains a saying and is gifted at times of celebration or mourning. The Kanga for the Present series is based on conversations with loved ones who are affected by the climate crisis, capturing the sorrow and joy of changing bodies in a changing world. The way in which minds and bodies wrap themselves in kanga is similar to how a hurricane spirals around its centre and how a wave rolls in and around itself. taken in Museum Rijswijk by @ada_patterson_

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a year ago

Zondag 16 november staat het TextielMuseum in het teken van queerness, identiteit en textiel 🌈
Tijdens Museumgasten: Haus of Fibre x Qult brengen we kunst, community en gesprek samen — precies in het hart van Transgender Awareness Week 🏳️‍⚧️

🎤 En jij kunt meedoen!
We zoeken mensen die hun werk, verhaal of visie willen delen tijdens onze open mic.

Je krijgt een aantal minuten om het podium te pakken — poëzie, performance, muziek, tekst of iets anders: alles mag. Meld je aan via de link in onze bio!

✨ Met bijdragen van:
Prins de Vos, Nixie van Laere, Ada Maricia Patterson én Wild Ones

📅 16 november 2025, 13:45 – 16:00
📍 TextielMuseum Tilburg
🎟 € 10 (incl. drankje, excl. entree museum)
👉 Meld je aan via de open call – link in bio
👀 Sprekers worden later verder uitgelicht, dus stay tuned! taken in TextielMuseum by @ada_patterson_

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a year ago

🪝 This work could’ve been the end of me 😭

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might this dead end be liveable
2023-2024

Mixed yarns (merino wool, lurex, elirex, angel, dream, sidero, monofilament, mohair, elastic), ringed offset fishing hooks, mixed beads (glass, wood, ceramic, plastic, tourmaline, obsidian), cotton and polyester thread, digital video, audio

Flatbed knitting and embroidery, partly produced in the TextielLab with the technical support of Damien Semerdjian

embroidered with @cyxceline , @_solame_ , @verrari_moerkens , @wat3rmaid , @koesstaassen , and @newborin_

Thank you @adelheid_smit for your ongoing belief in and support of my work

Collection TextielMuseum

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Now showing at Haus of Fibre at @textielmuseum Tilburg open until 15 March 2026

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Slides 1-7 photos by Josefina Eikenaar @textielmuseum
Slide 8 some of my notes reflecting on the work
Slide 9 video of the work taken in TextielMuseum by @ada_patterson_

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a year ago

🗑️ summer dump 🚮

made a new painting
finished @rijksakademie
turned 31
pretended to be a dj
went to iceland london fuerteventura
got a new studio
hung out with all my sisters (blood and chosen)
worshiped the sun
and some other stuff I think 🤷‍♀️

💖💖💖 taken in HOT GIRL Summer by @ada_patterson_

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a year ago

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@rijksakademie turned me into a painter 👩‍🎨🚩

Come see some of my new works on silk that I made between last summer and this spring (or for the dolls reading, the paintings I made between boob jobs) 🤭

My bosom is ever flowing with grace, ever heaving with rage; my works continue to follow this strange headless woman character brandishing a hammer. I have been thinking about her in relation to Antoinette, a character first imagined through Charlotte Brönte’s “Jane Eyre” and later humanised by Jean Rhys’ “Wide Sargasso Sea”. She is a woman made voiceless, a woman made illegible and illegitimate; a woman who practised non-disclosure and was punished and ruined for it.

She is also a woman who uses fire to make herself heard.

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come visit @rijksakademie open studios, opening tonight, public open days 22-25 May

I’ll be reading new poetry tonight at 19.40; and twice a day during public days at 14.15 and at 18.00

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thank you everyone who supported me throughout these two years, thank you to my Amsterdam lovelies who helped me feel at home and kept me company during recovery, thank you to the Rijksakademie advisors who challenged me to grow and the workshop technicians who helped the work shine, thank you to my gallery @copperfield_london , thank you to my friends and family in Barbados who help me to remember who I am and where I come from, thank you to my sisters biological and chosen @syanne_p and @mmariawalhout for their unconditional love and support, thank you to my partner @koesstaassen who reminds me I am deeply loved in an often loveless world, thank you to my fellow residents between 2023-2025 who made the work never feel lonely. Love you all bad.

💖🔨 taken in Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten by @ada_patterson_

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a year ago