From desert to tundra: Jaryd Niles Morris’ Arctic pilgrimage

By Tracy Moore

Next June, Barbadian artist Jaryd Niles Morris will travel to one of the most remote frontiers in the world – the Arctic Circle – as part of an international artist residency requiring participants to create work that is Arctic-focused and globally relevant.

For Niles Morris, the journey or the main objective of the Arctic residency is to create a project which has global relevance and impact.

The residency marks the continuation of a creative path shaped by travel and deep engagement for Niles Morris. In 2024, he spent time in Senegal and Morocco, experiences he describes as “life-changing.”

In Morocco, during his residency, he lived and worked at Café Tissardmine, an artist residency in the Sahara Desert embedded within an Amazigh (Berber) community in the southern side of the country. “It reset me as a person,” he says. “Being in a space with people who have been struggling for thousands of years against colonial pressure made me more aware of my own Caribbean identity.”

That awareness followed him to Senegal, where he observed how culture, belief systems and symbols are actively maintained.

“In African spaces, they really try to keep certain ideas in focus,” Niles Morris says. “They create physical things that constantly reaffirm what they value.” The contrast, he notes, is striking when viewed against Barbados, where he feels that folk characters and traditions can drift toward entertainment rather than remembrance: “We’ve lost some of the connection to why these things exist,” he reflects.

Those observations have laid the groundwork for the project that will take him north.

While Niles Morris first encountered the Arctic Circle residency while searching for opportunities online, he initially felt unprepared. “At the time, I didn’t have a project that I felt measured up,” he says. “Ironically, going to Morocco triggered the ideas that have now led me to the Arctic – from the desert to the tundra.”

At the centre of the Arctic work is the creation of a new cultural character: a modern figure rooted in Caribbean values, environmental consciousness and collective responsibility. Rather than relying on policy alone, the character is meant to embed awareness into culture.

“There are things that we hold dear, like our beaches and our environment. So the idea is to create a character that will encapsulate these ideas of activism, the ocean, and bring it to the forefront as part of our culture,” he explains. “The idea is to introduce conservation within your everyday life.”

The project is envisioned as a regional collaboration, involving artists across the Caribbean. “The Caribbean has a shared history, but we don’t have a shared reality.”

He adds, “I wanted it to be a Caribbean thing. Not just a Barbadian thing.”

Describing the journey north, he says, “It is a pilgrimage. That’s exactly what it is. This envoy from the Caribbean is going to the Arctic to see for him self and understand.”

Niles Morris will spend approximately two to three weeks in the Arctic in June 2027. “The only expectation,” he says, “is that whatever comes from it has a positive impact globally.”