Artists in residence

Brett Sroka is a composer, musician, sound artist and curator who crosses the fields of improvisation, technology and contemporary art. He has released six original music records, with his electro-acoustic jazz trio, “Ergo”, and his duo “Cherubim” on labels such as Fresh Sound, Zeromoon and Cuneiform Records.

His installations and collaborations have been presented at the New Museum in Lower Manhattan, the Brooklyn Roulette Intermedium, the Institute of Electronic Arts at Alfred University, Risonanze in Venice, Italy and the Galway Jazz Festival in Ireland. As curator of the cultural program at the Lévy Gorvy Gallery in New York and London, he programs aesthetic dialogues between the performing and visual arts for their regular series of events.

Brett Sroka is currently working on a broader conceptual set of works that links his interests in music, sound, video and sculpture as part of a project on history, science and politics in Western music. He is inspired by the natural forms of the harmonic series, the invention of the piano, the intense devotion of Glenn Gould and Rosalyn Tureck to Bach, Sol Lewitt’s inspiration in Bach’s variations and the number thirteen as a symbol of transcendence.

Ernst St Rome grew up in Carrefour (Haiti), where the Brochette artistic movement was born. 

He was introduced to artistic disciplines at a very early age by his father the painter Gérard St Rome, then by frequenting artists such as Viviane Gauthier for dance, Micheline Laudun Denis and Alzire Rocourt for singing, Jean René Jérôme and Jacques Valbrun for painting, the latter introduced him to prestidigitation. In 1986, he evolves in education and creates his first wire puppet Ti Boss with which he makes street animations. Later, he creates other characters that draw their source in the Haitian imagination. 

He has collaborated in directing with Lorraine Mangonès and Syto Cavé and has directed several puppet shows from Haiti’s literary and theatrical heritage, including his favourite work La famille des Pitite Caille by Justin Lhérisson, which he adapted in 2009 with gaine puppets. He took a directing course with Catherine Boskovitch and participated in various residencies in Canada, Guadeloupe, Belgium and Switzerland. Following the earthquake of January 12, 2010, he founded the Cie Au Fil du Temps, of which he is the artistic director. He was a special guest at the 13th Festival Quatre Chemins in 2016 as a tribute to his career as a puppeteer. In 2017, he represented Haiti at the Jeux de la Francophonie in Abidjan. He sees his art as an effective means of inviting the public to reflect on the socio-political and environmental issues that concern him. 

He is currently working on the adaptation and staging of a puppet show at the table based on the novel Les arbres musiciens by Jacques Stephen Alexis, a project for which he is one of the ten winners of TRAME, a residency at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris in 2020 and one of the four winners of the residency “Imaginarium du 312, multiples et communs” at the Centre culturel Pyepourdre in Haiti.

Ernst St Rome (Haiti) is a recipient of the TRAME program 2020 edition.