Caribbean InTransit, Vol. 3, Issue 6: Antithesis/Synthesis: Fine Arts & Cultural Heritage

ISSN 2326 2091

CARIBBEAN INTRANSIT ARTS JOURNAL

VOL 3. | ISSUE 6 | FALL 2021

Caribbean InTransit is published once per year in Fall.

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This journal and all of its works are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

The Caribbean InTransit Arts Journal is published by Caribbean InTransit.

The concept of Caribbean InTransit is to provide a creative ‘meeting place’ for Caribbean artists to share their thought provoking ideas and works within a community of cultural producers, students, scholars, activists and entrepreneurs. The word ‘InTransit’ signifies the historical and contemporary global movement of Caribbean peoples and the opportunities for becoming that this movement offers. Caribbean InTransit’s approach to the exploration of Caribbean arts and culture is not insular thus it incorporates artistic practices and beliefs external to the Caribbean. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license, Caribbean InTransit is an open access academic journal with a rigorous blind peer review process. Submissions of essays, artworks, poetry as well as other art forms in English, French and Spanish are welcomed.

Cover Image: John Beadle. EN MAS Cover Curator: Annalee Davis, annalee@annaleedavis.com Journal Layout and Design: Keisha Oliver, keisha.oliver@gmail.com EN MAS: This project is to create a piece that demonstrates my thinking regarding the performance space as concurrently the space and its presentation. The space is small and self contained. The aim is to construct a parade “costume” in a space that is considerably smaller than is sufficient for its accommodation. All elements that would have protruded past the perimeter of the form are truncated, the resulting “inside the box” architectural space is treated as a parade piece, turned in on itself, exposing at times what would have been its exterior two and three dimensional design elements, as well as the structural supports that make the sculpture stable. The companion of the larger sculptural piece is a smaller wearable sculpture. This piece borrows lines and form from the larger enclosed, fragmented object. With this wearable object, my intent is to have the spectators agree to dress in the pieces and move about the space, allowing themselves to be photographed. Our expectation is that the portfolio of these images grows with every exhibition/performance of the wearable sculpture.

John Beadle, son of a Jamaican-man and a Bahamian-woman, lives and works in The Bahamas, on the Island of New Providence. He is a multi-discipline artist whose work draws from his involvement in his community’s cultural practices and the intimate observation of his space. Beadle says, “I want my art to communicate with the same poetry and patois as my tongue.”

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EDITORIAL TEAM

Dr. Marielle Barrow, Editor-In-Chief Dr. Kathalene Razzano, Managing Editor Dr. Marta Fernandez-Campa, Special Projects Editor Dr. Katherine Miranda, Hispanophone Specialist Dr. Donna P. Hope, Anglophone Specialist Yolande Toumson, Francophone Specialist Annalee Davis, Cover Curator Dr. Njelle Hamilton, Fiction Specialist Keisha Oliver, Visual Communications Specialist

COPY EDITORS

Marsha Malcolm Stacey Cumberbatch Neila Ebanks

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

Dr. Patricia Mohammed Dr. Honor Ford-Smith Dr. Keith Nurse Dr. Jocelyne Guilbault Dr. Timothy Rommen Claire Tancons Dr. Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw Dr. Kathalene Razzano Dr. Marielle Barrow

To receive a free e-copy of this journal, subscribe to our newsletter visiting our website www.caribbeanintransit.com or email caribintransit@gmail.com Books for review contact: Marielle Barrow 13000 Contee Manor Road, Bowie, MD 20721 Tel: (202) 765 9742 mariellebarrow@gmail.com

VOL 3 | ISSUE 6 | SPRING 2016

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08 Foreword Marielle Barrow, Editor-in-Chief

10 Introduction Mimi Sheller, Guest Editor Dominique Brebion, Guest Editor

essays 16 Veerle Poupeye

Constructing and Contesting the National Past: Jamaica’s Public Monument Controversies

27 Sonia Tourville mouture

35 Leon Wainwright

CARIBBEAN INTRANSIT ARTS JOURNAL

Taste and Geographical movement in contemporary art of the Caribbean

47 Nimah Muwakil Zakuri

Antithesis/ Synthesis: Fine Arts and Cultural Heritage 4 CARIBBEAN INTRANSIT

Gendered National Voice: Women in Trinidad and Tobago Art, 1956-1971

59 Tamara LaDonna Williams Orisas, Orixás & Orisha: Dance of the African Diaspora

67 Elvis Fuentes, Meyken Barreto

FLOW: Economies of the Look and Creativity in Contemporary Art from the Caribbean IADB June 2014

short essays 71 Suelin Low Chew Tung Grenada Traditional Mas

80 Ilana Harris-Babou

Global Threads: On the Work of Tara Keens-Douglas

contents spotlight: commons or a public sphere?

83 Katherine Kennedy

Voids and Representation: Surveying the growth of Artistled Initiatives in the Caribbean

90 Annalee Davis

Fresh Milk Art Platform Inc.

interviews & biographies 93 Marta Fernandez Campa

A Conversation with Kishan Munroe , Connecting Languages

104 Aidan Chamberlain Interview with Errol Ince

106 Le Grace Benson On Bertelus Myrbel

131 Caitlyn Kamminga

Jab Molassie: A Caribbean Adaptation of Igor Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat

art news feature 133 Svetalana Leu

NGO Protects Nation's Heritage, Citizens for Conservation

visual essays 135 John Beadle Inside, Outside

138 Janice Cheddie

Annalee Davis: Public Beach, Access, Calypso and Resistance

158 Patricia Mohammed Mi Dawta, Mi Dawta

160 Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw Time

film 164 Leah Gordon

Kanaval: The Animated Archive

142 Franklin Roosevelt Sinanan Life’s Journey Altar

143 Victor Anciet Restitution

110 Therese Hadchity

146 Valerie John

Review of Exhibition EN MAS National Art Gallery of the Bahamas JUNKANOO EXHIBITION

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Gyal

Entre invisibilité et anonymat

144 Steve Bauras

115 Marta Fernandez

152 Njelle Hamilton

141 Pedurand Bruno

reviews Book Review of Leon Wainwright's "Timed Out"

fiction

A l’ombre du mur Mon Atelier

148 Hope Brooks Goat Island

149 William Cummins

The Blinding Beauty of the Ordinary

125 Natassia Pratt

Architectural Translations in Bahamian Fine Art

128 Laurence Hegarty

Moira Williams: Let Them Eat Bread!

VOL 3 | ISSUE 6 | FALL 2021 5

introduction

THE CARIBBEAN INTRANSIT MOVEMENT

Car aribbean ibbean IIn nTransit A Arrts Jour Journal nal is a global initiativ initiative e that that seeks to to fost foster er a communit ommunityy of resear research ch and en entr trepr epreneurship eneurship rrela elatted to to cultur cultural al and artistic artistic endea endeavvors emerg emerging from from the C Car aribbean ibbean and its Diasporas Diasporas.. As As a cr crea eativ tive e ‘meeting place place’ ffor or Car aribbean ibbean academics academics,, ar artists tists and audiences audiences,, the journal journal will off offer er a high level level of cr critique itique and academic in intter errroga ogation tion of global Car aribbean ibbean ar arts ts pr prac actic tices es.. This projec projectt is also an av avenue/ space space for for C Car aribbean ibbean artists ar tists tto o sho show wcase their wor workk and incr increase ease their rreg egional ional and int inter erna national tional rec ecog ognition. nition. A Att presen presentt Car Caribbean ibbean IIn nTransit is the only open acc access academic journal jour nal tto o ffocus ocus specifically on the Car Caribbean ibbean ar arts ts as its object object of critique critique.. We understand the ar arts ts to enc encompass ompass lit liter erar aryy, per perffor orming ming,, visual and culinar culinaryy arts ar ts as w well ell as ar archit chitec ectur ture e.

As an academic projec projectt w we e aim tto o documen documentt and cconfr onfron ontt the histor historical ical matter ma erial ial circumstanc circumstances es and ideological ideological paradig paradigms ms within which rich rich artistic artistic expr xpressions essions ha havve emerged emerged of oftten thr through ough struggle struggle.. Man Manyy such expr expressions essions are ar e thr threa eattened or stifled, stifled, thus thus,, ev even en as w we e rec recog ogniz nize e the poten potential tial of these artistic ar tistic ffor orms ms and pr prac actic tices es,, w we e aatt ttempt empt tto o un unvveil and transg transgrress persisten persistentt dogged framew framewor orks ks.. IIn n cconc oncer erning ning ourselves ourselves with the poten potential tial of the ar arts ts to stimulat stimulate social change, change, we we aim to to pr propose opose theoretical theoretical and prac practical tical alter alt erna nativ tives es tto owar ard d socio socio--cultural cultural and politic politico o-ec economic onomic advanc advancemen ementt through thr ough the arts arts.. To this end Car Caribbean ibbean IIn nTransit engages in inquiry inquiry int into the ec economic onomic and political con conttext of the ar arts ts,, ttechnolog echnological ical dimensions of the cultur culture e industry industry, the desig design n and implemen implementa tation tion of sustainable cultural cultural prog pr ogrramming and the developmen developmentt of Car aribbean ibbean Cultur ultural al policy policy and Cultural ultural diplomacy diplomacy. IItt is thr through ough an e explor xploraation of ourselv ourselves es that that we we desire desire to to disco disc over and ccelebr elebraate our wor worth th and ffor orge ge on onw war ard d but without neglec neglecting ting our con onttextual positioning in a globaliz globalized ed wor orld ld.. Our methodolog methodological ical appr approach oach enables this int inter ernaliza nalization tion and e exxter ernaliza nalization, tion, mirr mirror oring ing what what est esteemed eemed C Car aribbean ibbean ar artist tiste e and scholar Re Rex Nettlef Nettlefor ord d described described as “I “In nwar ard d Str tret etch, ch, O Out utw war ard d Reach Reach””. We thus inc incor orpor poraate, ar artistic tistic prac practic tices es and belief beliefss exter ernal nal to the Car aribbean ibbean for consider onsideraation in or order der to pr pro ovide a stage for ccompar omparisons isons and lend insigh insightt and br breadth eadth tto o our pr projec ojectt. Our Our ffocus ocus is the dev developmen elopmentt of the C Car aribbean ibbean A Arrts and C Cultur ulture e industry industry via stra strateg egic ic partnerships par tnerships in the Anglophone Anglophone,, Hispanophone Hispanophone,, Fr Francophone ancophone and Dut Dutch ch Car aribbean. ibbean. We rec recog ogniz nize e Car Caribbean ibbean as global with a distinctiv distinctive e charac charactter of mobilityy and this infor mobilit informs ms our endeav endeavor tto o establish links with universities universities and ar arts ts or organiza ganizations tions w wor orldwide ldwide.. We invit invite e and w welc elcome ome such affiliations affiliations..

Car aribbean ibbean InTransit is the sec second ond stage in a mo movvement ement begun in 2005. The first fforum, orum, C Car aribbean ibbean A Arrts Village Lt Ltd. (based in Trinidad and Tobago obago)) was was a social en entter erpr prise ise fea eatur turing ing a ph phyysical establishment establishment, The Cen Centr tre e for the Ar Arts ts,, and a websit ebsite e which attr ttrac actted over 90,000 hits in less than two years ears.. The compan ompanyy aimed to facilita facilitatte, pr promot omote e and net netw wor orkk ar artists tists and ar artist tistes es fr from om around ar ound the C Car aribbean ibbean b byy bec becoming oming a ccommunit ommunityy focal focal point point, facilitating facilitating the sho show wcase and developmen developmentt of C Car aribbean ibbean talent talent b byy off offer ering ing youth youth training training and pr prog ogrramming amming.. The C Cen entr tre e staged a Summer Visual Ar Arts camp, camp, a regular regular Visual Ar Arts pr prog ogrram, mon monthly thly Jazz ev even ents ts and C Conc oncer ertt-Exhibitions of young young artist ar tistes es,, A Arrtist tist’’s LLymes ymes and FFashion ashion and Desser Dessertt ev evenings enings.. The Cen Centr tre e hosted hosted a fringe fringe festiv festival al ffor or Car Carif ifesta esta 2006, ttw wo CD launches: Ra Ray of hope b byy wellwellkno nown wn local vvocalist ocalist R Raaymond EEdw dwar ards ds,, and the Ruiz Brothers Brothers Pr Projec ojectt b byy the Ruiz Brothers Brothers.. The Cen Centr tre e was was privileged privileged to to ffea eatur ture e well well kno known wn Trinidadian artists ar tists such as Isaac Blackman Blackman and The Lo Love Cir Circle cle,, Sheldon Black Blackman, man, Ron Ron Reid, eid, Chan Chantal tal Esdelle and Mo Moyenne enne,, The A Alt lter erna nativ tive e Quar Quarttet and Talk is Cheap Cheap,, and young young classical vocalists such as Renee Renee SSolomon, olomon, Janine Debique Debique and Rahel Rahel M Moor oore e.

Mar arielle ielle Barr Barrow, Edit ditor or-- in –Chief –Chief Car aribbean ibbean IIn nTransit VOL 3 | ISSUE 6 | SPRING 2016

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OUR IMPAC T ACADEMIC We are driven by the need for in-depth, academic interrogation of Caribbean culture, as a means of furthering artistic practice. and creative entrepreneurship. To this end, we are about Access, Practice and Critique, operating as a network that highlights the best practices in our domain, examining the historical, economic and political contexts of the canon.

ARTS FOR SOCIAL CHANGE Our work underscores the capacity of the Arts to transform individuals. Using the Arts as instruments of social outreach and self-examination, we catalyze our communities to create sustainable economic development.

ARTS TOURISM As a cultural commission and a showcase for contemporary cultural expression, we bring international and regional recognition to our artists and adventurous ideas to our global audience. Our members are afforded a deeper exploration, at will.

THIS IS ME {An Arts-Based Entrepreneurship} A series of collaborative, self-development and Arts training workshops, providing alternative forms of engagement and focus for at-risk youth and persons living with HIV/AIDS by bringing artists and their communities together to create a more critically-aware society, develop sustainable programming and equip attendees with marketable skills.

The series provides a vital link between Caribbean InTransit’s ‘Arts for Social Change’ initiative, the local school system and established social work collectives in the region. A mentoring format lead by recognized artists, engages students and persons living with HIV/AIDS in projects that challenge personal story, social stigma, and self-worth, through specific goals developed during the course of the programme. In 2016, in partnership with the Inter- American Development Bank, Caribbean Intransit provided 50 at-risk students with 6 months to 1 year in Fashion Entrepreneurship training.

THE MEETING PLACE (Ar ts Festival- Caribbean region) Our arts festival draws diverse audiences together to deeply engage with the Caribbean arts that refresh, inspire, intrigue and transform. By curating a critical platform for the arts, we aim to position an understanding of the arts as change agent. Together with our communities, partners, public and private sponsors, The Meeting Place presents a range of events including workshops, concerts, art exhibitions, a symposium, poetry and parade all along themes that pertains to all of us, for example “Body, Institution, Memory”. We welcome you to the "Meeting Place” mobile application. Spread the word and keep abreast via our mobile app, newsletter, website and social media platforms.

CREATIVES OF THE CARIBBEAN (Arts Festival - Diaspora) Developing various aspects of the Arts Industry. Our “Writing for the Arts” Workshop focuses on wiriting about exhibitions, describing and critiquing individual works of art, interviewing an artist and crtical writing about bodies of art work. Other workshops, include “Writing to be published”, “Arts & Society”, and “Exhibition Development”. We are continually developing new workshops. In addition, Caribbean InTransit facilitates workshops where Caribbean InTransit members can benefit from each other.

CARIBBEAN INTRANSIT ARTS JOURNAL & IN SITU Our academic team members convene panels and roundtable discussions at various conferences across the Caribbean and the Diaspora, on cutting edge topics . Panels include team members, partners, members and others who may be interested.

Our “In Situ” Research and Arts Practice team includes team members and collaborators who join efforts and skills to execute research projects as well as sustainable arts projects at Biennials and other occasions. Our first project of this kind at the third edition of the Haiti Ghetto Biennale is in collaboration with the Floating Lab Collective.

ARTS DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOPS Caribbean InTransit offers workshops that focus on developing various aspects of the Arts Industry. Our “Writing for the Arts” Workshop focuses on wiriting about exhibitions, describing and critiquing individual works of art, interviewing an artist and crtical writing about bodies of art work.

VOL 3 | ISSUE 6 | SPRING 2016

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foreword

Marielle Barrow, PhD Editor-in-Chief

Re-membering: Monuments in Transit Perhaps the belatedness of this issue is in itself an act of heritage-making. Ergo, perhaps its delayed release is an act of synthesis between the fine art being critiqued and the development of that artistic practice into cultural heritage as it has allowed us space and time to reflect, accept, and popularize these artistic further consume practices.1 The production of a documentary record or analysis of art is one that is fraught, not simply because of the complexity of the works of art, concomitant with their surrounding power relations which the record interrogates, but due to the complex economic context in which the record must be produced. As an act of remembering in itself, this delayed production of Caribbean InTransit’s sixth issue: Antithesis/Synthesis: Fine Arts and Cultural Heritage, is nevertheless timely. As the current conjuncture finds us once again in that age old search for identity, the fine arts clashes and melds with cultural heritage as a key mode of re-formulation within a current global project of re-memorializing and re-historicizing.

As if in a historical re-enactment, today we are brought face to face with pandemics that have plagued our sense of self from the era of independence of our young nations— antagonisms surrounding the socially constructed determinants of race and class. Within and beyond regional shores, 2020 has brought us into an unscheduled, uncertain home-based existence on account of the global health pandemic caused by COVID-19. Despite the threat of community virus spread, masses worldwide have taken to the streets to protest against systemic and systematic racism acutely re-activated by the unnecessary death of George Floyd by an act of wanton police brutality on May 25, 2020. Simultaneously and coincidentally, across the world, monuments of oppression are being torn down by the masses. Cultural heritage is thus a pivotal player and even aggressor in the current moment, even while contemporary fine artists respond to these myriad pandemics in potent ways immediately amplifying their once almost inaudible voices via their extensive social media reach.

Artists are the visual authors of monuments although it is the selection of the artist, the work of art and the commissioning of the monument often by state agencies, in addition to public debate, that determine the monument’s status as an object or site of cultural heritage.

The question of distinction between fine art and cultural heritage, whether their relationship is dichotomous as one 1 According to the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) definition, cultural heritage is “an expression of the ways of living developed by a community and passed on from generation to generation, including customs, practices, places, objects, artistic expressions and values. Cultural Heritage is often expressed as either Intangible or Tangible Cultural Heritage “ (ICOMOS, 2002).

8 CARIBBEAN INTRANSIT

of anthithesis, or a fluid synthesis, is thus particularly poignant within this present and historical moment of dis-ease. By pushing the boundaries of representation and categorization of fine arts and cultural heritage, individuals and groups are actively challenging epistemes of power, critically questioning and playing with quotidian and symbolic expressions of social norms.

Monuments that stand as heritage sites become embroiled in acts of performance art, as a mode of contemporary fine art. A statue of 17th century slave trader, Edward Colston was deposed by protesters in Bristol, England and lobbed into a river in June 2020. As we witness this and many other monuments in physical transit, critical publics simultaneously engage in enabling the transit of discourse from their old compartments to new frames.

In response to a social media post by a Caribbean scholar who decried the current dismantling and destruction of monuments that represent racist and oppressive pasts, Kim Marie Spence suggests this act of undoing as a form of performance art. Their monumental transport into the sea or other ‘burial places’ are taking them to their rest in creation of a symbolic graveyard of monuments. “Public statues are an expression of power through domination of space. Taking up space is powerful”, she states (July 8, 2020).

Articulating dismantling of monuments as performance art rather than simply an act of violence flips the discourse on its head positioning it as a constructive act of selfrepresentation in re-constituting our understanding of the past. As atrocities of the past continue to be replicated in violence against black bodies today, visual iconographies must be/are being registered as significant displays of power dynamics that perpetuate this condition. What is curated, what is seen, what is selected, remembered and represented are acts and perpetuations of power in museums, public squares and elsewhere. Fine Art and cultural heritage can thus either become fluid in communicating a specific structure of power or, a coherent discourse of dismantling that power. In this moment, privileging synthesis of fine art and cultural heritage over antithesis, synchronizing fine art and cultural heritage is notably facilitating the latter.

The question of antithesis or synthesis is also drawn out in response to the same social media post by award winning Jamaican writer, Kei Miller. Miller challenges the Western art historical perspective that

I pause a little at this idea of art that has been dispatched for at least the last 60 years of art history that continues to see art as solely object and not everything else surrounding it (and sometimes completely excluding it) - the narrative, the history, how audiences interact and make sense of it - all of that is the art.

Maybe if we see it in that way, then what to me is a stunningly beautiful act of throwing a slave trader overboard in an exact echo of how enslaved people had been thrown overboard asking us to think about the body and its worth (does the body of the statue require greater advocacy than the body of the enslaved?) - then we might see how this act rather than destroying the art work, extends its meaning and gives it new and more relevant power. --Miller, July 8, 2020 Monuments date back to the Neolithic ages2, according to Richard Bradley (Bradley 3). Alois Riegl defines them as a human creation constructed in order to maintain the memory of single human acts or events for future generations (Riegl 1).

But what this definition fails to reveal is the complex relationship of monuments to memory. Monuments cannot directly be mapped or indexed to memory in the way that this definition seems to imply. Rather they involve issues of representation of various publics, the intertwining of public and private memory and issues surrounding distinctions between high and low art, fine art and cultural heritage. Monuments function as an anchor of collective remembering ergo, the simplicity of the above description and of the symbolic representations for which monuments often stand can both be understood as concealing a politics of designation that seeks to normalize a specific form of public practice of memory through monument construction. Art historian, Jochen Spielmann, gives a more nuanced understanding of the monument as a cultural artifact that is simultaneously public while referencing the private.

The monument is a contradictory object in its representation of both history and memory, a public element circumscribed by practices which contribute to its meaning: “It acts as a symbol in so far as it sustains political and historical discussion in a society, provides a link between cultural formation institutionalized communication and is both a manifestation of cultural memory and historical consciousness…”3 These current acts of performance art surrounding monuments thus alter the historical consciousness, re-configuring the symbolic and narrative surrounding the monument.

2 It was discovered that Neolithic long barrows at Barkaer in Denmark were in fact funerary monuments and not large houses.

3 He describes it as a work of art “reminding us of people or events. It is erected in a public space by a specific group on a specific site and is designed to endure. IN this process, a monument fulfills a function of identification, legitimization, representation, anticipation, interpretation and information… a Monument is the result of a communication involving conflictory negotiation of the interpretation of history.”

Monuments are often tied up in the project of nation-building by symbolizing nationalist discourses. However Kirk Savage alerts us to the history of monument construction in the nineteenth century when the appeal of monuments was built on their spontaneous construction through popular demand after which they were to be given to the state for ‘safekeeping’. In this way the rhetoric or claim that animated monument construction was the assertion that m o n u m e n t s came from the people and were authentic from the point of view that monument construction was a volunteer enterprise funded by individual donations and associations of citizens. Even though they may have served political or ideological agendas, the publics that constructed them were visibly and actively involved. The symbolic and financial support of the public was needed for a monument to find prominence in public space (Savage 1997: 6). In the contemporary moment, Savage submits that memory as a collective phenomenon as implied by the project of monuments involves fictional and abstract elements (Savage 6) that create complexity and tension within an already fraught project.

Savage understands the fictions as an even denser, more convoluted issue as he describes both collective memory and the people as fictions “manufactured to serve ideological ends” (Savage 6). As monuments in the more recent past are often commissions of state agencies or the project of the moneyed classes, the view of the public is often subordinated to political will or subject to class distinctions.

These considerations are critical at this juncture. Should the public propose or demand alternative ‘social rules’ for the construction of monuments where a range of voices are equally represented ?

How can this be equitably accomplished?

foreword

centers the object as work of art as opposed to considering the object within a broader taxonomy. Within the field of cultural studies myriad perspectives such as physical, functional, cultural and ideological contexts that surround production of the object are equally critical. Miller shares the following:

This issue of Caribbean InTransit shares multiple artistic projects, voices and debates surrounding monuments within and relevant to Caribbean society that must be considered within this historical-present context.

In this moment where multiple global pandemics involving the physical, mental and emotional health of society have created more of a seeming fiction than fiction itself, it is critical to re-visit the sites, acts, manifestations and representations of Caribbean art and cultural heritage, in deploying new modes of thinking that serve to anchor a progressive future society.

Biography: Trinidad-born Marielle Barrow is a Fulbright scholar, visual artist, social entrepreneur and cultural program manager. She completed her doctorate at George Mason University in 2016.

Her research focuses on the policy implications of counter-memory and cultural capital within Caribbean arts practice, especially in Haiti, The Bahamas, and Trinidad and Tobago. Barrow is the founder of Caribbean InTransit.

References 1. Bradley, Richard. The Significance of Monuments: On the Shaping of Human Experience in Neolithic and Bronze Age Europe. Psychology Press, 1998. Print.

2. Spielmann, Jochen, “Gedenken und Denkmal’, in Berlinische Galerie and Senatsverwaltung fur Bau-und Wohnungswesen, eds, Gendenken und Denkmal.Entwurfe zur Erinnerung an die Deportation und Vernichtung der judischen Bevolkerung Berlins, Berlin: Berinische Galerie, 1988. 7-46 3. Savage, Kirk. Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in Nineteenth-Century. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ, 1997. Print.

VOL 3 | ISSUE 6 | FALL 2021

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introduction

Mimi Sheller Guest Editor

Transits of Caribbean Art

Artistic production is one of the key ways in which the Caribbean region is “in transit,” and Caribbean arts are a crucial medium for transmitting knowledge of the region while engaging with its complex and multifaceted heritage and contemporary situation. Moving across multiple spaces and temporalities, this special issue of Caribbean InTransit seeks to consider not only how Caribbean art travels the world and transits through history, but more specifically in doing so, how does it relate to home, heritage and identity?

There is lively debate about the claiming of a “Caribbean” location and identity for artists and as a geographical label for some perceived commonality in art styles or aesthetic tastes. What kinds of possibilities are created by such a regional rubric, and conversely what baggage does it carry? Does calling an artist or artworks Caribbean impose labels, presuppose forms of artwork, and constrain art careers, or does it open trajectories and transformations?

What ideas of heritage does Caribbeanness make claim to and what does that mean in the contemporary fine art context?

This issue addresses many of these questions through a wideranging examination of contemporary art in the Caribbean.

Through critical essays, reviews, and visual essays the contributors delve into the transit of Caribbean art in relation to heritage, its multivalent meanings, its diverse practitioners, and its far-ranging travels, homing and regroundings. We title it Antithesis/Synthesis because so many contemporary Caribbean-born artists have struggled with their positioning in relation to Caribbean heritage and what it means for their work. If the original “thesis” of the art world in the early to mid-20th century was that Caribbean art was by definition intuitive, naïve, marginal, on the periphery, or island-centric, then late 20th century artists sought to transcend these limitations by rejecting heritage-based labels, claiming a more antithetical central place in the contemporary world. This antithesis, however, has more recently been met by work that navigates the complexity of being a contemporary Caribbean artist, whether based within the region or in the diaspora, by seeking more complex syntheses of locally grounded heritage and more uprooted cosmopolitan belonging, and by troubling the very terms of such psycho-geographies with alternative itineraries and iterations.

Taking a scan of the Caribbean art world(s) when we began this project in 2016, there are some signs of growth and vibrancy at the time. Within the region, we sa w the National Gallery of Jamaica open its offshoot National 1 https://nationalgalleryofjamaica.wordpress.com/tag/young-talent-2015/ : https://www.tate.org.uk/press/press-releases/life-between-islands-caribbean-britishart-1950s-now 2 http://www.spacecaribbean.com/#!exhibitions/cpax: 3 https://gisbarbados.gov.bb/blog/prime-minister-announces-creation-of-barbadosheritage-district/ 4 Holland Cotter, “Islands Buffeted by Currents of Change,” The New York Times, Art and Design Section, 14 June 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/15/arts/ design/ 10

CARIBBEAN INTRANSIT

Gallery West in Montego Bay, refurbishing its Modern Jamaican art galleries, and hosting lively conversations around its recent series of Young Talent shows featuring up-and-coming artists under forty.1 Also notable in Jamaica at the time was the December 2015 opening of _space, described as “the Caribbean’s first [major] exhibition space dedicated entirely to contemporary art,” in a building renovated by the architect David Adjaye at the Perry Henzell estate in Kingston. Conceived of as the region’s first cultural nongovernmental organization as well as a museum, in June 2016 its first exhibition of works by Jean Michel Basquiat sought to examine “the man, the artist, and his work from the perspective of his Caribbean heritage.”2 Now, in 2021, we find that David Adjaye has been commissioned to build a major memorial, research institute and museum in Barbados, memorializing the transatlantic slave trade. It will break ground on the first year of Barbados becoming a Republic, marking also a huge shift in the relation between Caribbean art and heritage.3 Thus, questions of repositioning heritage are front and center in the current presentation of contemporary art in major Caribbean institutions. We might interpret this as another kind of antithesis and synthesis, in which the Caribbean is questioning its definition by outsiders in the metropoles, and building a more vibrant and prominent institutional presence for fine arts. Yet the diaspora space and metropolitan spaces still remain important.

Rippling further out into the diaspora was the massive threemuseum and 500-work 2012 show “Caribbean: Crossroads of the World” mounted jointly at the Studio Museum in Harlem, El Museo del Barrio, and the Queens Museum of Art, which also traveled in smaller form to the Pérez Art Museum in Miami in 2014. This show brought together a deep three-hundred-year historical perspective on Caribbean arts and heritage while connecting it to contemporary art from around the region. It was described by art critic Holland Cotter in the New York Times as “the big art event of the summer season in New York, itself one of the largest Caribbean cities.”4 This show thus highlighted the Caribbeanness of New York itself, and the relation of complex Caribbean currents, crossroads, and heritage to the metropolis. Today, taking this impetus further, we see Tate Britain mounting the show Life Between Islands: CaribbeanBritish Art 1050s – Now, described as a “landmark exhibition” that will run until 3 April 2022. Curated by David A Bailey, Artistic Director of the International Curators Forum, and Alex Farquharson, Director of Tate Britain, this too marks a new departure in Caribbean diasporic art heritage.5 caribbean-crossroads-of-the-world-spans-3-museums.html?_r=0 5 https://www.tate.org.uk/press/press-releases/life-between-islands-caribbeanbritish-art-1950s-now 6 See http://arcthemagazine.com/arc/2013/04/the-global-caribbean-a-trilogyof- polysynthesis-in-contemporary-caribbean-edouard-duval-carrie-jose-bediaand-jose-garcia-cordero/. Global Caribbean IV, shown in Miami in 2012, also traveled to Martinique in 2013. For a discussion by the curator see http:// qrartguide.com/examples/global-caribbean-iv/

introduction Meanwhile over the previous decade Miami artist and curator Edouard Duval-Carrié organized the Global Caribbean series of shows featuring contemporary artists from across the region at the Little Haiti Cultural Center. Amable Lopez Melendez, Chief Curator of the Museum of Modern Art, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, described some of the works in the Global Caribbean V as a “polysynthesis” involving “different signs, symbols, forms, poetics and aesthetic practices that proclaim the renewal and ascendancy of contemporary LatinAmerican and Caribbean art.”5 This ascendancy is notable in the attention being given to Caribbean art in multiple locations.

Haitian art in particular was featured in a large-scale 200-year retrospective at the Grand Palais Galerie Nationale in Paris, in 2014-20156 while there was growing global coverage of arts events in Haiti such as the annual Ghetto Biennale in Port-au- Prrince, as well as other regional events such as the Havana Biennale in Cuba.

Duval-Carrié and co-curator Leah Gordon promoted Haitian contemporary art through the 2018 show PÒTOPRENS: The Urban Artists of Port-au-Prince, at Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, and celebrated the publication of the catalogue in 2021 during Art Basel Miami, which also had a large contingent of Caribbean artists.

Contemporary Caribbean artists working in North America also continue to make an impact in the "metropolitan" art world, ranging from the major show of Tavares Strachan’s project seen/unseen in New York in 2011,7 to the first solo New York museum show of Ebony G. Patterson’s Dead Treez, at the Museum of Arts and Design.7 Yet in other regards arts institutions and arts funding within the region remain fragile, and there is the ongoing question of who defines Caribbean art and arbitrates the ways in which it moves through the world. As always, Caribbean artists must negotiate their relation to their heritage, to the region, to the diaspora, and to the wider circles of various art worlds in which their work is contextualized and situated.

As Leon Wainwright points out in his essay in this issue of Caribbean InTransit, focused on an exchange project featuring Indo-Caribbean artists in Paramaribo and Rotterdam, Caribbean art practices in the last 25 years have been the subject of scholarly analysis of global, transnational movement and cultural interconnectedness. Yet the ways in which the “global” travels are determined by metropolitan arbiters of taste, while the ways in which Caribbean art, artists and culture travel must always be negotiated within the global. Practices of “cultural 5 http://arcthemagazine.com/arc/2014/09/retrospective-of-200-years-of-haitian-artat-the-grand-palais-galerie-nationale-in-paris/ 6 For discussion of this work see Mimi Sheller, “How to be Seen while Being Unseen:

exchange” travel across uneven geographies of aesthetic taste, affecting the circulation and consumption of Caribbean art.

The conflict between different aesthetics is also the subject of Veerle Poupeye’s essay in this issue, which considers controversies surrounding the commissioning of public monuments in Jamaica and the “often-fraught” relation between art, national heritage and the public. “The stakes surrounding the production of national heritage are particularly high in postcolonial societies,” she writes, “because of their violent histories and the manner in which the local culture was devalued under colonial rule. In such contexts, the production of heritage amounts to an act of reclamation but also reflects the power dynamics within postcolonial states and is subject to significant contestation.”

The conflict between different aesthetics is also the subject Finding the Un-Visible Bahamas in the (Dis)assembled Works of Tavares Strachan,” of E-misphér Veerle ica: PerforPoupeye’s mance and Pessay olitics in the Ain this mericasissue, , Vol. 11, Nowhich . 1 (2014) Special considers Issue on Rcontroversies asamblaj, ed. Gina Ulysurrounding sse. And fthe or the work itself hcommissioning ttp://seenunseen.cof public om. monuments in Jamaica and the “often-fraught” relation between art, national heritage and the public. “The stakes surrounding the production of national heritage are particularly high in postcolonial societies,” she writes, “because of their violent histories and the manner in which the local culture was devalued under colonial rule. In such contexts, the production of heritage amounts to an act of reclamation but also reflects the power dynamics within postcolonial states and is subject to significant contestation.”

In an equally politically and historically conscious essay, Sonia Tourville considers the situation of artists of Martinique by way of reflections on Australian aboriginal art and the deeper historical heritage of the Caribbean and in particular the relation of the French Overseas Departments with Hexagonal France. The artists of the Caribbeann Tourville argues, "bear the brunt of a discontinuity of the territory, with sparse reading, with a diffracted cosmogony. Being aware of this "modified space" in which the Caribbean is situated, leads to the following premise: that "a space of juxtapositions of heterotopias, demands, perhaps, that we step back and re-examine the socio-historical path traveled."

7 http://www.madmuseum.org/exhibition/ebony-g-patterson-deadtreez

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introduction With all of these issues and concerns in mind, we invite the reader to explore the many other offerings here, meditating on the place of Caribbean art and artists in relation to the heritage of the region. There is no definitive answer, but we can say with confidence that questions of history, heritage, location, and belonging continue to resonate across many Caribbean arts practices, institutions, and critical discourse. Other essays here explore gender, nationalism and women artists in Trinidad & Tobago in 1956-1971, parallels in spiritual dance forms of the African diaspora, the convergence of fine art and cultural heritage in the Bahamas, and the economies of the look and creativity in contemporary art from the Caribbean. These pieces are accompanied by short essays, interviews, and reviews that, taken together, offer a rich overview of many aspects of Caribbean art across multiple territories and linguistic areas. This project is itself a synthesis of many different perspectives, fulfilling the need for learning more about the complexities and sophistication of a region that is too often assumed to be “cultureless” and without “heritage” in the relentless banalities of tourist representations. We hope you will share in our enthusiasm for the artists, art critics, reviewers and writers who have contributed to this issue, who have helped transmit a deeper knowledge of the Caribbean into the global cultural arena, and who have dared to transit the chasms of translation that are required to fathom a region of many cultures, many languages, many heritages, and many arts.

Biography: Mimi Sheller is the inaugural Dean of The Global School at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. She was Professor of Sociology at Drexel University, and Director of the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy from 2009—2021

12 CARIBBEAN INTRANSIT

introduction

This project is itself a synthesis of many different perspectives, fulfilling the need for learning more about the complexities and sophistication of a region that is too often assumed to be “cultureless” and without “heritage” in the relentless banalities of tourist representations.

Mimi Sheller

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introduction

Dominique Brebion

Guest Editor

Thanks to the power that man has to remember, accumulate the past—his own and that of his ancestors—he pos-sesses it and profits from it. Man is never the first man; he can only start living based upon his accumulated past. Here is his only marked treasure, his privilege, his distinctive signature.

- José Ortega y Gasset

The question of the relationship between the arts and cultural heritage has long been a critical issue for artists of the French Overseas Departments. Without a doubt, this corresponds to an urgency within postcolonial nations to recompose and assert our identity. The search for identity has long been at the heart of artistic creation within Negritude and Créolité in literature, much like the Caribbean Negro School and Fwomajé Group for the Visual Arts. But as René Ménil, founder of the literary magazine Tropiques (Tropics) alongside Aimé Césaire, stated at the symposium “ The arts of the Triangular Trade or the arts of Maroonage” in February 1998: The unilateral search for roots probably means a willingness to be true to oneself and it is not without merit. But on the other hand, one risks retreating into tradition or routine. In fact, these so-called roots are not real as we are not trees fixed in the ground. This is one of many metaphors and critical thinking demands of us that we work through it.

When you think about it, there is no there within a specific time delineation, a definitive deadline without a beyond, but an imaginary ensemble of words and behaviors that we must surpass in order to progress further on the road of arrivals and departures.

An undeniable mutation has occurred in our relationship to cultural heritage, but as Julvécourt Line points out in the article titled “Amerindian Traces in Francophone Caribbean Contemporary Art,”1 the appropriation of signs and ancestral gestures—visual or virtual witnesses of the past, traces of a fleeting memory2 —remains a constant practice in the work of artists like Victor Anicet, René Louise Klodi Cancelier, Nivor Bertin, Thierry Lima, and Serge Goudin Thébia. These turbulent ruins that constantly disturb us, challenge us, shift us within time3 are the windows that ensure our passage from one world to another. The artist is thus seen as a smuggler who restores the traces detected. Even if it is an African and no longer an Amerindian past that is recalled by Valérie John, she is still considered a passeur of matière amarreuse (an artist who sticks with it),4 whose practice takes up a charge or project.5 Her workshop is the ritual where the past and the present merge in order for the work to emerge.6 The artist, as Bruno Pedurand asserts, is a social worker who 1 JOHN Valérie, Mon atelier 1995-2013 2 JULVECOURT Line, La trace dans l’art contemporain de la Caraïbe – Mémoire de Master Faculté de Lettres et Sciences humaines des Antilles et de la Guyane 3 ANICET Victor, Restitution 4 JOHN Valérie, Mon atelier 1995-2013

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registers his practice within the heart of the social; Caribbean artists have to deal with the weight of history, the duty of memory and dogmatism of identity work.7 Now, in the Caribbean, according to the analysis of Sonia Tourville, cultural heritage is complex and heterogeneous given the historical process. The cultural origin of settlers such as that of deportees, the fragmentation of space, the articulation of religions, and changes in the process of creolization, all affect the transmission of the past. Caribbean societies have been changing the engine of development in contrast to so-called ‘cold’ societies like the Australian Aborigines who have progressed slowly and maintain a balance that keeps tradition continuous.

Art reflects these issues. Visual artists like Jean-François Boclé (Martinique), Bruno Pédurand (Guadeloupe) and Joscelyn Gardner (Barbados) explore and exhume texts and historical facts. The analysis of this fraught liability,8 historical facts or facts of society, is combined in Adam and Eve, part of Bruno Pédurand’s Amnesia series, likewise in Oneika Russell’s Olympia series (Jamaica) that feature a re-appropriation and pictorial interpretation of classic or modern World Heritage. This classical or modern pictorial heritage also impels Thierry Alet to present a remix of his performance Trois Siècles en trois jours (Three Centuries in Three Days) but his work Manuscrits (Manuscripts) is also informed by the literary heritage of Damas, Césaire, Machiavelli, and Shakespeare.

Steeve Bauras (Martinique) invests in a relationship with the legacy of film (Sam Fuller for 3K) as well as of European and Latin American architecture. He photographs places full of history, now abandoned, enigmatic, ghostly, in order to provoke debate or inspire reflection.

We cannot separate memory, the present and plans for the future. We are still in the recapitulation of ourselves, the will to make sense of all that has happened to us. Casting into our intentions are expectations, anticipations, but also acts of will— voluntary acts that will always be charges or projects that must be accomplished. 9 Biography: Dominique Brebion is President of the South Caribbean Aica section of the International Association of Art Critics from 2007 to 2020. Brebion is vice-president, responsible for communication and blogs on aica-sc.net 5 JOHN Valérie, Mon atelier 1995-2013 6 JOHN Valérie, Mon atelier 1995-2013 7 PEDURAND Bruno, Invisibilité et anonymat 8 JOHN Valérie, Mon atelier 1995-2013 9 RICOEUR Paul, interviewed by Francois Ewald Un parcrours philosophique Literary Magazine, September 2000

Guest Editor

«L’homme grâce au pouvoir qu’il a de se souvenir, accumule le passé, le sien et celui de ses ancêtres, il le possède et en profite. L’homme n’est jamais un premier homme ; il ne peut commencer à vivre qu’à un certain niveau de passé accumulé. Voici son seul trésor, son privilège, son signe »

introduction

Dominique Brebion

- José Ortega y Gasset

La question de la relation des arts et de l’héritage culturel a longtemps été une question cruciale pour les artistes des Départements Français des Amériques. Cela correspondait sans doute une urgence postcoloniale : recomposer et affirmer son identité. Ainsi la quête identitaire a longtemps été au cœur de la création artistique, avec la Négritude et la Créolité en littérature en parallèle avec l’Ecole Negro Caraïbe et le Groupe Fwomajé pour les arts visuels. Mais comme le disait René Ménil, fondateur avec Aimé Césaire de la Revue Tropiques, lors du colloque Les arts de la rencontre triangulaire ou les arts du marronnage en février 1998 « La recherche omnilatérale des racines signifie sans doute une volonté d’être fidèle à soi-même et ce n’est pas sans mérite. Mais d’un autre côté, on voit apparaître le risque d’un enfermement dans la tradition ou la routine.

De fait, les dites racines ne sont pas réelles et nous ne sommes pas des arbres fixés au sol. Il s’agit là d’une métaphore parmi d’autres et la réflexion critique exige de nous que nous passions au travers. Il n’y a pas là, pour la réflexion, un terme limite, un butoir définitif sans au-delà mais un ensemble imaginaire de paroles et de comportements qu’il faut dépasser pour aller plus loin sur la route des arrivées et des départs ».

Depuis une indéniable mutation s’est opérée dans la relation avec l’héritage culturel mais l’appropriation de signes et de gestes ancestraux, témoins visuels ou virtuels du passé, traces d’une mémoire fuyante1 demeure une pratique constante dans l’œeuvre d’artistes comme Victor Anicet, René Louise, Klodi Cancelier, Bertin Nivor, Thierry Lima, Serge Goudin Thébia comme le souligne Line Julvécourt dans l’article intitulé Les traces amérindiennes dans l'art contemporain caribéen francophone.2 Car ces ruines turbulentes qui ne cessent de nous troubler, de nous interpeller, de nous décaler3 dans le temps sont des fenêtres qui assurent le passage d’un monde à l’autre. L’artiste se voit donc comme un passeur qui restitue les traces décelées. Même si c’est le passé africain et non plus amérindien que convoque Valérie John, elle se considère également comme un artiste – passeur- de -matière- amarreuse4 dont la pratique se nourrit d’un passif chargé5 et dont l’atelier est le lieu rituel où le passé et le présent fusionnent pour que l’œuvre émerge..6

1 JOHN Valérie, Mon atelier 1995-2013 2 JULVECOURT Line, La trace dans l’art contemporain de la Caraïbe – Mémoire de Master Faculté de Lettres et Sciences humaines des Antilles et de la Guyane 3 ANICET Victor, Restitution 4 JOHN Valérie, Mon atelier 1995-2013

L’artiste, comme le rappelle Bruno Pédurand, est un opérateur social qui inscrit sa pratique au coeur du social et Les artistes de la Caraïbe doivent composer avec le poids de l’histoire, le devoir de mémoire et le dogmatisme du devoir identitaire.7 Or, dans la Caraïbe, conformément à l’analyse de Sonia Tourville, compte tenu du processus historique, l’héritage culturel est complexe et hétérogène. L’aire culturelle de provenance des colons comme celle de provenance des déportés, le morcellement de l’espace, l’articulation des religions, l’évolution du processus de créolisation influent sur la transmission. Les sociétés de la Caraïbe ont fait du changement le moteur de leur développement à l’inverse de sociétés dites froides comme celle des Aborigènes d’Australie qui vivent une histoire lente et maintiennent un équilibre qui perpétue la tradition.

L’art reflète ces problématiques. Des plasticiens comme Jean – François Boclé (Martinique), Bruno Pédurand (Guadeloupe) tout comme Joscelyn Gardner (Barbade) explorent et exhument textes et faits historiques8.L’analyse de ce passif chargé faits d’histoire ou faits de société se conjugue dans Adam et Eve de la série Amnésia de Bruno Pédurand tout comme dans Olympia série d’Oneika Russel (Jamaïque) avec une réappropriation et interprétation du patrimoine pictural mondial, classique ou moderne. C’est aussi dans le patrimoine pictural classique ou moderne que puise Thierry Alet pour en présenter un remix dans sa performance Trois Siècles en trois jours mais aussi dans le patrimoine littéraire, Damas, Césaire, Machiavel, Shakespeare pour ses Manuscrits.

Steeve Bauras (Martinique) s’inscrit, pour sa part, dans une relation avec le patrimoine cinématographique (Sam Fuller pour 3K) ou le patrimoine architectural européen ou latino- américain.

Il photographie des lieux chargés d’histoire, aujourd’hui abandonnés, énigmatiques, fantomatiques pour provoquer le débat ou poser des réflexions.

On ne peut pas séparer mémoire et projet, et donc futur. Nous sommes toujours dans la récapitulation de nous-mêmes, la volonté de faire sens avec tout ce qui nous est arrivé, la projection dans des intentions, es expectations, des anticipations, mais aussi des actes de volonté qui sont toujours des projets, des choses à faire. 9

5 6 7 8 9

JOHN Valérie, Mon atelier 1995-2013 JOHN Valérie, Mon atelier 1995-2013 PEDURAND Bruno, Invisibilité et anonymat JOHN Valérie, Mon atelier 1995-2013 RICOEUR Paul, interviewed by Francois Ewald Un parcrours philosophique

Literary Magazine, September 2000

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introduction

Veerle Poupeye

Constructing and Contesting the National Past: Jamaica’s Public Monument Controversies Keywords: monuments, public art, controversy, politics of representation

essays:

The production of heritage is part of the national enterprise in most modern nation-states or, to use Benedict Anderson’s terms, it is part of how nations imagine themselves (1991). Defining this “ national heritage” – deciding what should be part of it, and what not; and how it should be represented and understood – is only rarely consensual and, in the context of nationstates, typically represents the views of dominant groups.

The stakes surrounding the production of national heritage are particularly high in postcolonial societies, because of their violent histories and the manner in which the local culture was devalued under colonial rule. In such contexts, the production of heritage amounts to an act of reclamation but also reflects the power dynamics within postcolonial states and is subject to significant contestation.

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Public monuments commissions are an important part of how heritage is represented in the context of nationstates and their reception sheds revealing light on the contestations involved.

This is illustrated by the controversies that have surrounded public monuments in postcolonial Jamaica and this paper examines the public response to Jamaica’s most controversial monuments: the National Monument (1963), the Paul Bogle monument (1965), the original Bob Marley monument (1983) and the Emancipation monument (2003). Each of these monuments was created by a well-established Jamaican artist – Alvin Marriott, Edna Manley, Christopher Gonzalez and Laura Facey, respectively.

None were artistically innovative or

deliberately provocative and each used artistic vocabularies that were well-established in local art and had been articulated by the nationalist school of the mid-20th century.

The controversies did not pertain to the monuments’ artistic worth, however, but to their appropriateness as collective symbolic representations of high-stakes subjects, which reflects a disconnect between how the national past has been imagined by the artistic community and how such constructs are understood in the broader public sphere. This challenges the foundational assumptions of the Jamaican nationalist school, whose artists and institutions had positioned themselves as the legitimate producers and promoters of a consensual, nation-building imaginary.

The question of who is qualified to make decisions about public national symbols has been an integral part of the controversies and notions of cultural expertise have been challenged in the process. This paper therefore also sheds light on the often-fraught dynamic between “art,” “national heritage,” and “the public” in postcolonial societies.

The National Monument As Jamaica moved towards self-government, significant efforts were made to Jamaicanize public historical

1 This paper is derived from Chapter 3, titled “Public Art and Controversy,” of my doctoral dissertation Between Nation and Market: Art and Society in 20th Century Jamaica (Emory University, 2011). An earlier version of the section on the Emancipation monument also appeared in Jamaica Journal 28:2&3 (2004) 2 This artist’s surname is also spelled as Gonzales.

3 At present, there are seven National Heroes: Marcus Garvey, Paul Bogle, George William Gordon, Alexander Bustamante, Norman Manley, Sam Sharpe, and, the sole female, Nanny.

impression of what the statue would look like at the Harbour View Roundabout (1-3). The public response is recorded mainly as a barrage of vituperative letters to the Gleaner during May and June 1963, although a few columnists and letter-writers presented more positive appraisals. The support for the proposal typically came from within the art community while most of the negative criticism came from without – a pattern that would be repeated in later controversies. The bulk of the letters pertained to the appropriateness of the imagery to the purpose of the monument, which was to celebrate Jamaican Independence.

The “writhing nudes” were a particular sore point, mainly because of the allusions to sexuality but many also found the imagery disturbing. Seven of the nine letters on the subject on May 8, 1963, for instance, compared it to the gruesome images of piled-up bodies in the mass graves of the Nazi concentration camps.

The first controversial monument was however a private initiative. In early 1963, the art patron and civil engineer A.D. Scott launched a campaign for a National Monument, which would be produced by Alvin Marriott, a well-established member of the nationalist school, and unveiled on the first anniversary of Jamaica’s Independence. The organizers wished for it to be erected at the Harbour View Roundabout, where the airport road enters the city of Kingston, near a model middle-income housing development of that period – a showcase location for modern Jamaica. While government had agreed to provide the land, the monument would be funded by private subscription, with support from major corporations. This included Alcan, a Canadian aluminum company then active in the island, which had agreed to donate the aluminum that would be used for the casting.

The choice of aluminum as the material was significant, not only as a public gesture of import substitution, whereby a material of local origin was used to replace the locally unavailable and expensive bronze, but as an implied tribute to the bauxite industry which was, along with tourism, independent Jamaica’s engine of economic growth.

The monument was also criticized for being too derivative of the work of the Norwegian sculptor Gustav Vigeland, particularly the Monolith (1924-25) in the Vigeland Park in Oslo, a totemic form which represents the development of humankind as an ascending mass of nudes that also progresses from passive to active. The Gleaner reproduced Monolith on the front page of its Sunday edition of May 12, 1963 which further stoked the debate. That this was a factor in this controversy should not surprise, since the question of whether Caribbean culture was doomed to derivativeness was a major polemic at that time, as had been controversially argued by V.S. Naipaul in The Middle Passage the year before.

The proposed monument, a large structure more than forty feet tall, was conceived as the embodiment of Jamaica’s new national motto “out of many, one people.” It would consist of a circular concrete base with the coat of arms, while the sculpture itself would be a conical relief sculpture of interlocking nudes, ascending from the passive to the active and representative of the racial groups that make up the Jamaican population, to be surmounted by a free-standing nude couple. As the Gleaner critic Ignacy Eker described it: “There on top of this straining pyramid of people, two figures, that of a man and a woman, will give substance to a vision of youthful love, unabashedly romantic and tender, emblematic of the oneness of our nation, holding the promise of a happy future” (1963, 3).

Marriott’s maquette was featured on the cover of the Gleaner Sunday Magazine of April 28, 1963, followed by Eker’s endorsement and a crude photomontage that gave an

essays

commemoration. The Jamaica National Trust Commission – now the Jamaica National Heritage Trust – was established in 1958 to manage historical sites and monuments. After Independence in 1962, there was a spate of public monument commissions, which supplemented other efforts to instill a unified sense of Jamaicanness by means of national symbols and observances, such as the national honors that replaced the British system.The highest such honor is the Order of National Hero, which is granted to historical figures who are deemed to have “built” the modern Jamaican nation by challenging the colonial order at critical moments in the island’s history. Most monument commissions of this period pertained to the National Heroes and included the construction of ceremonial tombs in National Heroes Park, previously the George IV Memorial Park, in Kingston and the erection of monuments at locations associated with the National Hero in question.

The National Monument employed a symbolic vocabulary that was well established in nationalist Jamaican art – the ascent towards nationhood is, for instance, comparably represented in Edna Manley’s relief carving Growth (1958) which also included ascending nudes. The controversy suggested that what was commonplace in the local art circles was unacceptable and incomprehensible to many of its outsiders. Many of the proposal’s critics felt that the concept was too abstract and that the monument should make specific reference to Jamaica’s history and achievements (e.g.

Patmos 1963; Lyon 1963, 21). Marriott later acceded to the demands for historical specificity and modified the design to include busts of the National Heroes in the base.

Several commentators also objected that the National Monument had been unilaterally conceived by a selfappointed group of “experts”. One particularly objected to Eker’s claim that he had been asked by the organizers to “enlighten” the public about the monument and added: “That a decision so vital to the nation could have been taken behind close doors after a precious (moneyed) few had been invited to enter and decide what the people ought to want, was transparent arrogance” (Smith E. 1963, 15).

As a result of the controversy, the governmentwithdrew its support but Scott and Marriott quietly continued working on the monument, but it was not completed during their

4 Scott also printed a promotional booklet.

5 These comparisons may have been influenced by Stanley Kramer’s acclaimed film Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), which opened in Kingston on February 13, 1963 (Gleaner February 10, 1963).

6 Recent research suggests that this portrait may not actually be of Bogle, although it appears to have come from the Bogle family, but the original photograph is now lost and definitive authentication is not possible at this time. (Boxer 2010) The photograph had however already in 1959 been publicized as a portrait of Bogle (Gleaner 1959) and it has since the mid 1960s served as his official portrait.

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lifetime – Marriott died in 1992 and Scott in 2002. There was a posthumous attempt to revive the project for the 40th anniversary of Independence in 2002 but this also floundered. The crowning couple was used as a placeholder in Emancipation Park, until the Emancipation monument was ready, but again drew public criticism for its the nudity. The couple has since been installed on the National Monument’s original base at the Harbour View roundabout, the only part that had been completed in situ. There the romantic, elegantly posed pair looks forlorn on its too-large base in the increasingly rundown environment of Harbour View and seems to be generally overlooked. At the time of writing there was again talk about completing the monument but, if this is done, it is likely that there will be renewed controversy.

The Bogle Monument The next controversial commission was the Bogle (1965) monument for the town of Morant Bay in the parish of St Thomas. It was handled by the National Trust Commission, who granted the commission to Edna Manley, the most influential artist of the nationalist school. The National Hero Paul Bogle was a Baptist deacon and the leader of the 1865 Morant Bay Rebellion, which had challenged the unjust socio-economic conditions of the post-Emancipation period.

There is a photograph which is widely accepted to be of Bogle and serves as his official image – a c1865, unattributed ferrotype portrait of handsome dark-skinned man seated in an armchair and wearing a “respectable” three-piece suit – but the monument looks nothing like this portrait. Manley opted to capture the bold, visionary spirit of the “warrior” Bogle rather than his likeness, a decision she made after interviewing residents of St Thomas about how they remembered him (Manley 1989, 67-71).

The statue is representative of Manley’s romanticvisionary style and consists of a standing male figure, eightand-a-half feet tall, who holds a machete before his chest in a hieratic, cruciform pose. The figure is bare-chested and his trousers cling to his legs because he was, as Edna Manley explained to journalist Barbara Gloudon, “soaked with sweat as Bogle’s body must have been after days and nights as a fugitive and fighter” (1965, 4). The head is oversized which, Gloudon reported, deliberately reflects the conventional proportions of African and early Medieval art.

Bogle was cast in ciment fondu, a cheaper substitute for bronze that has two of Jamaica’s industrial products as its main ingredients, cement and aluminum – another nationalist choice of material. A smaller, truncated version of the Bogle was cast in bronze and used in the 1865 Monument in the National Heroes Shrine in Kingston, which also included a more realistic bust of George William Gordon, a member of the National Assembly who had championed Bogle’s cause and was also executed after the rebellion. This bust was sculpted by Christopher Gonzalez, one of the emerging artists of the Independence generation. The 1865 Monument was unveiled a few days after the Bogle and both events were

part of the official centenary of the Morant Bay Rebellion.

Despite Edna Manley’s efforts to make the imagery relevant to the residents of Morant Bay, the public response was mixed and involved ordinary people, who objected that the sculpture was “too black.” One indignant newspaper columnist reported that he had overheard a local comment: “Cho, if him didn’t was a black man, dem would never mek him so black” and chided that there would probably have been no objections if the sculpture had been made from white marble (Monroe 1965, 6). This columnist may however have missed the essence of the man’s argument, namely that the conflation of the racial identity “black” with the color “black” is arguably racist.

Krista Thompson (2004) has argued that the nuanced, realistic representation of black skin tones was a major preoccupation for early nationalist artists such as Albert Huie, who sought to represent “‘the reflection and radiation in dark skin,’ in contrast to more popular uses of ‘asphalt black’ in touristic representations” (1994, 19).

The Bogle statue is in effect “asphalt black” although Manley claimed that she chose that color for technical reasons, because “[it] can be clearly seen in a large open area” (Gloudon 1965, 4). The representation of skin tone was a crucial concern for its popular critics, as it has been in several other monument controversies, and illustrates that skin tone is an important part of how individual identity is construed in Jamaica.

The debate about racial identity also extended to the artist.

The Rastafarian artist and politician Sam Brown questioned Edna Manley’s suitability, as a white, foreign-born woman, to determine how Bogle should be represented: “Paul Bogle’s statue depicts a fear ridden, harried and hunted undersized field slave, about to invoke his master’s pardon for being a truant. […] It takes a black mind to comprehend dignity, fear or courage in the stature of a black man, even as the akete of Congo is remote from the waltz of Vienna, so are the minds of the European and the African.” (1965, 19) Obviously wanting to be diplomatic, Brown had, however, first complimented Manley on the artistic merits of the Bogle. That the legitimate ownership of Bogle’s representation was claimed in racial terms should not surprise, since 1965 marks the start of a period of intense racial strife and activism in Jamaica, which had included anti-Chinese riots two months earlier.

Despite the objections, the statue was kept in place but the controversy reappeared in 1971 and then took a more official form. The St Thomas Parish Council formally requested that the sculpture be removed from the front of the Morant Bay Courthouse and sent to Kingston. They claimed that they had not been consulted about the location, which had been decided by authorities in Kingston, and, again, objected to the manner in which Bogle was depicted. The parliamentarian Emile Joseph, a native of St Thomas, demanded that the statue be replaced by a more suitable memorial. He stated in a pointed letter to the Gleaner: We only know one picture of Paul Bogle, the same as

7 English translation: “Aw, if he had not been a black man, they would never have represented him so black.”

8 Edna Manley was born in England in 1900, to an English father and Jamaican mother, and moved to Jamaica in 1922 after marrying her Jamaican cousin Norman Manley.

9 This refers to the photograph.

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The Bogle monument remained in place for many years but it never became uncontroversial. In the early 1990s a large hole appeared in the chest. It was unclear whether this was deliberate or accidental but the possibility that the statue had been “mortally wounded” had symbolic potency. This damage was repaired but there was further vandalism which was aggravated by the fire that destroyed the Morant Bay Courthouse in 2007 – the relatively vulnerable ciment fondu, it turns out, was not a wise choice for a contested monument. The statue was sent to Kingston for restoration and a group of Morant Bay citizens called the African Heritage Development Association publicly opposed its return, claiming that the statue did not represent the true likeness of Bogle. They demanded a statue of the “real Bogle,” based on the photograph, and criticized the symbolism of the statue for implying submission rather than defiance. The JNHT engaged in dialogue with the group and offered the compromise of erecting a new statue, based on the photograph, in Bogle’s birthplace of Stony Gut in return for returning Edna Manley’s Bogle to its original location in Morant Bay (JIS, November 15, 2009). This was rejected at a public forum organized by JNHT and subsequently by the St Thomas Parish Council, which passed a resolution to this effect on November 12, 2009 (Davidson 2010). At the time of writing, the future location of the statue is uncertain but it will probably remain in Kingston.

The Bob Marley Monument The next monument controversy erupted in 1983, when Christopher Gonzalez’s Bob Marley statue had to be hastily removed from its intended location hours before it was to be unveiled. The monument had been commissioned by the government in 1982, a year after Marley’s death.

While developing his concept, Gonzalez had proposed two possibilities and made clay maquettes for each. One was to represent him as “Marley the mystic,” a visionary leader and “roots-man” whose naked upper body and long dreadlocks morph into a tree trunk with roots for the lower body, with his right arm pointing out, as Marley often did during concerts. The other was to represent him as “Marley the musician,” dressed in shirt and pants, seated and playing his guitar, as he typically did while performing Redemption Song. Gonzalez eventually combined the two and produceda statue of Marley, as a half-naked “roots man” but with guitar. The resulting seven-feet-and-seven-inches bronze is a challenging work of art, with its near-black, waxy patina and its gnarly, almost phallic forms.

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that which appears on our $2 bill. The monstrosity placed before the Court House to us is an insult.To begin with, no one ever knew of Bogle dressing in the manner the symbol portrays in Morant Bay, and no one has ever seen a Jamaican, whether labourer or otherwise, carrying a machete in the manner depicted in the present statue. […] We have been referred to as cultural ignoramuses – maybe this is because we do not grow beards and we do not smoke ganja, like some of our artists. One thing I know is that the people of St Thomas are fully aware of their history, justly proud of it, will defend it at all times and will not allow anyone, I repeat, anyone, to try to distort it in any way or fashion (1971, 19).

This response again reflects a desire for historical specificity and likeness, no doubt because the monument is dedicated to someone whose physical appearance was plausibly documented. It also reflects a deep-rooted aversion against unilaterally imposed collective representations. While Joseph’s response mainly pitched rural St Thomas versus the dominant capital Kingston, his disdain for the art community is also noteworthy: critics of public art in Jamaica have typically presented themselves as representatives of the righteous majority whose sensibilities are being assaulted by alien cultural and aesthetic values.

Gonzalez, who lived in Atlanta at that time, received enthusiastic press coverage in Jamaica during the production of the statue. An update in early 1983 announced that the work was ready for casting in the USA – import substitution was no longer high on the agenda in neo-liberal Jamaica, it seems – and described how Gonzalez had surrounded himself with Marley images and music, in an effort to capture his spirit. The report also indicated that Gonzalez was in regular contact with the Marley family and the Office of the Prime Minister about his progress on the statue. (Gleaner, February 1, 1983) All seemed well until the day of the unveiling near the National Stadium on the second anniversary of Marley’s death, May 11, 1983. While the statue was being installed, the crowds that had gathered to witness its installation scrutinized every detail, including the thickness of the locks, and decided that it did not adequately represent Marley. One eyewitness reported that members of the crowd were chanting “a no Bob, we no want it” and, as with the Bogle, “him no black so” (Ricketts 1983, 6). The crowds became increasingly unruly and threw stones at the statue, threatening to destroy it if it was not removed (Gleaner May 12, 1983, 1 & 11). Prime Minister Seaga claimed that he had not previously seen the completed statue and canceled the unveiling ceremonyafter consultation with the Marley family.

He declared that “it did not bear sufficient resemblance to the late superstar” and decreed that it should be moved to the National Gallery of Jamaica. He also announced that a new, more resembling statue would be commissioned. (Gleaner May 13, 1983, 1) The press coverage of the controversy was different from other such incidents in that only a handful of letters and columns criticized the monument itself. Most commentators rallied behind the artist and berated the “ignorant masses” for reacting inappropriately. Many also felt that Seaga had abandoned the artist and that the public would have accepted the statue if he had stood by it. A.D. Scott, no doubt mindful of his own experience with the National Monument, wrote: “I wish to congratulate our Jamaican sculptor Christopher Gonzalez on an outstanding piece of artistic creation, representing the form, soul and spirit of the late Bob Marley.

10 The choice of date was, in itself, problematic. Rastafarians abhor anything that resembles a cult of the dead, as a reaction against the spirit worship in traditional African-Jamaican religions, and do not normally observe death anniversaries.

11 English translation: “this is not Bob, we do not want it’ and “he wasn’t this black.” Bob Marley was the biracial son of a black Jamaican woman and an upper class white English-Jamaican man.

12 English translation: “One of them.”

13 The Jamaican government had sent Boxer to Atlanta in late 1982 or early 1983 to report on the progress of the work and to, if it was deemed satisfactory, hand Gonzalez a cheque that was due to him when the work was 50 % complete.

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It is a disgusting shame that arrogance and/or stupidity have denied the Jamaican society of this outstanding work of art […], thereby involving the Jamaican public in further expense [for a new statue]” (1983, 10).

The Gleaner columnist Mark Ricketts offered a more explanatory perspective: “While we might debate at length the appropriateness of the government’s decision, what was revealed on Wednesday, May 11, was how possessive and protective the people are about their heroes and how much adulation there is for ‘one a dem’” (1983, 6). Marley was the most photographed and recognizable Jamaican ever, who had died recently, in the prime of his life and career. The people who rejected the Gonzalez statue did not want a “symbolic Bob,” they wanted his likeness, exactly as they remembered him, down to his “medium brown” skin tone and tight-fitting rock star clothes.

Gonzalez used a visual vocabulary that relates to the romantic-mystic imaginary of the nationalist school but is also consistent with Rastafarian visual culture, as is illustrated by the “roots man” in Neville Garrick’s cover design for Bob Marley and the Wailers’ Uprising (1980) album. The familiarity of the symbolism and its relevance to Marley’s music and philosophy explain why this statue was uncritically defended by the intelligentsia. It is harder to understand why the popular masses failed to appreciate it, apart from the question of likeness. A remark made by a young spectator may shed some light on the matter: “[This is n]ot for Jamaica […] We already know that Bob Marley was a roots man; this is strictly for export” (Escoffery 1983, 6). This suggests that at that time, Marley’s public persona was more important to the popular masses than his spiritual message and that they preferred to remember him as a poor man from Trench Town who had achieved global fame and represented their collective aspirations. The comment may also suggest resistance against the cooptation of Rastafarian culture by international pop culture and tourism.

The Gonzalez statue was in 1985 replaced by a safe, academic-realist portrayal of Marley, standing upright while playing his guitar, by the then elderly and ailing Alvin Marriott. It had been designed in close consultation with the Marley family and Neville Garrick. There was an agonizing moment of silence when the new statue was unveiled but the crowds started cheering and the fears of a repeat controversy did not materialize (Gleaner April 1, 1985, 1).

Two years earlier Mark Ricketts had cautioned: “The public’s desire for an acceptable patina to reflect Marley’s skin tone, as well as their desire for a plaster cast of the actual physical man, a photographic representation, means that we might end up with a physical shell but with no spirit” (1983, 6). The new statue, which has the desired brown patina, indeed looks wooden, quite unlike the energetic Marley. It stands in the increasingly cluttered environs of the National Stadium, where it competes for attention with advertising billboards and crudely painted tribute murals of Jamaican athletes on nearby walls and

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the ornate wrought iron fence that was erected around the statue after a few minor incidents of vandalism. For all the passions that led to its commission, it seems that the new statue has faded into Kingston’s urban landscape and most of its visitors are tourists who venture to Kingston because of its association with Reggae music.

For Gonzalez, the controversy was a grave professional disappointment and he practically stopped sculpting, focusing on watercolour painting instead. Twenty years after the debacle, he still blamed Seaga and the National Gallery Director/Curator David Boxer (Campbell 2003, 5), although the latter appears to have played a relatively minor role in the execution of this project. Gonzalez’ Marley however quickly became one of the most popular works at the National Gallery. This suggests that the response to public art can change over time and that the question of likeness became less important as the public sense of loss over Marley’s death waned. The positive response to the sculpture at the Gallery may however also reflect the change in context, which causedit to be appreciated as a work of art rather than as a public monument.

Today, the Gonzalez statue of Marley resides at the Island Village, a shopping and entertainment centre near the Ocho Rios cruise-ship pier, to which it was leased in 2002.

While the statue is accessible to the public there, it mainly serves as a photo-op for tourists – an ironic illustration of the commodification of Rastafari culture in tourism, although it may eventually be moved back to a more public location. The Marriott statue remains in place but suffered a fairly major incident of vandalism in September 2013, when red paint was thrown over it. There had been a football World Cup qualifier against Costa Rica the night before at the nearby National Stadium. Red is one of the colours of the Costa Rican team and while there is no conclusive proof, it is believed that the vandalism was the work of Costa Rican fans. That the vandals targeted this particularly statue had nothing to do with any objections to its imagery but illustrates the extent to which Marley continues to be symbolically associated with Jamaica in the international arena. Thankfully, there was no serious damage and the statue was simply cleaned afterwards.

The Emancipation Monument In 2003, a monument to Emancipation was unveiled in Kingston which caused the most intense monument controversy in Jamaica to date. The monument is located at the ceremonial entrance of the Emancipation Park, which had opened the year before in the hotel and business district of New Kingston. The Emancipation Park and monument commission were part of an official campaign to move Emancipation back to the center of the national identity politics, as the enabling historical moment that produced modern, independent Jamaica and to reposition it as a revolutionary struggle rather than as an act of divine or colonial benevolence.

This campaign, which had started with the reestablishment of Emancipation Day as a public holiday in 1996, represented a reversal from the policy in the 1960s to

A sculpture competition for the new Emancipation Park was organized in 2002 and the first prize winner was Redemption Song, named after Bob Marley’s famous song, a design by the contemporary sculptor Laura Facey, which was subsequently commissioned. The judges’ report of the sculpture commission praised Facey’s design because it: deliberately resonated with the nationalist iconography of works like Edna Manley’s Negro Aroused which is its clear sculptural ancestor. Most of all the judges admired its highly spiritual character. The work had the potential to be a sculptural ‘Prayer of Thanksgiving.’

There is also iconographical continuity between Facey’s design and Marriott’s National Monument and other Edna Manley works such as He Cometh Forth (1962), which was commissioned on the occasion of Independence for the newly built Hilton Hotel in Kingston. Each of these sculptures centrally features an iconic “first couple,” nude in all but the latter example, and engaged in symbolic gestures of emergence and growth.

Facey explained the concept in the program brochure for the unveiling: “My piece is not about ropes, chains or torture; I have gone beyond that. I wanted to create a sculpture that communicates transcendence, reverence, strength and unity through our procreators – man and woman – all of which comes when the mind is free.” The main part consists of two bronze nude figures – male and female, both emphatically black and robustly built, and an imposing eleven and ten feet tall, respectively. The figures stand up to mid-thigh in a round pool of water, their arms by their sides and gazing up to the heavens. The monument was produced locally – the first time such large bronze statuary was cast in Jamaica. The dome-shaped fountain base over which water continuously runs was completed one year later. The artist statement read: “The water is an important part of the monument. It is refreshing, purifying and symbolically washes away the pain and suffering of the past.”

There had already been some debate when the competition results were publicized in 2002 but critics then seemed more concerned with the nudity of Marriott’s National Monument couple, which served as a placeholder. Trouble started in earnest at the unveiling of Redemption Song on July 31, 2003 – the eve of the Emancipation holiday – and quickly escalated into a major public controversy which lasted several months. The debate played out in the print and electronic media – in newspaper columns, letters to the press, cartoons, message boards, and in the popular call-in and discussion

programs on Jamaican radio and TV – but initially it continued in and around the park itself, where small crowds gathered daily around the monument. The controversy also reached the Caribbean and international media, including Time magazine, BBC World and, even, Playboy’s February 2004 issueThe most common objection was that the nudity of the figures constituted an affront to public decency and a national embarrassment, particularly in association with the official commemoration of Emancipation. One letter to the press stated plainly: I must say I am appalled that a sculpture of that type has been installed at Emancipation Park. It would be interesting to know what the artist had in mind but I think it is in poor taste to have a sculpture with male and female genitals exposed, so exaggerated and erected in a public place. (Jackson 2003)

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de-emphasize Emancipation in the national observances and to conflate its anniversary with the anniversary of Independence. It was felt then that focusing on the history of slavery would be retrograde and counterproductive to national unity but this decision had been criticized as a ploy to gloss over Jamaica’s entrenched social and racial divisions. This repositioning of Emancipation also reflected shifts in the racial dynamics within the Jamaican elite, particularly the ascent of black Jamaicans to positions of significant political and economic power.

Some claimed that the statues posed an active threat to public morality, an accusation which came mainly from Fundamentalist Christians. The Reverend Earl Lewis wrote: Like many others, the Association of Independent Baptist Churches regrets the erection of a pair of statues exhibiting nudity as representative of our emancipation. […] Already, the negative results of the Emancipation statues are being seen: sensuous women are playing with the male genitals, while men can be seen fondling the breasts of the woman. (2003) Alfred Sangster, the retired President of the University of Technology, added: “Do we wish to give the foreigners who visit the park the image that we are promoting our nakedness? Remember the perception that some people have of black people’s supposed sexual prowess.” (2003, 7A) Sangster’s statement illustrated how the controversy was rooted in anxieties about race and sexuality, which are particularly pronounced in the tourism arena, where black sexuality has been caricatured and commodified – the proximity to Kingston’s major hotels may have contributed.

There were also mutterings that the statues were “too black” – and they are again “asphalt black” – although these were overshadowed by the debate about the nudity.

Supporters of the monument countered with calls for greater open-mindedness and more attention to the artistic merits of the work. One wrote: Are we so unexposed to art? Are we so uncomfortable with our own bodies, our own nakedness that we cannot see it mirrored in a form of a statue? The more fire we bring to this issue of taking it down, the more of a taboo stigma we will give to nakedness, sexuality and the beauty of the naked body interpreted in art form. As an artist myself, [I have] travelled and visited all major art cities, New York, Florence, Paris and London, especially Florence, with its famous David. This huge statue which is of a naked man, is almost revered. (Gardner 2003, 5A) The reference to Michelangelo, in turn, drew predictable accusations of neo-colonial mimicry. Narda Graham, a young literary scholar, countered: “We do not need ‘our own Michelangelo.’ Why do we always need to validate our own creations by pointing out their resemblance to something European?” (2003, F12)

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Another concern was that the identity of the artist, a member of a wealthy light-skinned family, was irreconcilable with the subject of the monument. One commentator wrote: Part of the problem with the Emancipation statues is that they were not made by someone in the same position as those they were intended to represent.

Laura Facey is a very fine sculptor, but in the complex race-colour-class network that governs Jamaica, she is neither the right race, nor the right colour, nor the right class. Her ancestors, at least 99 per cent of them, were not subjected to slavery and thus not subject to Emancipation. […] At least, part of the implication here is that after all these years Black people in Jamaica are incapable of representing themselves. (Krishnadatta 2003, 7A) This response also highlighted the mounting tensions between the conciliatory ideal of transcendent nationhood to which Facey’s design appealed and the repositioning of Emancipation as a defining moment in the national past. Not surprisingly, such comments received even more stinging rebukes than those about the nudity. Barbara Gloudon wrote: It has been propounded by some that the fact that the artist is ‘white’ is why she ‘dissed’ black people by presenting them without clothes. If it were not so painful it would be laughable. Since when does a person’s race determine artistic sensibility? ‘Lawks man, we ah sink low,’ said someone in a ‘statue argument’ the other evening. (2003b) Such arguments also suggest that “art” functions on a higher plane that transcends “mundane” preoccupations such as race and class, although the controversy illustrated exactly how much race and class divisions matter in in Jamaica today.

As with the previous controversies there was a persistent tendency to read the monument literally – some argued that the slaves wore clothes in 1838 – and to demand that it should recognizably represent Emancipation. The journalist Desmond Allen suggested: “At the very least, and even with no other changes to the statue, Ms Facey should be sent back to add the broken chains which literally symbolize our freedom from slavery. With that, we will not have to try to explain to our visitors that it is not nudity we are celebrating but our freedom from chattel slavery and oppression” (2003, 4). Narda Graham argued: “Redemption Song does not speak a language we understand readily.

It does not employ our symbolic vocabulary.” (2003, F12).

Facey actually used culturally specific references, to the river baptisms and spiritual cleansing baths of African-Jamaican religions, but this did not resonate with the public, perhaps because these are only metaphorically related to Emancipation.

Defenders countered that the onus was on the viewer to read the monument in keeping with the artist’s intent. The newspaper columnist and liberal pastor Garnett Roper offered the following interpretation, in a rare sympathetic response from the Church community: The intention of the author is most significant, b ecause it sets some boundaries for everything else in the task

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of interpretation. This sculpture sought to present two images of the emancipated slaves emerging in the process of mental liberation. The images on the work are distinctly African, uninhibited, unembellished and uncovered. They are larger than life, pervasive by their visual impact, and impossible to miss. They are not distracted by each other’s nakedness, and preoccupied with what is above them and beyond them. (2003, 6A) Facey’s decision to represent Emancipation as an openended spiritual concept however facilitated multiple and contrary interpretations. Carolyn Cooper, for instance, argued that the monument represented Slavery rather than Emancipation: This prize-winning sculpture says absolutely nothing about the epic grandeur of the battle of our ancestors and us, their children, from the brutality of European slavery. In fact, the naked, blind, truncated figures remind me of newly arrived Africans on the auction block. (2003, F10) What Facey seems to have underestimated is that Slavery and Emancipation have a well-established representational history in Jamaica. Popular, usually Rastafarian or Garveyite, imagery on those subjects is common in street art and broken chains are, for instance, a frequent presence in such images. Public art on the subject has to accommodate these conventions or challenge them in a way that nonetheless speaks to the public. Facey tried to do the latter but Emancipation is too heavily charged, morally and ideologically, to be publicly represented as an ahistorical philosophical concept. The undeniable passivity of Facey’s imagery furthermore failed to conform to the now-dominant understanding of Emancipation as self-empowerment.

The imagery Facey used in the monument also had personal implications, particularly her efforts to reconcile the spiritual and the sensual in her work – a direction she took after recovering from anorexia and turning to inspirational Christianity (Archer-Straw 2003, 15; Dacres 2004, 141-143). This added to the contentions and the economist Earl Bartley for instance wrote: “Art is predominantly about self-expression. But art for public spaces has to be far less self-indulgent and be more cognizant of public sensibilities” (2003, G4-5). The inference here is that there are crucial differences between “private art” and “public art.” Very few critics questioned the monuments’ aesthetic merits but several expressed the view that it belonged in a more specialized environment. The columnist Balford Henry wrote: Personally, I wouldn’t have a problem if the statues were at the entrance to the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, where they would benefit from the type of expert analysis they seem to deserve. But, when they are unloaded at the entrance to a park dedicated to the issue of emancipation from slavery, they become subjected to clumsy appraisers like myself, who wouldn’t know the difference between abstract art and graffiti (2003).

As the other controversies, there were criticisms that there had been insufficient public consultation, although it was the first public monument to have been commissioned based on an open competition. The competition was however adjudged by a group of local “art establishment” members that included Rex Nettleford and David Boxer, two cultural experts who had been consulted for almost all such projects since the 1970s and whose immense power over official cultural matters was resented by others in the art community.

Not surprisingly, the monument’s most vociferous critics implicitly targeted the judges. Carolyn Cooper wrote: “I blame the distinguished panel of judges entirely for failing to select an image that truly honours the spirit of Emancipation and acknowledges the accomplishments of our ancestors” (2003, F10).

At the popular level, the controversy was couched in a carnivalesque atmosphere that unsparingly mocked the “high culture” status of the monument. People came to have their pictures taken in front of the monument and the statues were reportedly regularly fondled. The popular radio talk show host Wilmot “Mutty” Perkins started calling the park “Penis Park”and, not to be outdone, the singer Lovindeer launched a song titled “Happiness in the Park”, which is pronounced in patois as “(h)a penis in the park.” Even the critics of the monument were fair game: some commentators started calling the statues “Carolyn and Mutty” after the two most strident voices in the debate, Carolyn Cooper and Mutty Perkins.

There were numerous calls, and threats, to have the monument removed or altered but the government decided to keep it in place. Significantly, in a country where even uncontroversial monuments have been vandalized, there have been no incidents thus far although this can also be attributed to the presence of surveillance cameras and round-the-clock security guards in the park. Island-wide opinion polls a few months after the unveiling suggested that the majority of Jamaicans actually wanted to keep the monument: the 2003 Observer/Stone Polls disclosed that 56.8 % of those interviewed wanted the monument to stay, while 27.9 % wanted to have it removed and 15.3 % had no view on the matter (September 26, 2003).

The unprecedented intensity of the debate about the Emancipation monument can be attributed to changes in the global and Jamaican media landscape, which have facilitated the development of a lively, intensely critical public sphere.

The number of media houses has increased significantly and Internet and mobile telephone access have made these media more accessible and have also created new, unmediated channels for public debate. Jamaican and

Jamaican Diaspora audiences are therefore not only more aware of what goes on locally and internationally, but are more empowered to participate in local debates. The Emancipation monument controversy was the first such polemic to extend into the transnational arena.

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While critics of the monument admitted, albeit often sarcastically, that they were no “art experts,” its supporters took pains to distance themselves from the “philistines” who did not recognize the monument’s artistic value. One wrote, after lavishly praising the artistic merits of the monument: “I appeal to the art lovers, commentators and opinion makers to interpret [the monument] for [the] people and educate them in the appreciation of art” (Young 2003).

The giant bronzes are too assertively present on their busy street corner to be overlooked. Most Jamaicans, at home and abroad, know what the monument looks like, if only from pictures and never before has a public art work so thoroughly entered Jamaican public consciousness. The monument has generated unprecedented debate, at all levels of society, about the significance of Emancipation to modern Jamaicans.

It has also generated debate about how Jamaican history and identity should be publicly represented and offered valuable insights into how Jamaican and Jamaican diasporal audiences respond to public and mainstream art. It is unlikely that Redemption Song will ever be uncontroversial but that has become one of its attractions.

Conclusion Why have some public monuments in Jamaica have been controversial and others not? The most obvious factor seems to be the sense of public ownership and contestation that surrounds the subject of the monument. Less obvious factors also contribute, such as the location, which helps to determine the degree and context of a monuments’ insertion into the public domain, and, even, Jamaica’s divisive party politics. The latter has for instance played a role in the controversies about the Bogle, a work by an artist closely associated with the People’s National Party that is located in a predominantly Jamaica Labour Party parish: each of the episodes of controversy about this monument has occurred while the Labour Party was in power.

It is significant that all Jamaican monument controversies have been unintentional and unanticipated.

Public monuments are generally of what W.J.T. Mitchell has called the utopian type, which seek to “occupy a pacified, utopian space, a site held in common by free and equal citizens whose debates, freed of commercial motives, private interests, or violent coercion, will form ‘public opinion’” (1992, 39). The problem is that such consensus is not feasible in societies with deep historical and political fissures: the repeated controversies illustrate that the romantic iconography of unity and progress that is used in most public monuments in Jamaica is an iconographically naïve way of representing the heavily contested subjects of collective identities and aspirations.

The Jamaican monument controversies have all somehow pitched the “art establishment” against “the public.” The defenders of the monuments have accused their opponents of ignorance and narrow-mindedness while the critics have objected to the unilateral imposition of collective symbols that fail to speak to the constituencies they seek to represent. The former posit that all that needs to be done is to educate the public but the latter have accused the “experts” of highhandedness and a failure to understand the needs and expectations of their audiences.

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Part of the postcolonial cultural project has been to redress the de-historicizing, de-individualizing impact of colonialism and to “write back” by means of “rehistoricizing” the past, which removes the veil of anonymity that had been imposed on the individuals involved. The establishment of the National Hero order was part of the official efforts to this effect but this is also evident in the popular culture, especially in the Rastafarian focus on imagining the historical origins of the African Diaspora.

This may explain why the public wants to see monuments that focus on iconic details of the past – such as the broken shackles of slavery – rather than on abstract ideas.

Peter Wilson (1973) has argued that in Caribbean culture there are two competing value systems that determine individual status, “respectability” and “reputation”. The former represents status in the formalized hierarchies of the middle class and the Church while the latter represents status in the informal world of the poor, and, specifically, poor black men, who live outside of “the system” and depend on braggadocio to establish their status. While some of Jamaica’s official and unofficial National Heroes, especially the rebel-leaders among them, may initially have been exemplars of reputation, their national consecration arguably introduced them into the realm of respectability and the public seems to expect to see this represented visually.

This explains why, despite Edna Manley’s well-meant efforts to represent Bogle as a warrior, people have been clamoring to see him as represented in his presumed photograph, as a suited “respectable citizen.” The way Manley had chosen to depict Bogle, shirtless and carrying a machete, suggested that he was “merely” a poor peasant – clothing is a powerful marker of respectability and class in Jamaica, as the “no shoes, no shirt, no entrance” signs at the entrance of shopping malls and public offices remind. This preoccupation with respectability also helps to explain the public preference for the conventional format and materials of a “proper” monument – an academic-realist bronze on a pedestal – and the sense that it is disrespectful to the memory of the person to represent him or her otherwise,

as was evident with the first Bob Marley statue and the Emancipation monument. The insistence on literalness in public monuments is thus not necessarily concerned with literalness per se but with popular visual conventions – metaphors in their own right – of respectability and historical rootedness.

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Demands for greater literalism have been a consistent feature. This was not surprising in the Marley and Bogle controversies, where the debate revolved around questions of likeness, but it was less predictable with the National and Emancipation monuments, since these represent subjects that call for a more symbolic approach. This insistence on literalness cannot just be attributed to conservatism and a lack of exposure to modern art. Carolyn Cooper has rightly argued that metaphors play a crucial role in popular Jamaican culture (2004, 176) and the question thus arises why metaphoric approaches seem to be rejected in the case of public monuments.

This leads us to the vexed question of who should control of official symbolic representation. Most Jamaican monumental sculptors are light-skinned and all belong to the elites. Monumental sculpture is not a lucrative field of practice and requires significant commitments of time, expense and technical support – facilities that are not readily available to poorer artists. This further fuels the claims that official representations of historical events and personalities are imposed from the top down.

It is admittedly easier to point this out than to find workable solutions but at the very least, artists and cultural administrators should pay more attention to the, by now, well-documented social, political and racial dynamics involved in the commissioning, production and reception of public art. Does this mean, finally, that the controversial Jamaican monuments have been failures? Perhaps not: public monuments that attempt to make the definitive statement on inherently contested subjects appear to have lost credibility in the wake of the culture wars. The power of Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans monument, for instance, lies in the fact that it does not impose any interpretation of the Vietnam War but invites visitors to project their own.

W.J.T. Mitchell has argued, in an essay about contemporary memorials to violent histories: “What seems called for now, and what many of our contemporary artists wish to provide, is a critical public art that is frank about the contradictions and violence encoded in its own situation, one that dares to awaken a public sphere of resistance, struggle, and dialogue” (Mitchell 1992, 47). While they were meant to be utopian, Jamaica’s controversial monuments have inadvertently fulfilled such a function and have generated public debate about the significance of Jamaican history to modern Jamaicans. They have also generated debate about how Jamaican history should be publicly represented and offered valuable insights into how local audiences respond to public art. However, Mitchell rightly cautions that “exactly how to negotiate the border between struggle and dialogue, between the argument of force and the force of argument, is an open question” (1992, 47).

References “First Portrait of Paul Bogle.” Gleaner, April 19 1959, 1.

“Sweden, Not Jamaica.” Gleaner, May 12, 1963, 1.

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essays References (continued) “National Monument (Letters to the Editor).” Gleaner, June 8, 1963, 19.

“Bob Marley Statue Now at Casting Stage.” Gleaner, February 1, 1983, 3.

“Unveiling of Marley’s Statue Abandoned after Mass Protests.”

Gleaner, May 12, 1983, 1 & 11.

“Bob Marley: PM Decided on Tuesday to Get New Statue.” Gleaner, May 13, 1983, 1.

“Marley Statue Unveiled: Crowd Likes New Look.” Gleaner, April 1, 1985, 1 & 3.

“Judges Report”, Emancipation Park Sculpture Commission, 2003 “Observer/Stone Poll.” Observer, September 26, 2003.

“Repair Work on Paul Bogle’s Statue to Be Completed by MidNovember.” JIS, October 15, 2009.

Allen, Desmond. “The Nude Statue - Private Art Versus National Symbol.” Pure Class, Sunday Herald, August 10 - 16, 2003 2003, 4.

Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1991 (1983).

Archer-Straw, Petrine. “Beauty and the Beast.” BWIA Caribbean Beat (2003): 36-43.

Bartley, Earl. “Lacking Public Responsibility.” Sunday Gleaner, August 10, 2003, G4-5.

Brown, Sam. “Letter to the Editor: The Bogle Statue.” Gleaner, November 2, 1965, 19.

----. “Can We Cool the Statue-Mania? ” Jamaica Observer, August 15, 2003.

Graham, Narda. “Monumental Mistake.” Sunday Gleaner, August 24, 2003, F12.

Henry, Balford. “Jamaicans Aroused.” Jamaica Gleaner, August 27, 2003.

Jackson, Celia. “’Redemption Song’: Bigger but Not Better.” Observer, August 5, 2003.

Joseph, Emile. “Letter to the Editor: Bogle’s Statue.”

Gleaner, September 11, 1971, 19.

Krishnadatta, Kali. “Are We Incapable of Representing Ourselves? (Letter to the Editor)” Herald, August 10-16, 2003, 7A. Lewis, Earl. “Letter to the Editor.” Observer, August 23, 2003.

Lyon, W. “National Monument (Letter to the Editor).” Gleaner, May 14, 1963, 21.

Manley, Rachel, ed. Edna Manley: The Diaries. Kingston: Heinemann (Caribbean), 1989.

Mitchell, W. J. Thomas, ed. Art and the Public Sphere.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.

Monroe, Jay. “Your World and Mine: Invisible Men.” Gleaner, December 5, 1965, 6.

Naipaul, V. S. The Middle Passage: A Caribbean Journey.

London: Picador, 2001 (1962).

Patmos, John. “Off the Cuff.” Gleaner, May 18, 1963, 8.

Ricketts, Marc. “The Veiling of Bob.” Gleaner, May 17, 1983, 6.

Boxer, David. Bogle: A Contest of Icons. Kingston: National Gallery of Jamaica, 2010.

Roper, Garnett. “Parable of Self-Contradiction.” Sunday Herald, August 17-23, 2003, 6A.

Campbell, Howard. “I’ve Been There Before: Marley Sculptor, Christopher Gonzales, Weighs in on Emancipation Park Statue.”

Observer, August 10, 2003, 5.

Sangster, Alfred. “Responding to Roper on the Statues.”

Sunday Herald, no. September 28 - October 4 (2003): 7A.

Cooper, Carolyn. “One Hell of a Monument.” Sunday Gleaner, August 24, 2003, F10.

Cooper, Carolyn. Sound Clash: Jamaican Dance Hall Culture at Large. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.

Dacres, Petrina. “An Interview with Laura Facey Cooper.” Small Axe 16 (2004): 125-36.

Davidson, Vernon. “”Give Us the Real Bogle.” Observer, March 15, 2010, 1-2.

Eker, Ignacy. “Jamaica to Get Her First National Monument.” The Sunday Gleaner Magazine, April 28, 1963, 3.

Escoffery, Gloria. “Letter to the Editor: Voice of the People.” Gleaner, June 14, 1983, 6.

Facey, Laura. “Artist’s Statement.” Programme brochure for the unveiling of Redemption Song (2003).

Gardner, Kesi. “Give the Statue a Chance (Letter to the Editor).”

Gleaner, August 15, 2003, A5 Gloudon, Barbara. “Edna Manley Tells of Creating Statue of a Hero.” Gleaner, October 17, 1965, 4.

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Scott, A.D. “Disgusting Attitude to Statue.” Gleaner, May 21, 1983, 10.

Smith, E. “National Monument (Letter to the Editor).” Gleaner, May 13, 1963, 15.

Thompson, Krista. “’Black Skin, Blue Eyes’: Visualizing Blackness in Jamaican Art, 1922-1944.” Small Axe 16 (2004): 1-31.

Wilson, Peter. Crab Antics: A Social Anthropology of English-Speaking Negro Societies in the Caribbean. Vol. 4. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1973.

Young, R.A. “Independence, Sculpture (Letter to the Editor).” Gleaner, August 14, 2003.

Biography: Veerle Poupeye is an art historian and curator specialized in Caribbean and Jamaican art. She holds a Master’s degree in Art History from the Universiteit Gent in Belgium and a Ph.D. from Emory University in Atlanta, USA. Her publications include the books Caribbean Art (1998), which was published in Thames and Hudson’s World of Art series, and Modern Jamaican Art (1998), which she co-authored with David Boxer, and many chapters, journal articles and exhibition catalogue essays on Jamaican and Caribbean art and culture. She is since 2009 the Executive Director of the National Gallery of Jamaica.

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Public monuments commissions are an important part of how heritage is represented in the context of nationstates and their reception sheds revealing light on the contestations involved.

Veerle Poupeye

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Or, c’était sans compter sur l’extraordinaire vision de la « cartographie » propre aux aborigènes , qui constitue une sorte de scénographie de leur spiritualité, une construction hautement métaphorique, teintée de métaphysique

Sonia Tourville

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Sonia Tourville Mouture

Introduction Si on se réfère aux définitions de base d’une culture, il s’agit d’un groupe ethnique ayant en commun des croyances symboliques, des croyances identitaires, partageant des schémas de pensée, des habitudes, et une forme d’idéologie centralisée (lieu, homme). Certaines cultures anciennes ont mis en place des systèmes de contrôle et de fonctionnement pour contenir les systèmes inter personnels (relationnels) : des rites de séparation, des rites de marge, des rites d’agrégation, des rites d’initiations féminines ou masculines, les rites religieux, les rites de passage, et des rites magiques.

En outre certaines cultures avaient trouvé des procédures d’articulation et d’encodage des différentes mémoires : la mémoire collective, les mémoires familiales, les mémoires personnelles, et les mémoires universelles, à savoir la mémoire de l’évolution de la vie sur terre (règne animal, règne végétal, règne minéral), ce qui est un tour de force : c’est le cas des Aborigènes, la plus ancienne culture de la planète. Comment alors lire ou percevoir aujourd’hui des sociétés, des cultures comme la nôtre et leurs productions artistiques, sociétés ayant traversé des chocs et évènements « traumatiques » qui les ont inévitablement modifiées ?.

A - Une culture de société froide, comme un exemple qui traverse le temps : les Aborigènes - « Terra nullius » et traversée du temps L’écart entre une culture millénaire (50 000 ans ; à noter, disparition des dinosaures, 65 millions d’années), qui a su se « forger » sur la base d’une construction de mythes cohérents et de lecture du paysage : la culture aborigène et nous (en Caraïbe), culture récente et composite est assez intéressant à étudier.

En effet, les « artistes » aborigènes qui proposent aujourd’hui des œuvres ont su traverser le temps grâce à cette construction « culturelle » liée à une conception du monde et à leur territoire et en dépit des injonctions extérieures coloniales.

Selon les chercheurs, environ 300 000 Aborigènes vivaient en Australie lorsque les premiers blancs sont arrivés . Basée sur les groupes familiaux, leur société avait une structure politique égalitaire. Au dire, ou suivant la conception des Occidentaux, cette terre Australe - continent n’appartenait à personne, c’était une « Terra Nullius » , « territoire sans maître », cette notion décrivant un espace pouvant être habité par des peuples n’ayant pas (en apparence) de système de propriété organisé ou d’organisation étatique. Les cultures Européennes en effet pensant qu’une terre n’étant pas « correctement » utilisée, cultivée, exploitée, les aborigènes en l’occurrence

n’avaient pas de droit de propriété sur elle ; Ils ne faisaient donc pas le poids devant la violence et la mentalité colonialiste des envahisseurs européens. Le concept européen de propriété leur étant complètement étranger, ils croyaient que « la terre n’appartenait pas aux individus, mais que les individus appartenaient à la terre, étaient formés par elle et faisaient partie d’elle », tout comme le reste d’ailleurs. Ce principe de « Terra nullius » a été invoqué pour justifier la colonisation en Australie, et l’expropriation des aborigènes de leurs terres, sans signer quoique ce soit et sans apporter une quelconque compensation.

Il fallait la cartographier, la nommer, et c’est en 1814 que Matthew Flinders, le cartographe célèbre pour sa circumnavigation du continent, proposa de la baptiser Australie. Ensuite, le fait de nommer devient plus méthodique; apparaissent alors Melbourne, Adélaïde, Perth, Sydney, Hobart, et Brisbane, comme si une terre (inconnue des occidentaux) se mettait à exister à partir du moment ou un « homme colon » - en l’occurrence William Dampier, James Cook, la foulait aux pieds.

Or, c’était sans compter sur l’extraordinaire vision de la « cartographie » propre aux aborigènes , qui constitue une sorte de scénographie de leur spiritualité, une construction hautement métaphorique, teintée de métaphysique.

Elle prend d’emblée en charge à la fois les questions géographiques, historiques, philosophiques, cosmogoniques, que les aborigènes eux-mêmes expérimentent dans leur vécu (les questions factuelles quotidiennes, le mythe de l’existence de leur terre), mettent à jour, et rendent concrètes par et dans leurs traductions plastiques ; art, culture et société sont étroitement liés. Le passé et le présent ne cessent de se conjuguer et se réinventer, en actualisant l’esprit ancestral créateur du lieu (au sens topographique) dans une sorte de continuité historique. Ils ont développé durant des millénaires cet autre mode de rapport au monde (« le Temps du rêve »), à la terre, au cosmos, aux ancêtres.

Si l’on peut dire, dans le « Temps du rêve » ou le Rêve, (parcours empruntés par les Esprits Ancestraux), s’inscrit une forme de construction de tout un processus d’individuation collectif, en même temps que la mise en place d’une procédure de plasticité sociale. Catherine Malabou donne une explication du concept de plasticité : « Pour prendre le plus immédiat, nous sommes concernés individuellement par la plasticité du système nerveux ou du système immunitaire. C’est notre résistance au stress qui ne doit pas être trop rigide mais assez souple et fluide pour s’adapter au terrain. La plasticité cognitive impliquée par tout apprentissage se heurte pourtant à des limites matérielles, mais aussi subjectives avec

1 Catherine Malabou, (1959) est une philosophe française, enseignante à l’Université de Paris-X-Nanterre. Ancienne élève de l’École normale supérieure de FontenaySaint-Cloud. Elle est visiting professor à l’Université de Buffalo. Spécialiste de philosophie contemporaine française et allemande. « L’avenir de Hegel, Plasticité, Temporalité, Dialectique » Vrin, 1996.

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Ce qui est important et intéressant d’observer, c’est que les êtres de la mythologie aborigène sont à percevoir non pas comme les dieux à la manière occidentale, mais il s’agit plutôt de les considérer comme des Esprits Créateurs, des Héros de la culture ou comme des Esprits Aborigènes ancestraux.

Les modes et supports d’expression de la culture aborigène étaient pour la plupart des oeuvres éphémères, des peintures primitives, des peintures rupestres, des peintures corporelles, des dessins sur le sable, des peintures au sol, des gravures sur bois, des sculptures et des cérémonies. L’art aborigène se trouve également présent à travers des ornements trouvés sur des outils, des armes anciennes, ou bien dans les chants et les danses. Ils célèbrent, chantent, dansent, miment et peignent, car l’art est un élément clé dans leur culture. Il est toujours lié à un territoire (itinéraire, site, grotte, point d’eau) : « Ils décrivent généralement les voyages d’ancêtres, souvent des personnes ou des animaux géants, sur ce qui était alors un monde dépourvu de tout. Les montagnes, les rivières, les grottes, les points d’eau, les espèces animales et végétales et d’autres ressources naturelles et culturelles ont vu le jour à la suite d’événements qui ont eu lieu au cours du « temps du rêve ».

Grâce à leur authentique et singulière manière de « cartographier » leur territoire/espace, et au lieu de simplement parler, ils vont démontrer au moyen d’une peinture le bien-fondé des revendications de leurs droits, et ce sera par le biais d’un travail collectif, chaque personne peignant sa région. La peinture est devenue un instrument politique, une manière de se faire comprendre par ceux qui détiennent le pouvoir, ceux de la société dominante.

Heureusement pour nous, les aborigènes, après force luttes, et grâce à l’invalidation par la Haute Cour d’Australie en 1992 du principe de la «Terra nullius », ont pu faire comprendre et respecter leurs lieux et espaces sacrés, les fondements de leur culture (vieille de 50 000 ans), leur identité, leur infinie spiritualité, bref leur vision du monde, tout ceci étant inextricablement lié à leurs terres ancestrales.

Différentes « toiles » ont été nécessaires pour prouver ce fait. Le premier jet fut une toile de cinq mètres sur huit (1996), la deuxième peinture mesurait huit mètres sur dix (1997). L’artiste aborigène Pijaju Peter Skipper dit : “Les histoires et les corps de nos ancêtres sont dans notre pays.

On veut que les kartiya (blancs) comprennent ce qui nous

lie à nos terres. Des bulldozers viennent sur notre territoire et font des routes juste aux endroits sacrés. Quand les compagnies minières creusent, ils arrachent le mangi (présence, énergie, essence d’une personne qui reste après sa mort) et l’emmène ailleurs. C’est pour ça qu’on se bat pour notre pays, pour que le mangi reste sur nos terres.”

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la rigidité orgueilleuse d’une individualité qui s’attache à une déterminité (narcissisme de la petite différence, emblème) et perd sa plasticité en se repliant dans l’idiotie (autisme) ou dans l’aliénation d’un Autre (mère, génie, prophétie). Se maintenir identique dans le changement est la contradiction à résoudre. La pathologie originaire de la plasticité c’est l’identification à sa situation actuelle, à ses sentiments du moment, à ses symptômes même dans leur singularité ». Je me permets de faire ici un rapprochement entre la plasticité individuelle, et une possible plasticité collective, et de faire l’hypothèse que trop de plasticité (comme trop de rigidité) peut conduire à de l’inertie.

Les Aborigènes obtiennent gain de cause seulement et finalement en 2007 !

Avec la société Aborigène, nous sommes dans le cas de « société froide », décrit dans l’étude de Claude Levi-Strauss dans le rapport des sociétés humaines à l’histoire. Claude Lévi-Strauss distingue ainsi les sociétés froides et les sociétés chaudes. Pour les sociétés froides, il développe ceci: les sociétés froides, de la tradition, qui recherchent perpétuellement un équilibre qui les préserve des changements, qui vivent une histoire lente, proche du « zéro de température historique », n’ont pas de capacité à créer une trace des événements. Elle ne possède pas de dispositif spécifique de mémoire. Elle est ainsi à elle-même sa propre mémoire, sa propre trace. Ses réseaux de communication, ses rituels, ses mythes, ses fonctions, ses savoir-faire sont cette mémoire.

L’accès à cette mémoire est lent puisque rites et pratiques doivent être reproduits. D’autre part la communication analogique qui y prévaut est ambiguë, imprécise, chargée de bruits et fortement dépendante de son contexte. Chaque information est redondante. Parce qu’aucun support spécifique ne garantit la transmission de l’information, la société froide a multiplié les copies de chaque message en elle-même pour en assurer la pérennité. Sauf que, chez les Aborigènes, ce propos peut être nuancé, car cette société inscrit, nous le comprenons, une particularité.

- Aujourd’hui, l’art aborigène contemporain Pour peu que l’on s’en approche ou que l’on s’y intéresse, ces représentations ne sont pas seulement des « jeux graphiques naïfs », mais ils nous plongent et nous enveloppent dans une histoire cosmogonique fabuleuse, invraisemblable car habitée par une grande transcendance. À partir des années1970 cependant, et pour éviter la disparition totale de leur culture, les aborigènes ont adopté la peinture acrylique sur toile. Ces toiles contemporaines s’appuient sur la technique ancestrale du « dot painting » ou peinture par les points, et des bandes de couleur.

Les oeuvres ont pour particularité de ne jamais être signées, même si l’auteur est connu, il estime qu’il n’en est pas propriétaire, mais que celle-ci appartient à toute sa communauté. D’abord nié comme tel, l’art Aborigène est « officiellement » reconnu en 1888. Aujourd’hui, cet art fascinant continue sa route et se retrouve à une bonne place dans le marché de l’art contemporain. Toutefois, la valeur sacrée et culturelle de certains objets est respectée. Par exemple, une pierre sacrée aborigène tjuringa estimée à plus de 6.000 £ a été retirée des enchères (Canterbury Auction Galleries) et du marché, car ce genre d’objet, en raison des croyances de certaines tribus aborigènes, n’a pas sa place dans les musées;

2 Claude Levi-Strauss (1908 - 2009) est un anthropologue et ethnologue belge, Agrégé de philosophie, docteur ès lettres ; il dirige en 1935 plusieurs expéditions ethnologiques au Brésil. élu à l’Académie française en 1973. Son œuvre, qui introduit le structuralisme dans l’ethnologie, emprunte à la linguistique et cherche à atteindre les règles inconscientes qui, dans toutes les sociétés sont à la base des croyances, des coutumes et des traditions. Claude Lévi-Strauss a renouvelé en profondeur les sciences humaines. En 1955, la publication de « Tristes Tropiques » l’a aussi révélé comme un très grand écrivain. Il s’éteint à Paris en novembre 2009, à l’âge de cent ans VOL 3 | ISSUE 6 | FALL 2021

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selon la tradition, elle ne doit pas être vue des femmes.

Ces artistes issus du bush, d’une culture nomade de chasseurs-cueilleurs, ont fait migrer l’art aborigène dans une traversée du temps et de l’espace. Cet art a évolué en faisant plier certains codes du marché, a forgé des personnalités, a bâti constamment des postures d’innovation essentiellement nourries de sa tradition et de la mémoire des mythes, dans des traductions picturales fascinantes, contemporaines, chargées de mystère, au travers d’œuvres de plus en plus codifiées et abstraites.

Aujourd’hui, cet art est reconnu; tout récemment par exemple, il a été (Juin 2013) mis à l’honneur sur le toit du Musée du Quai Branly. Un détail de l’un des peintures monumentale de cette artiste aborigène Lena Nyadbi, septuagénaire, intitulé Dayiwul Lirlmim (« Ecailles de barramundi ») se trouve reproduit sur les 700 m2 du toit de la médiathèque du Musée du quai Branly. Le sujet est lié au territoire des parents de l’artiste, sur lequel se trouve la plus grande mine de diamants au monde.

B - La caraïbe et ses disparités : - Héritage culturel « entre froid et chaud » - Disparité des aires ; effet du morcellement et discontinuité Afin de bien comprendre ce qui est en jeu ici, pour « faire le passage » avec nos sociétés caribéennes, et les ressorts des « sociétés froides et chaudes », Il est déjà intéressant de constater qu’une culture de société froide a su traverser le temps jusqu’à nous. On pourrait aisément reporter ce concept à d’autres terres « appropriées abusivement » comme les Amériques, mais les évènements se sont présentés autrement, et il fallait d ‘abord reconquérir son humanité. Mr Jean Claude William3 , observe dans une communication : « la société antillaise est atypique en cela que de manière générale dans les processus de colonisation, le colon s’est affronté à une société préexistante ; mais ce n’était pas notre cas ; . . . premièrement, notre société fonctionne avec des principes de brouillage et d’apparence (il faut constamment décoder les messages) deuxièmement : il existe un très fort désir de reconnaissance, troisièmement, il y a un rapport dialectique entre deux figures : le mimétisme et la pulsion mimétique, c’est-à-dire l’affirmation de différence. » Il convient alors de remarquer qu’Il existait bien une société dans l’aire caraïbe avant la colonisation (société « froide » amérindienne4 ). Cette société amérindienne a été décimée et plus précisément modifiée par la mise en place du processus de la traite et de l’esclavage, contrairement au processus de construction de la société aborigène, qui a « échappé » à une colonisation forcenée et dévastatrice, eux vivant sur un territoire vaste et unique. Comme Claude Levi-Strauss l’explique : d’abord, « Si l’opposition entre société traditionnelle et société moderne apparaît aujourd’hui caduque, les différences entre des sociétés aussi éloignées que celle des chasseurs-cueilleurs et la société industrialisée existent et il faut pouvoir les penser

». Depuis 1848 (abolition de l’esclavage à la Martinique), nous sommes en présence d’une société , - héritage de l’esclavage- à re-construire, à la fois diverse, société à identités multiples, métissée, complexe, inédite, multiculturelle, et tolérante, homogène et hétérogène, qui a réussi à tisser des contradictions, qui a sécrété un système relationnel complexe, mais par ailleurs généré un système économique « poreux » par contingence et nécessité. Voilà pour les effets de cette modification. Nous pouvons également observer que la caraïbe se lit dans une discontinuité de territoires, d’îles, qui ont chacune d’elle subit des assauts coloniaux divers.

La société Européenne / occidentale, de conquête était en passe de devenir une « société chaude » (industrialisation, capitalisme). Une « société froide morcelée » (les Amériques) a absorbé mais plutôt « encaissé » une société (Europe) en passe de devenir chaude. Selon C. Levi-Strauss les sociétés chaudes, modernes, recherchent résolument les changements, au point d’en faire le moteur de leur développement. Celles-ci emmagasinent leur mémoire dans des dispositifs de stockage matériels spécifiques (écrits, bandes magnétiques, images photographiques...) ou non spécifiques (infrastructures durables, objets...). D’autre part ses réseaux de communication existent de manière définie et durable en dehors des individus ; ils sont prédominants et permettent à la société chaude la circulation rapide de l’information et de la matière-énergie.

L’information digitale étant précise et sans ambiguïté, il n’est pas nécessaire qu’elle soit redondante. Nous pouvons resituer en les distinguant très brièvement les bases de notre héritage culturel et observer certains éléments de similitude, éléments factuels consécutifs au processus historique, et des points de disparité.

Le fondement et l’héritage historique dans la caraïbe sont quasi identiques, par le processus de la conquête et de l’esclavage, mais l’évolution et les constructions politiques des îles ont emprunté diverses directions.

Ce qui induit un héritage social et un héritage culturel varié, complexe, bigarré, disparate, hétéroclite, hétérogène, modifié, voir inégal sans oublier les rapports particuliers de chaque île avec le monde, avec « son pays continental », et avec sa diaspora.

C’est une société « par couches » ou sédiments, un espace de syncrétisme, donc d’appropriation polysémique et croisé pour les artistes qu’il faut assumer, décortiquer, épuiser et explorer au maximum, ainsi que défendre, consolider.

Ainsi, et pour mieux comprendre notre espace caraïbe, nous pouvons également et certainement nous pencher sur le concept « d’hétérotopie » qu’a développé Michel Foucault5 , vision (intuitive) à étudier : « Eh bien, je rêve d’une science - je dis bien une science - qui aurait pour objet ces espaces différents, ces autres lieux, ces contestations mythiques et réelles de l’espace où nous vivons. Cette science étudierait non pas les utopies, puisqu’il faut réserver ce nom à ce qui

3 Jean Claude WILLIAM est professeur de sciences politiques ; martiniquais 4 Notons que la première carte du monde, où le nouveau continent est appelé « América » est publiée en 1507 ; (la « Cosmographia Universalis », à la Bibliothèque Municipale de Saint-Diédes-Vosges). Ainsi pour les occidentaux, en 1492, c’est la découverte du Nouveau Monde, par C. Colomb, et entre 1519-1522, Magellan boucle la première expédition autour du Monde. Il existe maintenant un autre continent appelé « les Amériques ». Mais, à partir de là, cette découverte marque aussi la fin d’un modèle qui ne peut plus être exclusivement Européoncentré.

5 Michel Foucault (1926 -1984) philosophe français. ; fut entre 1970 et 1984, titulaire d’une chaire au Collège de France à laquelle il donna pour titre “Histoire des systèmes de pensée”.

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Pour parler plus précisément, il décline ceci : ‘Les hétérotopies sont présentes dans toute culture ; une même hétérotopie peut voir sa fonction différer dans le temps ; l’hétérotopie peut juxtaposer en un seul lieu plusieurs espaces eux-mêmes incompatibles dans l’espace réel ; au sein d’une hétérotopie existe une hétérochronie, à savoir une rupture avec le temps réel ; l’hétérotopie peut s’ouvrir et se fermer, ce qui à la fois l’isole, la rend accessible et pénétrable ; les hétérotopies ont une fonction par rapport aux autres espaces des sociétés : elles sont soit des espaces d’illusion soit des espaces de perfections’.

Ces concepts d’hétérotopie et d’hétérochronie trouvent un écho particulier dans notre société caribéenne.

En observant de plus près, les points de disparité peuvent se décliner ainsi dans la caraïbe : Ces disparités sont identifiables sous plusieurs angles, et la nécessité d’un classement nous permettra de constater certains faits ; (ces angles sont explicités en bas de page) . Bien entendu, et d’abord, le morcellement de l’espace régulièrement nommé « Identité Caribéenne », puis II faut également observer et tenir compte que la naissance et l’apparition des pratiques artistiques est inégale dans les îles, en regard de l’antériorité et du mode d’implantation culturelle colonisatrice (Cuba et Haïti restent pionnières malgré les systèmes et situation politiques (émancipation politique, résistance) dont elles font les frais aujourd’hui. Évidemment tous ces facteurs ne simplifient pas les articulations et les mises en place d’institutions de coordination. En effet, les élaborations, constructions et implantations chronologiques des instances culturelles sur les îles (Ecole, centres d’art, musées . .) sont inégales. D’autre part, nous devons prendre en considération des faits tels que l’aire culturelle de provenance

des colons, l’aire culturelle de provenance des déportés, c’està-dire l’origine diverse des populations d’esclaves et l’impact imperceptible sur des facteurs d’incompréhension, de goûts ou d’antériorité esthétique. C’est-à-dire autant de systèmes de structurations socio-économiques et culturelles que d’îles ; presque toute l’Europe s’y retrouve, y compris les Chinois, les Indiens; Et nous ne devons pas négliger d’autres facteurs, tels que la fragilité géologique et climatique pour certaines îles (volcans et éruptions, ouragans et cyclones, tremblements de terre) et la capacité à se reconstruire, le type de développement et d’articulation de la religion (syncrétisme ou côtoiement et tolérance), l’hermétisme ou la perméabilité (porosité) des échanges engageant ou non le processus de « créolisation », et à posteriori, les résistances des hommes et la structuration politique, sociale, économique, religieuse. Le vécu dans cet espace nous permet très aisément de percevoir et de faire l’expérience d’une certaine homogénéité de l’histoire et des pratiques socio-culturelles, le constat que le début du processus historique à partir des peuples Amérindiens a été sensiblement le même pour toutes les îles, puis, la modification subie (traite-esclavage), déclenche l’apparition d’une série d’éléments de similitude (construction de mémoires et répertoires musicaux à nomenclatures proches), danses, cuisine, soit un nombre impressionnant de facteurs se croisant, donnant lieu à des formulations singulières, des productions inédites. Bien qu’il puisse paraître inapproprié voir manichéen de procéder à cette lecture , il reste important de noter les points en apparence « négatifs », une impression diffuse d’incohérence, de différence et d’hétérogénéité, et des points « positifs », une grande diversification des productions, et par le principe de miscellanisation où, us, coutumes, origines ethniques et religieuses diverses, langues, nourriture, modalités vestimentaires, habitats, se sont croisés, mélangés, emmêlés dans des formules mixtes, hybrides, composites, et pourquoi pas impures, dans une sorte de fragilité, de « disponibilité spécifique à se remettre en cause » ; Nous dirons impures dans le sens de Guiliano Da Empoli dans un travail actuel sur la culture Brésilienne dans « la peste et l’orgie » : « Cette dynamique se fonde sur deux mécanismes : à l’horizontale une tendance à combiner culture, traditions, et matériaux provenant des origines différentes qui font la richesse de la culture brésilienne ; à la verticale, une aptitude, chez les élites culturelles, à puiser dans ce bassin, au lieu d’imposer de haut des solutions préfabriquées en contribuant ainsi au développement d’une sorte de culture pop ante litteram, qui supprime les hiérarchies dans un jeu continuel d’échanges entre le haut et le bas, le sublime et le trivial, l’aristocratique et le populaire ». Nous tentons donc d’évoluer et de prospérer en Caraïbe, écartelés que nous sommes entre, un territoire en parcelles, (bien que nous vivions dans

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n’a vraiment aucun lieu, mais les hétéro-topies, les espaces absolument autres ; et forcément la science en question s’appellerait, s’appellera, s’appelle déjà « L’hétérotopologie ».

Il nous permet cependant de mettre en lumière des notions invisibles inscrites dans le réel. Si M. Foucault forge cette notion d’hétérotopie, c’est d’abord en réaction à un vide analytique. Dans le savoir universitaire ou généraliste, la complexité de l’espace, des espaces, serait battue en brèche, globalisée et affadie ; à son avis il s’agit d’une erreur d’envergure : Nous sommes, pour ce qui concerne la caraibe, proches de ce concept très intéressant d’hétérotopie qu’il faudrait néanmoins expliciter davantage : « On ne vit pas dans un espace neutre et blanc ; on ne vit pas, on ne meurt pas, on n’aime pas dans le rectangle d’une feuille de papier. On vit, on meurt, on aime dans un espace quadrillé, découpé, bariolé, avec des zones claires et sombres, des différences de niveaux, des marches d’escalier, des creux, des bosses, des régions dures et d’autres friables, pénétrables, poreuses. »

6 Les disparités sont visibles ainsi : par la disparité des aires, effet du morcellement et discontinuité. (source Internet) Par l’angle de l’aire linguistique (Anglophones : Jamaïque, Barbade, Trinidad, Hispanophones : Porto Rico, République Dominicaine, Cuba, Francophones : Martinique, Guadeloupe, Guyane, Haïti, Néerlandophones : Aruba, Curaçao, Bonnaire), par la taille et la surface des territoires : Cuba : 110 861 Km2, Guyane : 83 846 km², République Dominicaine : 48 750 Km2, Haïti : 28 000 Km2, Jamaïque : 11 425 Km2, Porto Rico : 8950 Km2, Trinidad : 5 128 Km2 Guadeloupe : 1 628,43 Km2, Martinique : 1 128 km², Curaçao : 450 Km2, Barbade : 430 Km2, Bonaire : 288 Km2, Aruba : 193 Km2 ; par l’importance de peuplement : Cuba : 11 205 000 hab., Trinidad :10 091 700 hab., Haïti : 9 923 243 hab., République Dominicaine : 9 884 371 hab., Porto Rico : 3 966 600 hab., Jamaïque : 2 804 332 hab., Guadeloupe : 404 394 hab., Martinique : 398 733 hab., Barbade : 281 968 hab., Guyane : 269 429 hab., Curaçao :173 400 hab., Aruba : 102 695 hab., Bonaire : 12 000 hab. ; par l’angle du processus de structuration politique et du statut : État associé (aux USA): Porto Rico, Île indépendante : Haïti, République Dominicaine, Région dépendante et monodépartementale : Martinique, Guadeloupe, Guyane, Monarchie constitutionnelle : Barbade, Jamaïque, État Caribéen Membre du Commonwealth : Trinidad et Tobago, République, régime à parti unique communiste : Cuba, État du Royaume des Pays-Bas : Aruba, Curaçao, Commune à statut particulier administré par les Pays-Bas : Bonaire.

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un environnement géographique et paysager magnifique et enviable), une « mondialisation tenace mais, finissante », une vision touristique édulcorante (l’Europe a besoin du fantasme d’un territoire idyllique, le tourisme a besoin du mythe de la vieille Afrique), et des traces de sociétés froides (Amérindiens, Africains, Indiens). Ces sociétés comme nous l’avons dit, construites dans ce paradigme de société froide des aborigènes, avec un soubassement confirmé de leur existence au monde, un territoire indivisible, des processus collectifs « intégrés » d’individuation, comprenant la mise en place d’une procédure de plasticité sociale.

origines. Ils souffrent de l’éloignement et de l’étroitesse de leurs territoires ». Très souvent, ces artistes ne se connaissent pas entre eux. Chacun a sa trajectoire, une sensibilité, un environnement, une perception, une approche différente. « Il n’y a pas un type d’art et d’où qu’il vienne, il reste un art », abonde le photographe guyanais Mirto Linquet qui estime que « la Fondation Clément remet les pendules à l’heure ».

Ici je souhaite faire un « arrêt sur image » car cela induit un certain nombre de réflexions ainsi que des questionnements dans le rapport qui se trouve inscrit (ou pas) avec les « culturess mères » .

Pour tenter de faire exister et perdurer des espaces disons, d’utopie, il faut avec précision se poser de bonnes questions, tisser convenablement et avec justesse les aspects positifs de la société froide et certains aspects de la société chaude, bien que celle-ci ait déjà sécrété maintes impasses et culs de sacs ; Nous parlons aujourd’hui de décroissance : le rythme « stressant » de l’Europe nous oblige à la fois à avancer mais aussi à créer des digues contre ce rythme (accentuer les attitudes de développement durable, écologie, valorisation des déchets . .).

Il nous faut donc procéder à une nouvelle analyse des données, et peut être faut-il utiliser de nouveaux outils d’analyse, inventer de nouvelles modalités. Si l’ouverture des frontières peut être une bonne chose au sens ou elle favorise l’échange et les opportunités économiques, il faut prendre garde à ce que cela ne crée un élément supplémentaire de complexité qu’il faut pouvoir gérer, contrôler, piloter. Il nous faut bien comprendre l’espace, le territoire, la terre, l’habitat, l’énergie, la proximité, l’exiguïté, la promiscuité et les incidences sur « le vécu », bref recentrer cette relation au vécu et à l’espace habité ; Peut-être faut-il également et dans un premier temps régler la question des représentations du passé, du patrimoine, de la mémoire ?

- Aujourd’hui, le monde se complexifie, l’Art lui répond L’art contemporain (quelque-soit la forme plastique endossée ou revêtue) signifie une adaptation, un ajustement voir une adhésion avec les problématiques de l’époque dans laquelle on vit. Pour les artistes de la caraïbe, l’expression plastique peut vraisemblablement revêtir une forme d’illisibilité à cause des formes endossées, et des sujets traités, de cette diffraction de l’aire concernée. Or, on peut bien observer qu’en fait les artistes de la caraïbe sont déjà passés par la case « société ‘froid-chaud’, mondialisation », et ceci est un élément chronohistorique important. Depuis quelques temps, certains artistes de la caraïbe adoptent différents types de pratiques combinées mais explorent encore des champs dont euxmêmes peut-être limitent les possibles. Il existe des obstacles comme des problèmes de finances, de place ou atelier.

C’est ici que la question de l’art contemporain dans notre contexte prend son sens, à savoir comment bien situer cette notion de posséder et de bien identifier un héritage culturel, même morcelé, de l’utiliser comme ancrage, de ré-évaluer l’intervalle juste à occuper, d’opérer de nouvelles mises à distance idoines, et cheminer sereinement vers « l’à présent ».

Puisqu’ils ont à gérer cette complexité : être issu et vivre dans un héritage culturel composite, les amérindiens, les africains, les européens, dont nous constituons la résultante sociétale (une résultante avec ses aspects négatifs mais assurément avec ses aspects positifs), n’y a-t-il pas de nouvelles questions à se poser ? .

C - La Caraïbe et son héritage - Héritage culturel et art contemporain La conséquence pour les artistes de la caraïbe, sera que l’héritage culturel de cette historicité modifiée produira de manière visible un certain nombre de difficultés. Ils font les frais d’une discontinuité du territoire, d’une lecture éparse, d’une cosmogonie diffractée. Cet état des lieux est d’ailleurs observé entre les lignes dans les quelques remarques qui sont à étudier dans le sens de la disparité des îles, de leur éloignement, des questionnements à l’OMA (OMA, Outremer Art contemporain), Orangerie du Sénat. Il apporte un éclairage sur la visibilité et la lisibilité des artistes caribéens. Il s’agissait de présenter à Paris des artistes issus de la sélection de la Fondation Clément, appartenant à Mr Bernard Hayot.

Cette fondation martiniquaise, qui s’est inscrite dans une démarche visant résolument le marché de l’art, s’est créé un réseau de galeristes et de collectionneurs. Les artistes de Martinique sont assez bien connus dans leurs outre-mer, mais absolument ou fort peu en France hexagonale, assez souvent exposés mais n’ayant pas de cote sur le marché international de l’art contemporain. A cette exposition avaient été conviés des galeristes et collectionneurs d’art contemporain et parisiens parmi lesquels Mr François Pinault, une des fortunes de France. Mr B. Hayot s’exprime : « Nous avons la chance d’avoir des artistes talentueux. Or ils ont beaucoup de mal à faire connaître leurs œuvres au-delà des frontières de leurs

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Car simultanément, et à une vitesse grandissante le monde change ; Faut-il réviser notre faculté d’interpréter le passé , voir d’un œil neuf, se défaire de préjugés, créer de nouveaux cercles de sens (excentriques et concentriques), ou bien, est il question de re-créer et solidifier des espaces de conformité ?

Depuis la période des bouleversements de la peinture classique vers l’incontournable évolution qu’a été l’art moderne, la télévision, le cinéma, les technologies, Internet, les avancées de la science (sciences de l’homme et mathématiques) aujourd’hui ne peuvent être sans incidence sur la complexification du monde et par effet de ricochet sur nos rapports et nos relations interpersonnelles et les productions artistiques. Les artistes sont témoins de leur époque ; un même artiste peut traverser toutes les pratiques ou, leur panachage dans des combinatoires parfois surprenantes, disons des procédures d’installation polysémiques. De nombreux champs se croisent (social, politique, culturel, religieux, moral, individuel, intime, collectif, corps) et l’artiste complexifie intentionnellement l’interprétation faisant appel à de nombreux champs de connaissance, ou à des repères multiples, la vie elle même ne fonctionnant pas par champs séparés. Ils s’autorisent, et sont les garants de la mise à distance pour l’observation des

D - Questions et possibles re-positionnements - Diversité, complexification - Différents types de champs et pratiques combinées Aujourd’hui, la complexité de la gestion des problèmes du quotidien nous occupe, dilue notre attention, notre lucidité, nos objectifs, amenuise notre esprit critique, et parfois notre capacité et notre promptitude à réagir. Très vite peuvent surgir des questions fondamentales sur la domination, l’humanisme, les droits de l’Homme, questions qui surgissent (en écho ? ou « en boomerang » ?) pour les artistes du monde entier et déclenchent certains positionnements (Chine, Etats-Unis, Pays Islamiques etc.)

Il nous faut donc procéder à une nouvelle analyse des données, et peut être faut-il utiliser de nouveaux outils d’analyse. Si l’ouverture des frontières peut être une bonne chose au sens ou elle favorise l’échange et les opportunités économiques, il faut prendre garde à ce que cela ne crée un élément supplémentaire de complexité qu’il faut pouvoir gérer, contrôler, piloter. Il nous faut en quelque sorte comprendre l’espace, le territoire, la terre, l’habitat, l’énergie, la proximité, l’exiguïté, la promiscuité et les incidences sur « le vécu » bref recentrer la relation au vécu et à l’espace habité ; revoir les cohérences et dichotomies. Peut-être fautil également et dans un premier temps régler la question du passé, du patrimoine, de la mémoire, comme point de départ d’appartenance, de la scénographie d’un nouveau monde.

Le principe du collage, du montage ave des matériaux de base (clous, vis, colle, scotch) a évolué avec la technique et la technologie, avec l’accès à l’achat sur le réseau de matériaux ou matières jusque-là rares, illicites ou prohibés, les logiciels spécialisés, de nouvelles approches apparaissent conjointement aux bugs de la science, les accidents des recherches scientifiques, les mutations génétiques, cette nouvelle ouverture fait déplacer les lignes des possibles pour l’artiste. Le montage devient numérique, le collage devient biologique, l’assemblage devient techno-virtuel.

L’artiste propose à notre jugement de faire se croiser plusieurs champs simultanément, physique, mental, spirituel, abstrait et conceptuel, intime, personnel, collectif. Dans certains cas, l’espace physique est nécessaire voir indispensable, ainsi que des moyens conséquents.

Y a t-il des champs de questionnements et d’exploration interdits ? Bien qu’il y ait encore des territoires, des modes, des procédures plastiques à explorer, quels sont les espaces critiques à approfondir ?

Dans les pratiques plastiques contemporaines, nous avons trouvé récemment des manipulations numériques, (narration virtuelle, réalité augmentée, art sensitif ), des propositions mettant en synergie, objets / systèmes / dispositifs, des pratiques combinées, croisées ou des approches « limites », des manipulations génétiques, de l’hybridation (Zhang Xiaoyu), de la mise en scène et la re-création corporelle de soi par la « chirurgie esthétique » (Orlan), les arts-bio-technologiques

(Eduardo Kac), des approches techno conceptuelles (Wim Delvoye - cloaca maxima), des installations polysémiques (Jane Alexander, Thomas Hirschhorn), des sculptures – corps / installations (Jake et Dinos Chapman ), des approches cinéaste-vidéaste (Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Jan Fabre), des installations/espace-conceptuel (Anish Kapoor, Yayoï Kusama). . . .

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évènements du monde en cours; Ils peuvent parfois par leurs œuvres marquer aussi la recherche d’une spiritualité absente.

Par exemple, même si on ne veut pas rentrer dans des questionnements approfondis sur le genre, on peut quand même s’interroger sur l’écriture et le positionnement artistique des femmes artistes dans la caraïbe, se demander quel est le type de territoire exploré par les femmes dans leurs pratiques ? ou encore, que sont-elles réellement autorisées à dire ? Les femmes ne sondent-elles pas un autre espace dans leur questionnement ? , (peut être mental, de repli, de revendication sourde . . .) celui-ci n’est-il pas différent selon les îles et les Histoires traversées ?.

Par le biais de ces questions, Il semble encore aujourd’hui que l’évocation de la question du genre ne soit pas de bon ton ; une société patriarcale, et quelque peu machiste ne peut aborder, voire absorber les notions et représentations mentales de la catégorie du genre féminin, ni ses revendications, sauf si elles sont lisses et sans conséquence ; or la réalité de tous les jours démontre que la question de la condition de la femme est loin d’être développée, commentée, réglée. C’est justement à mon avis, ce que veulent dire les femmes dans leurs propositions plastiques, de façon subtile parfois, et il faut pouvoir distinguer ou soupeser l’importance de ce discours. Peut-être faudrait-il s’interroger sur la place, l’espace mental et le territoire octroyé aux femmes et les impacts sur leurs possibles dans la société, et comment certaines se l’approprient en art.

Beaucoup de femmes, ailleurs, s’interrogent sur la question du genre et les écarts d’acception autour de certains concepts : Claire Hancock (espace, genre, territoire), Elfriede Jelinek (le pouvoir autoritaire des clichés sociaux, elle travaille sur l’obsession, la névrose, la brutalité, et sur les rapports de forces socio-politiques, leurs répercussions sur les comportements sentimentaux et sexuels), Judith Butler (identité, genre, normes), Donna Harraway (biologie, féminin), Catherine Malabou (plasticité du cerveau, genre), Catherine Vidal (cerveau, sexe et pouvoir), Dorothée Benoit-Browears (cerveau, sexe et pouvoir), Antoinette Fouques (émancipation des femmes) ; autant de questions fort intéressantes qui sont spécifiques mais fondamentales. En écho, les réactions récentes du groupe Russe « Pussy Riots » Nadejda Tolokonnikova sur ces questions font la une de l’actualité.

En effet, les femmes artistes de la caraïbe abordent des thématiques locales et universelles qui parlent de transgression des cadres sociaux, de l’éclatement des limites, elles cherchent en filigrane à construire les cadres de demain : elles inventorient le corps et la relation au schéma corporel, l’imprégnation au lieu, la mémoire, la mythologie personnelle, les mythologies collectives, la question du genre et l’inversion des schémas sexuels, la politique, le pouvoir, la condition de la femme, la femme et son intériorité, la saturation par l’expression de l’absence, la fragmentation/répétition, le mixage sémantique par l’hybridation, la fragmentation.

L’artiste peut à loisir articuler et combiner toutes les pratiques

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et c’est bien évidemment son habileté, son sens critique qui sont mis à l’épreuve aujourd’hui pour obtenir le meilleur résultat, le plus grand effet.

L’essentiel de l’utilisation de ces pratiques associées ou seules n’a pour seul objectif que de servir son propos et fournir la plus grande efficacité pour traduire son intention, de faire émerger des questions, du sens, de l’émotion, et véhiculer un certain nombre de messages.

Le monde s’étant complexifié, l’image photographique dévoilant l’intime de manière subversive et parfois choquante, le cinéma divulguant des lieux et des espaces jusque là méconnus, l’Internet donnant accès au « tout du monde » et au « tout du soi », l’avancée des technologies, les notions d’espace et de temps se traversant avec les nouveaux outils numériques, l’accélération des informations, toutes ces données nous laissent penser que l’artiste est à l’affût pour mettre en œuvre d’autres pratiques et procédures en écho à la société du 21ième siècle.

Conclusion Pour être bien conscient de l’espace dans lequel nous nous situons, soit, pour la caraïbe, et j’émets donc ce postulat : un espace de juxtapositions d’hétérotopies, peut-être devonsnous prendre du recul et ré-examiner le chemin sociohistorique parcouru.

Pour l’artiste, il y a des questionnements directement liés à la pratique plastique pure (couleur, forme, matière, espace, support) et des questionnements qui se sont amplifiés et complexifiés. Ceux-cis s’arque boutent aujourd’hui sur des contenus discursifs indubitablement et davantage politiques ou sociaux, (haine et violence, violence morale, masques du totalitarisme, stigmatisation, exclusion, ségrégation, racisme, intolérance religieuse, visions manichéennes, question de l’image et questions sur l’Internet, le genre aujourd’hui, l’humour, la mixité sociale etc.). Étant issu de cet espace « modifié et complexe », l’artiste de la caraïbe doit être davantage visible ou entendu, car il est le traducteur du temps et de cet espace « modifié » dont il est le témoin, il ne peut re-tourner à l’état « passif », c’est-à-dire vouloir ressembler aux modèles des « sociétés mères qui nous ont sécrété », qui charrient des notions qui peut être sont dépassées ou nous sont déjà connues ( déconstruction, effondrements en tout genre et tous azimuts, déshumanisation, terrorisme, mondialisation, intolérance à l’extrême).

Il peut alors rentrer par exemple dans une vision plus ample et explorer une véritable révolution métaphorique sur de nouveaux contenus discursifs.

Biographie: Sonia Tourville est professeur/designer chez IRAVM

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At the end of the twentieth century, art practices of the Caribbean became subject to the scholarly analysis of global, transnational movement and cultural interconnectedness.

This approach has had an impact outside the academy in various art world contexts where such concepts are taken up and commoditised through taste-making practices.

Leon Wainwright

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Leon Wainwright

Taste and geographical movement in contemporary art of the Caribbean Keywords: transnationalism, art, commodity, taste, urbanism, Suriname, Rotterdam, arts policy, exchange

Abstract This article offers a case study of an officially sponsored arts programme that culminated in two exhibitions staged in 2010 which sought to offer a cultural ‘exchange’ between the cities of Paramaribo (Suriname) and Rotterdam (the Netherlands). Discussion focuses on individual artists and works of art, in order to examine the significance of taste for understanding dynamics of power in the various forms of transnational geographical movement that the programme entailed. In recent decades, attention to processes of global change has occupied a central place in academic writing about contemporary art. While this scholarship has taken a largely progressive form, beyond the academy in the sphere of public art exhibitions, adoption of such conceptual vocabulary has often brought rather more mixed outcomes which this article explores critically.

Introduction While the Caribbean has long been of interest to scholars in the humanities and social sciences, serving as a virtual laboratory for the study of ethnicity and racial difference, it has more recently attained a seminal status in academic commentary concerned with transnationalism and border crossing, the cultural aspects of migratory movement such as cultural transmission, acculturation and intermixing (Hitchcock 2003). A sense is beginning to emerge, however, that the Caribbean is somewhat overused, or has become over-represented, in such attempts to understand social and cultural fields in relation to the process of globalisation. Vigorous debate among scholars about the politics of knowledge production has touched on the extent to which theorisations of Caribbean cultural experience – Caribbean responses to the effects of globalising processes that have happened over a wide historical span – are coming to be generalised for global modernity as a whole. Such generalisation has held the result that the particularities of Caribbean historical experience are overlooked, at the risk of introducing certain false parallels.

Writing within historical sociology and mobility studies, Mimi Sheller has asked: ‘What miscommunications have taken place in the translation of Caribbean “creole” languages and cultures into the self-constituting ideas of mainstream Western modernity?’ (Sheller 2004: 175).

Sheller shows that this process is part of a longer history of ‘consuming the Caribbean’, once confined to material goods and commodities such as sugar, cocoa and coffee, but to which we should now include the region’s intellectual and cultural products.

In what follows, I explore this relationship in further depth, taking it to be the broader social background for understanding those cases in which art, as well as artists of the Caribbean, have been subjected to discursive classification, mediation and consumption. Most significantly, these processes take place within broader practices of taste. Attention to taste is crucial both to the study of contemporary art in the Caribbean as well as to 36 CARIBBEAN INTRANSIT

critical accounts of cultural conditions writ large. The sociologist Herbert Gans made the widelyquoted observation in 1969 that: ‘the most interesting phenomenon in America … is the political struggle between taste cultures over whose culture is to predominate in the mass media, and over whose culture will provide society with its symbols, values, and world view’ (Gans 2009 [1969]: 357). Attention to taste with regard to art has generally followed the lead from Gans in identifying the parameters of class, education and other social distinctions. While it is notable that such theorisations have focused on a given national space rather than across national borders, the present case study shows how taste operates through circulations within a globalizing and transatlantic field.

The focus for discussion is the interconnectedness of the Caribbean to the Netherlands, patent in two art exhibitions that were staged during the year 2010. Titled Paramaribo Span and Paramaribo Perspectives, the exhibitions exemplified the changing postcolonial relations between Suriname and the Netherlands. More specifically, they provide instances of transfers across fields of taste. Taste in this context (and what I variously refer to in this article as ‘taste-making practices’ and ‘taste-formation’) may be seen to operate in various ways. It is detectable in discriminations made about what sort of art is deemed appropriate and deserving of support in the context of a public arts programme. Analysis of the rubrics of taste can yield particular insights about issues of power, helping to understand better the impact of both the support given to art and artists of the Caribbean by public organisations, and the reception of such art and artists in public space.

There are tensions between the aesthetic preferences promoted by northern metropolitan agencies (arts organisations, public galleries) and those of art communities of the Caribbean which have come to be of intense interest to such agencies. As such, while we may refer relatively straightforwardly to the consumption of art of the Caribbean, we must also take into view what may be described as the consumption of artists. Caribbean artists circulate within patterns of labour and consumption in the field of contemporary art in a way that shows up the inequalities of transnational and globalising processes.

Consequently, this article pinpoints how Caribbean artists offer their labour in a context of taste-making. It establishes how their art is framed by the tastes of audiences, patrons and cultural policymakers of the ‘global North’; how they try to cope with the frictions entailed by such an exchange of labour; and what are the means and opportunities available to artists when they try to sustain alternative fields of taste.

Art and artists at Paramaribo Span In February 2010 I was invited to join a public discussion associated with an art exhibition in Suriname’s capital city, Paramaribo. Arriving in Suriname, I soon came to realise the extent of Dutch patronage for the exhibition. Entitled Paramaribo Span, this was the final phase of ArtRoPa (an acronym indicating both Rotterdam and Paramaribo), a four-year programme jointly held in the Netherlands and Suriname. The programme was designed as an exchange between the

In Paramaribo I encountered a broad policy of promoting cultural diversity in the arts, exemplified in the various official measures taken in the mid-2000s for developing multiculturalism in Amsterdam (see, for instance, Uitermark et al., 2005) and the seminal publication 6(0) Ways: Artistic Practice in Culturally Diverse Times (ter Braak et al. 2010). The perception of ethnic and cultural differences that this policy framework brought, once extended to Suriname, served to reify cultural difference and diversity. It perpetuated the idea of Caribbean artistic values as being distinct from those of the Netherlands, demonstrating an official taste for art that stands at a cultural remove from Europe, art that is perforce different for being produced at a global ‘periphery’, ostensibly away from the metropolitan art ‘mainstream’. Such taste-informing policy was clearly identifiable in the work undertaken by organisations within Suriname itself. Enabling sponsorship to operate along local bureaucratic channels, these ‘partners’ included De Surinaamsche Bank, which hosted the main venue of the exhibition on its grounds. Around the programme was gathered a circle of artists, curators, arts writers and organisers from Paramaribo. The programme framed this assemblage as a Caribbean counterpart to the numerous artists from the Netherlands who took part, most of whom were based in Rotterdam and not of Caribbean descent. A further range of participants were invited to bring an expansively ‘international’ dimension to the central axis of connection between Suriname and the Netherlands, including the artist Christopher Cozier, who served as one of the exhibition’s curators, the writer and editor Nicholas Laughlin, and designer and artist Richard Rawlins; as well as a cohort of writers, art historians and curators from Jamaica, Venezuela, and the United States, as well as myself from the UK. For my account of the Span programme in the following, I have chosen to focus on just two of its participants, the artists Dhiradj Ramsamoedj (b. 1986) and George Struikelblok (b. 1973). Ramsamoedj’s ‘Adji Gilas’ works were shown at an ‘off-site’ exhibition location in a domestic space belonging to the artist’s family, which I visited on the evening that the installation was opened to the public. [Figure 1] One piece of this assemblage, set up in a darkened room, was a figure made from split wooden sticks, about sixty centimetres high, apparently in motion and lit from the side. [Figure 2] A strong directional spotlight cast a shadow on a nearby wall, above a family couch and other household furniture. This installation, and others in the house, was dedicated to the artist’s paternal grandmother, his adji. It was primarily a play on scale since the room in which it was assembled is not a conventional display space; not in size, nor by the fact of its other, more everyday use as a bedroom, with a position at the back of the house, as is standard in the region’s architecture. Ramsamoedj has indicated that as a child he was always afraid of this private space. [Figure 3] There is an opening in the ceiling, a trapdoor

into a loft, which he came to find ominous and the artist had a lingering memory of elderly relatives spending their dying hours here. The shape on the wall literally overshadowed this scene and its memories of a very personal family history.

Ramsamoedj’s placement of his wooden sculpture employed a dramatic device that relied on its viewer glancing directly at it, thereby placing the figure’s shadow at the edges of the field of vision. The inclination of the form gave the impression of its shadow moving as if toward the viewer; it was subtly posed as to appear to be stepping earnestly forward, entering the sphere of attention.

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two countries through artists’ residencies, visiting lecturers, exhibitions and various publications, and at the time of my Suriname visit, enthusiastic plans were being made for this activity to have an afterlife in the Netherlands. This duly took place in the form of the exhibition Paramaribo Perspectives, and various supporting events at the publicly-funded contemporary art space in Rotterdam (known as TENT.) which I attended during September and October of 2010.

Struikelblok’s contribution to Paramaribo Span was at the main exhibition site, outdoors in the grounds at the rear of De Surinaamsche Bank. His piece, entitled ‘Groei’ (growth), was made up of a cage, set on a plinth, which became the home for hundreds of hatchling chickens. [Figure 4] The artist’s plan was for them to remain there, fed, watered and sheltered in their temporary home. They would eventually have to be freed when their cages became cramped as the days and weeks of the exhibition went by. Their imperceptible growth during a visit to the exhibition would in time become all too conspicuous, with the birds needing more space and attention than the artist had given them. Floating somewhere between installation, performance and living sculpture this work was an injunction to the viewer to feel empathy for the young birds, creating a space of metaphorical association and emotion. Interested in the incremental changes of chicks as they grow, Struikelblok created a sense of the need for intervention against a metaphorical rising tide, the increasing confinement of birds as they helplessly filled their cage.

The works of Ramsamoedj and Struikelblok are part of these artists’ negotiations over the dominant tastes that formed during the period of anti-colonialism when official support grew for visual art and it came under scrutiny as a site of national heritage (van Binnendijk and Faber 1995). Such nationally sanctioned forms of representation are problematised in these works, just as they are by artists of the post-independence generation elsewhere in the Caribbean (Wainwright 2011).

Their contestations are integral to this art, as their practitioners try to position themselves and their generational and ethnic identities within the Suriname art community in the attempt to take charge of the terms on which art practices are valued.

This underlines that there is no single artistic taste in Suriname and that even between Ramsamoedj and Struikelblok there are different approaches to that practice. Struikelblok has an established place in the Suriname art market, but it is confined to his painting practice alone, which hardly featured in Span, compared to his contribution to the installations, video, performance and more conceptual works that comprised the programme. Ramsamoedj was given mixed praise from the local audience at Span for choosing to show his work in an improvised space away from the established, formal venues of display and sale for art in Paramaribo. His works yearned for the recognition that Suriname’s art community had hitherto withheld, not only for his own art, but for that of his peers in Paramaribo. Span thereby became a platform to register a shared frustration about the country’s perceived paucity of places for art display. It represented a moment of hope about what could be achieved with external support from the Netherlands and the wider Caribbean.

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essays Figure 1 House of the artist’s adjie (grandmother) at night, taken during the 2010 exhibition. Courtesy of Dhiradj Ramsamoedj.

Figure 2 Dhiradj Ramsamoedj, ‘Walking Figure’, 2010. Wood, glue and used engine oil. 60 x 30 x 30 cm. Photo by William Tsang. Courtesy of Readytex Art Gallery.

Figure 3

Figure 4

Dhiradj Ramsamoedj, installation view of ‘Walking Figure’, 2010. Courtesy of Dhiradj Ramsamoedj.

George Struikelblok, ‘Groei’, 2010. Five framed mirrors, carpet, galvanised metal plates, wood.

Courtesy of the artist.

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essays Figure 5 Dhiradj Ramsamoedj, ‘Adjie Gilas Project’ (Paramaribo), 2010 (detail). Photo by William Tsang.

Courtesy of Readytex Art Gallery.

Figure 6 Dhiradj Ramsamoedj, ‘Adjie Gilas Project’ (Paramaribo), 2010. Mixed media: aluminium cans, wooden slats, acrylic painted picture frame.

284+460cm (total length) x 292 cm (height) x 10cm (depth). Photo by William Tsang. Courtesy of Readytex Art Gallery.

Figure 7 Dhiradj Ramsamoedj, ‘Adjie Gilas Project’ (Rotterdam), 2010. Mixed media: aluminium mugs, wood. 1500 cm (total length) x 215 cm (Height) x 10cm (depth). Courtesy of Dhiradj Ramsamoedj.

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From Paramaribo to Rotterdam In one of the rooms of the ‘Adji Gilas’ installation in Paramaribo was an arrangement of metal cups carrying the image of Dhiradj Ramsamoedj’s grandmother, his adji. [Figures 5 & 6] This is the part that he chose to reassemble in Rotterdam.

To do so presented a rather practical challenge of retaining the specificity of place and the intimacy of the original work.

TENT. has rather vast rooms, with high ceilings, pristine walls and a smooth concrete floor, replicating the ‘white cube’ of modernist display. Consequently, it was a challenge for the artist to find a suitable format for objects that were previously installed in markedly different surroundings.

He began by changing the walls in order to occupy a wider space, around double the size of the original one in Suriname. The sense of intimacy was to be retained by ensuring that the spacing of the shelves was also narrow.

[Figure 7] In the original work, visitors could step into the space and look around at the walls and back at the door.

Where they had entered was then surrounded by shelves, holding cups on either side. In Rotterdam the entrance was at the corner of the room, near a plinth for the artist’s books.

On the opening night in the Netherlands, an assistant stood impassively turning the illuminated pages of the books whereas in Paramaribo that role was taken by Ramsamoedj’s sister, whose participation completed an installation that had all along relied on the collaboration of various family members.

The artist told me that during the preparations his family enjoyed seeing his progress in transforming the house into an exhibition venue. Even so they were skeptical about what would happen when the public arrived, asking ‘What will people actually do? Will they come just for the mugs?’ When an audience did materialise he relished their surprise as well as that of the art community in Paramaribo for whom the idea of opening one’s home to the public had never been so fully explored.

That Suriname background soon receded from view, however, as the installation moved to its second context. Here in Europe, the transfer of its meaning was especially hard to achieve for Ramsamoedj. As he remarked, ‘This is not an intimate place for me. I had to make it intimate and give it some home-like feel.’ He addressed this by lowering the lighting in the gallery, similar to the levels in the house, and created an interior of rough wood panels, batons and shelves. With a carpenter’s precision he copied the appearance of the structure of the walls in the Paramaribo house, where the beams are visible, only covered by a panel on one side and left open on the other. The result was a whitewashed construction that mimicked a room in the tropics.

There were some other, less tangible ways that the artist tried to carry over the installation’s original associations in Paramaribo. He spaced out the wooden framework in keeping with the proportions of his grandmother’s body. ‘I used the height of my grandmother for this height, and I used her shoulder span for this width,’ he indicated to me as we walked together around the gallery. In discussing the work, it became clear that something like Le Corbusier’s ‘modulor’ system had generated its dimensions.

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Indeed it resembled the systems used in many buildings in Rotterdam dating from the time of De Stijl. This process may be taken as a formula for addressing a Dutch audience, with a tacit reference to patterns of design within the national canon.

‘I knew I needed something logical for the measurements for this installation, so why not use her measurements for this.’ It was a logic that ensured the outcome would be far from arbitrary, both mathematically and in locating the work in a Dutch design milieu. The element of measuring was kept private from the exhibition audience.

Once it was pointed out to me, my relationship to the installation altered. It ceased to be an architectural and domestic space transposed from the Caribbean and became instead an abstracted body based on personal geometry.

Even so, here was a reconstructed installation whose formal properties had been modified in its meaning reframed by a mode of taste that pertains to the Dutch context of ‘white cube’, contemporary gallery display. This is not to suggest that the work somehow lost its site specificity, but that the transition it underwent in being relocated to the Netherlands required the artist to demonstrate his skills of assembling artworks so that they may accord with the local conditions of consumption which here would indicate a taste for the tropics satisfied on the terms of a Northern poetics of ‘neutral’ viewership: the scrubbed and plain surfaces of a public space that signifies ‘contemporary art’.

George Struikelblok’s contribution to Paramaribo Perspectives also faced similar challenges of relocation. Initiating an entirely new installation, he filled the floor of the first room of the exhibition with circular mirrors standing in plastic frames, for a work entitled ‘I wish, I hope, I think, I want’ (2010). [Figure 8] When preparing the work, he bought several hundred of these and approached orphanages in Paramaribo, asking if their children would like to take part in a collective work of art. They were asked to write or draw on the glass in coloured pens: 'They write what they miss, what they like, what they want to be, everything. Some of them write I miss my father, I miss my mother, I want to be a pilot, I want to be a police officer. And some of them, the small ones, make a picture. Like that one, you see a mother and a father holding a child. And so you see why I had to do this, to show what they want. Some of them have a car, big house; some of them have flowers, and they’re all different. Each one has a different story.'

On some of the mirrors were pictures of houses, which the children drew as a means to place themselves in an imaginary home. For one of the mirrors, I noticed that its glass appeared to be broken, only to see that the cracks had been delineated in ink. On the reverse side of many of the mirrors I saw the pictures that they came with from their manufacturer in China. There were pop stars and fashion icons, set against airbrushed mountain scenes. One was a yacht; others carried the commercial symbols of beautification: whitened skin and long eyelashes. For the most part the artist had removed these printed pictures and presented empty frames. [Figure 9] As with much art made by children, these images offered a space of personal projection. Yet the overall authorship of the work rested with Struikelblok, reframing the children’s marks.

As such, the installation tended toward the same political message as in his work with caged birds. A child’s dream for a

essays Figure 8 George Struikelblok, ‘Ik wens, Ik hoop, Ik denk, Ik wil’ (‘I wish, I hope, I think, I want’), 2010. Found table mirrors and felt-tip pen.

Courtesy of the artist. Copyright of Job Janssen and Jan Adriaans.

Figure 9 George Struikelblok, ‘Ik wens, Ik hoop, Ik denk, Ik wil’ (‘I wish, I hope, I think, I want’), 2010 (detail). Found table mirrors and felt-tip pen. Courtesy of the artist.

Copyright of Job Janssen and Jan Adriaans.

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fhappy future became a dream for Suriname. One of the children had put ‘keep smiling’. In many other mirrors were heartfelt statements of hope, wishes for prosperity and for a successful life. The imagined future is a prosperous one where the family is the basis of society. As Struikelblok confirmed in our interview: ‘In this one it says, “I miss my uncle.

He is in Holland. I also want to go to Holland”. In this one, “I want to graduate”, and she hopes that a lot will change in the orphanage.’ Ideas of individual progress appeared alongside the desire for migration. Others were less direct, even unfinished, and read: ‘This is my dream car’, and then were left blank.

These two contributions to Paramaribo Perspectives share some clear common ground. Their artists have worked with multiples and manufactured materials, and found or used objects, to which they have added coded marks. Both installations involved the manipulation of light. For ‘Adji Gilas II’, as in Paramaribo, a great effort was made to control the light that came into the room. Struikelblok filled a much larger expanse with relatively small objects, in a challenge to hold the attention of viewers in a room with a very high ceiling. It must be said that the unease that both artists felt was less to do with cultural differences than the fact that their artworks were exhibited in the formal setting of a large room in an exhibition gallery, at a remove from the contingencies of display in Suriname, where the public ‘white cube’ gallery is less well-represented than the taste for art displayed outdoors, or in open-to-sky architectural spaces, in commercial galleries and in improved settings such as school rooms or in and around urban streets and their furniture. The aesthetic and in particular spatial concerns that artists articulated in Suriname were consequently lost from view on their move to the Netherlands.

The display and reception of these works was also a circumscribed one, situated in a political economy dominated

by Dutch priorities for arts programming and curating. It was a difficult site for making visible their artistic concerns balanced against some external expectations brought to the art of Suriname. The inadequacy of audiences in the Netherlands to grasp the contextual and critical depth of much Caribbean art became obvious in this episode of movement, and the Dutch art programmers who anticipated an uncomprehending public would then try to ensure the presentation of a more ‘recognisable’ sort of art. In my interviews with them they were plainly preoccupied with the question of whether Caribbean art was ‘good enough’ to be shown at all, and concerned about a loss of reputation for the Dutch artists who took part in the programme. ‘I’m not sure I can even talk about it.’ One bureaucrat told me. ‘The whole thing was just really bad, really bad for the artists.’ When I asked, ‘Which artists?’ the response came quickly: ‘The Dutch ones of course’. Curators in the Netherlands evidently saw little of their own bureaucratic role in shaping these unsatisfactory circumstances. They would reproduce the very structures of inequality that their founding interest in expanding and opening up to a wider world was intended to disrupt (or at least to understand better).

The creative effort that the Caribbean artists of Span share may be seen as an instance of negotiation with such a set of pressures, tastes and cultural values. What was really striking about the artworks themselves included in the two exhibitions

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is how they actively questioned the underlying processes and purposes for the entire art ArtRoPa programme. Struikelblok chose to put at the centre of the meaning of his works the limitations of space and resources for his growing chicks, and the topic of migration raised by children, with their aspirations to move to the Netherlands. Ramsamoedj highlighted why his works were best viewed in-situ in the Caribbean, in the home of his grandmother, and how displacing such sculptural content to the TENT. would throw up problems of translation which are instructive for the lessons to take away about such processes of cultural displacement. Indeed, both Struikelblok and Ramsamoedj tackled the problems and pressures of mobility – the path of movements across the Atlantic between the cities of Paramaribo and Rotterdam – as individuals who themselves have shuttled back and forth between global metropole and global periphery throughout their art education and careers. The attendant discomfort and actual mistreatment that Caribbean artists told me about would become integral to their decisions about how to participate in these exhibitions and what works of art to produce. This is best summed up by what one artist had told me, about how he had felt ‘infantilised’ at the hands of the Dutch curators. Fitting then that Struikelblok should make a work that conveyed his empathy for homeless children.

All such critical questioning among these artists, and by way of their works was, however, hiding in plain sight; it could not be grasped or heard under the circumstances, and a fuller evaluation of that surrounding situation is needed in order to explain why that came be the case. The value of these artworks becomes clearer through an exploration of the interconnections between the national settings in which these artists have lived and worked. As I am about to show, this demands particular attention to the transatlantic geography in which taste is encoded by way of cultural policy and arts programming, and in particular the urban dimensions of that process.

Taste and contestation Paramaribo Span provoked often heated debate, mostly away from the programmed platform for discussion, and from the press. Much of this followed a line of accusation about Dutch interference and paternalism, while complaints were also levelled at the heavy diplomatic focus of the opening ceremony. The Suriname premier gave an address alongside the corporate and Dutch sponsors, yet the participating artists were not scheduled to speak. One of the artworks – which was intended to serve as the signature work for the entire exhibition – was censored in preparation for the opening event. Toward those participants who were not from Suriname or the Netherlands (including the co-curator from Trinidad) questions were asked about the appropriateness of their participation, with the suggestion that they were somehow ‘out of context’ in a Dutch-speaking programme.

This was despite that the programme being billed as proudly international, with an accompanying book published in English and Portuguese.

The basis for the entire initiative was evidently a desire to forge continuing relationships between Suriname and the Netherlands, with a core sense of the two countries sharing a connection not through dominance from the Dutch side but more entwined and equal relationships. Thus, emphasis

For some of the artists and audience of Span, however, this more redemptive vision came at the expense of sober and much-needed scrutiny of the actual processes and conditions of curating and producing contemporary art in the Caribbean.

During interview they explained their desire for a distinctively postcolonial examination of how the shared art environment of the transatlantic manifests latter day imperialism, the associated problems of nationalism, and conflicts between the aesthetic preferences of the former imperial metropole and its periphery. Some felt that these were implicit in the exhibition itself; the Suriname-Netherlands coupling was far from incidental and therefore demands critique, perhaps by comparing it with historical episodes of colonial dominance when political control has been exerted through the sphere of culture. Looking more to the future, it was frequently emphasized that the axis of connection between Suriname and the Netherlands is but one of several that artists from Paramaribo are considering as they look elsewhere for opportunities, in countries within the wider Caribbean, and in the United States and Canada.

Accordingly, when drawing historical parallels to the colonial past, it pays to consider the geographies that were in view for those who contributed, and to examine these in light of the spatiality of capital and the labour structures that underscored the programme. Both exhibitions, in Paramaribo and Rotterdam, were framed by a largely managerial idea of cultural transnationalism, matched with a particular discourse of taste. The conceptual framing of the two exhibitions was pressed into the service of some Dutch domestic interests, in tension with those of its participating artists and audiences.

This put a question mark over the programme’s accompanying proclamations about the virtues of free movement, its stated recommendation of the need to turn away from anachronistic ideas of culture as a matter of purity and privilege, in favour of hybrid, ‘creole’ and transnational creative community.

When I interviewed artists in Suriname about their interactions with Dutch visitors (especially those officials charged with the responsibility for shaping an international arts programme), I was struck immediately by their sense of suspicion. Many felt that the foreign purveyors of ‘good taste’ had arrived in the Caribbean to adjudicate over its art, selecting works and artists in the manner of cherry picking ‘the best’. Such artists spoke of their anxiety about the potential for the imposition of an externally formed sense of taste, and the danger that an unrepresentative selection of works of art would be chosen for subsequent display in Europe. They were concerned this would risk further disconnecting such art from its context of production and mischaracterize the art community in Suriname. Artists thus specified such concerns as having to do with taste. They saw a fraught relationship with patronage, consumption and meaning, how works of art are apprehended and presented, and how their artists are to be held in posterity. If Caribbean artists have struggled to have their art taken seriously within a complex geography

of consumption, this episode of interaction between Suriname and the Netherlands demonstrated how art and artists experience the political economy of taste that spans this geographical field. Artists in Suriname argued that the ArtRoPa programme reasserted some older relations of Dutch dominance, modifying these for the twenty-first century. The words ‘agency’ and ‘arbitrator’, used in association with artists from Suriname, appeared in the press release from TENT. and became a telling indication that the programme was an instance of international political relations. An initial statement read: ‘Paramaribo Perspectives examines the role of the artist as agent of changing cultural, political and social relationships.’ The intention was clarified further in a subsequent one: ‘Against the background of the current political rift between the Netherlands and Suriname, Paramaribo Perspectives positions the artist as arbitrator of the changing cultural, political and social relationships.’ This rewording can be seen to be connected to the row over the protection from extradition enjoyed by the Suriname political leader Desi Bouterse, following his conviction in absentia in the Netherlands in 1989, a row that heightened with his coming to power in Suriname during the same year as the exhibition.

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was laid on a celebratory idea of Caribbean transnationalism that could epitomise a mutual experience between the Caribbean and Europe. Span sought to foreground the post-independence dimensions of two countries’ relations and the idea that the development of Caribbean art and empowerment of its artists was taking place after successful ‘removal’ of the disadvantages and legacies of colonial rule.

If Dutch metropolitan curators and arts programmers have handled the Caribbean’s art in a way that ‘positions the artist as arbitrator’, such an approach to policymaking and public engagement in the arts may also be described as a practice of taste. This is just as readable in the way that art and artists of the Caribbean were shown in Rotterdam, where an assertion of taste from Dutch curators came into tension with the priorities of the artists they supported from the Caribbean. That tension points to the need for a thorough re-assessment of the overall rhetoric of ‘exchange’ and representations of the Caribbean and Europe as somehow freely associating through their coexistence within a culturally borderless, transnational community. Art’s changing status in relation to discourses of globalisation deserves particularly careful evaluation. This episode of ‘exchange’ saw such artworks first being consumed within the Caribbean region under the sign of Dutch patronage, before moving to a second site of consumption after a round of closer selection.

In each setting, the parameters of taste were formed within a matrix of curators and arts organisations, programmes of funding and nuclei of cultural policy in which Caribbean artists certainly had a stake but were barely allowed formal stakeholder status.

Taste and rights Analysis of the geography of the two exhibitions of 2010 in the ArtRoPa programme can illuminate the role of taste in relation to a matter of rights over urban space. The spatial dimension of the programme’s attendant aspirations, patterns of funding, and its flows of capital is essential for any assessment of what was driving the involvement of Rotterdam arts programmers to ‘span’ the distance to Paramaribo in the first place. A constructive way of thinking about the urban dimension of the programme is to consider the surrounding aspirations for growth and development of the city of Rotterdam, and how these have characterized the management of its social and economic changes. A guide here can be found in a study of global geography such as David Harvey’s work on ‘the growth path of urbanization under capitalism’ (Harvey 2008: 24), VOL 3 | ISSUE 6 | FALL 2021

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especially when growth, as he writes:

These exhibitions thus became a site for the problematic reconstituting of relations of consumption in the visual field through efforts to create a semblance of multicultural order, harmony and shared creativity. It was suggested to me in conversation with Dutch bureaucrats working in the arts that such an official presentation of the virtues of an expanded cultural field for the Caribbean is essential for adequate representation of artists of ethnic minorities living in the Netherlands. Those artists who belong to the significant historical immigration of Surinamese (van Eijl 2009) and the Harvey’s phrase ‘hitherto independent elements’ is pertinent second and third generations in the diaspora, have indeed in view of the post-imperial context of these spatial relations. remained largely invisible from the Dutch contemporary art In the present case, one such source for labour had been sector. An intended outcome for Paramaribo Perspectives was found in artists and their products – indeed, their art work – to bring contemporary art from Paramaribo to the attention from Suriname. Caribbean artists are frequently compelled of art audiences in Rotterdam; there was a concomitant aim to move from the region for the duration of an event or to reach Caribbean diaspora audiences in the Netherlands in exhibition and this practice was central to the business model order to widen their participation in spaces such as TENT. This for Paramaribo Perspectives. (In other programmes, art and was in line with a discourse of supposed complementarity artists are drawn from among the resident Caribbean diaspora between arts programming, urban regeneration and in the Netherlands). Evidently this is labour of a particular measures for civic and minority integration in the city of kind, with a symbolic value thought to help in creating the Rotterdam. The question remains, however, of which groups conditions for growth in a city like Rotterdam, as part of ‘the have come to be the chief beneficiaries of that process, and perpetual need to find profitable te rr ains fo r ca pital-surplus what can be understood of the discontent that issued from it production and absorption’, to quote Harvey again (2008: during this ‘exchange’. These being the operative priorities for the programme, participating artists of the Caribbean could 24). If Rotterdam’s ‘growth path’ has led on this occasion to Paramaribo, then the ideology of the ‘multicultural city’ has only ever find themselves paradoxically absent from the tastebecome both a condition for production and an end product making practices of a cultural programme that was billed to in itself. This is nowhere suggested more graphically than in represent them. the logo adopted for the ArtRoPa programme: a suspension bridge notionally linking the two cities. It is also spelled out Evidently it repays interest to disentangle the rhetoric of in the programme’s mission statement to stimulate ‘creativity cultural exchange from the actual, lived experiences of Caribbean artists. While artworks are always processual and diversity’ and to generate ‘cultural infrastructure’. practices by which aesthetic meaning is created, mediated and controlled through the variety of contexts, the supposition that If Harvey’s gloss on the ‘growth path’ of capitalism suggests that cities such as Rotterdam would see traffic flo win g int o interactions between artworks and their audience happen in a it from a region such as the Caribbean, in the specific c ase I shared and apolitical field is misplaced. The present example have been discussing, the picture, in reality, is more complex. belies the stated show of inclusivity and community that There are inequalities in place with such relationships and the issued from the literature surrounding Paramaribo Span and movements of artists has taken mainly one direction. Chandra Paramaribo Perspectives. The lines of division and difference van Binnendijk reports from Paramaribo that ‘The recent are evidence that Caribbean art and artists were not in this exchange programmes are a sensitive issue in the art scene. case accorded their place in an open and expanded, common … There is considerable dissatisfaction with the content of the cultural field, where their artworks may be classified by their agreements, and rumbles of discontent can be heard: far fewer intrinsic value. ‘What cultural producers have in common is a Surinamese students or artists go to the Netherlands than system of common references, a common framework; in short, vice versa’ (van Binnendijk 2010: 54). Looked at in this way, the what I have referred to as the “space of possibles”’, writes Pierre declared intention of the ArtRoPa programme – to establish Bourdieu (Bourdieu 2012 [1993]: 179). However, what was at a creative ‘dialogue’ between artists who might take this as a issue in the Suriname-Netherlands example is that access chance to usefully compare notes on art, figuratively speaking to the cultural field was not held in common. Being uneven – was patently not met. The programme reproduced in and inequitably shared, this particular ‘space of possibles’ was miniature the wider social facts about Caribbean migration to nowhere free from tensions and antagonisms. We need look Europe, in contrast to European free movement and tourism to no further than the two iterations of Ramsamoedj’s installation the Caribbean. Even more vividly, the precariousness and the at different locations, two versions that make palpable some casual or ‘freelance’ nature of the labour of Caribbean artists, virtually opposing models of taste, to observe this in action. exemplifies the role of human capital in the ‘ n ew cultural The first is grounded radically in place, biography and the local industries’ (McRobbie 2009), here mapped onto a global ecology of the art community in Paramaribo; the second, a deNorth-South relation and its art environment. Remaining personalised context in Rotterdam where objects are put into with Harvey, however, as was discernible from my interviews, a temporarily built room and in that somewhat sterile space, artists of the Caribbean are also considering how to assert take a regimented order. This redisplay of the ‘Adji Gilas’ project their ‘right to the city’, which is both a right to Rotterdam and was according to aesthetics and ‘standards’ of proportion to Paramaribo: the right to take part in the metropolitan art and public presentation from which any story of the artist’s scene in Europe, as well as for artists to be agents in shaping tribute to his family members was submerged to a point of their own urban spaces in the Caribbean. '… presents the capitalist with a number of barriers to continuous and trouble-free expansion. If labour is scarce and wages are high, either existing labour has to be disciplined— technologically induced unemployment or an assault on organized working-class power are two prime methods—or fresh labour forces must be found by immigration, export of capital or proletarianization of hitherto independent elements of the population (Harvey 2008: 24; cf. Lefebvre 1996 [1968]).'

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near invisibility – diametrically at odds with his ambition for their full recognition. Each of his cups underwent a journey from home to abroad, and a concomitant transformation of the domestic by way of another regime of taste, derived from Dutch cultural policy through curatorial practice and public display.

A central premise of this article is that the term ‘global’ is celebrated in countries of the North Atlantic far differently from how Caribbean communities appear to have understood it. The movements of works of art between the Caribbean and the Netherlands has become a scene for negotiating the term’s significance. It is not always to the benefit of Caribbean artists when a link is made between their art practices and the discourses of intermixing and free movement within an ostensibly shared, transnational cultural field. Such an association does exist, but it hardly takes the shape of the easily drawn, fashionable one that runs through the language of many curators, arts organisers, funders, policy makers and audiences in Europe’s metropolitan centres. I have illustrated such tensions between the aesthetic preferences of Caribbean artists and Dutch curators. Yet the situation is complicated by the apparent exclusion of artists of the Caribbean diaspora resident in the Netherlands. These individuals were effectively bypassed in the selection of artists for Paramaribo Perspectives. Assigning to the Caribbean region a ‘globalising’ profile – its diaspora included – may have come to distort a sense of the actual experiences of Caribbean communities in their lived and geographical differences. Arts programming has sought a synecdoche to those communities in the figure of the individual artist; it has invested in an idealisation of Caribbean artists and their works as in free global movement; it is motivated in part by concern for ‘inclusion’ of the widely dispersed, transatlantic Caribbean diaspora. But there is every reason for exposing this discourse as a taste-making practice that treats artists and art works as signifiers of transnational movement. We must ask how such a particular taste is perpetuated and what is the likely scope of its ongoing effects.

Transnationalism has become the leitmotif of both Caribbeanfocused research and for exhibition curating, with Caribbean artists and their works being presented as the material embodiment of an imagined space of global cultural diversity.

Yet the ethical, political and aesthetic concerns of Caribbean artists are in dramatic tension with dominant tastes and networks of consumption that shape and deploy a celebrated poetics of ‘globalised’ contemporary art. In response to that promotion of a shared transatlantic culture focused on the visual arts, George Struikelblok drew attention to the desire to migrate, expressed by children, individuals who are the least likely to participate in the cultural labour that has brought artists from Suriname to the Netherlands in recent years.

Once the situation is described in terms of differing tastes, we can better see the conflict between an established appetite for free-flowing, borderless transnationalism on the hand, and a much more quotidian, bounded and contingent sort of visual production on the other – one which elucidates (and literally holds a mirror) to metropolitan idealism in the field of exhibition programming. Through metropolitan interest in art of the Caribbean, it is ethnicity and difference that have become the preferred signifiers of the commoditised novelty of such art. Thus, art of the Caribbean enters as an ethnicised sign in

path’ of metropolitan development. Such ethnicising of art works is the subtext for the presentation of art of the Caribbean as a site of fluidity, ‘creolisation’, borderless community, and so on that is associated with the supposed transnationalism described in contemporary art discourse. It has led to the generation of a secondary, complementary allocation of space and resources away from an actual locus of power associated with the art ‘mainstream’.

Extending this sort of intellectual inquiry to a context of larger scope – at the very least one that takes in the countries and territories of the wider Caribbean region – would allow a comparison of how artists of have approached the tastes and ‘global’ values of the contemporary art field. It would help to pinpoint where they have confined their roles to accommodating those values, or else entered that territory in a more agonistic manner, or indeed with a more influential stance and with far greater agency. This would pay attention to the specific circumstances of artists and the social aspects of this cultural field, providing the key to the critical and emotional character of any further such relationships of putative ‘exchange’.

Conclusion This article has unpacked the background to a particular instance of the promotion of Caribbean artists, examining practices of taste, putting them under systematic and empirical scrutiny. It has set out the salient contradictions inherent in the adoption and framing of art and artists of the Caribbean when a celebratory discourse of ‘global culture’, which approaches globalising processes as nothing other than an unalloyed good, is examined in an alternative light, as if ‘from below’. The picture offered by cultural commentary on art of the Caribbean (Paul 2003, 2007; Barson and Gorschlüter 2010; Poupeye 2011) during the first decade of the new millennium captured many ‘success stories’ about the region’s artists.

While these seem to furnish the conclusion that the Caribbean has come to enjoy a high degree of agency – by virtue of its many examples of movement – the foregoing discussion contradicts any such idealised picture of an ostensibly open and borderless global cultural field. Indeed, Caribbean artists have continued to stand in a position of disadvantage within a discursive hierarchy of global ‘difference’; there is a painfully unequal relationship between the taste regime of the art mainstream and how Caribbean artists experience that field of practices.

The stereotypical idea of the Caribbean as an accessible and yet exotic zone of the western hemisphere has long prevailed in the reception of the region’s art within the North Atlantic (Wainwright 2011). This has been supported by a general inability, guided by the same hegemonic discourse, to accept that contemporary art is quite ‘at home’, or indeed that contemporary art exists at all, in such a ‘marginal’ space as the Caribbean. These judgements of value, even of ‘quality’, are thus a clear matter of geography; spatiality itself has become central to such processes of mediation, setting the limit conditions for Caribbean artists’ participation in the contemporary art field. I have recommended the task of mapping out such North-South power dynamics as they cohere through art practice, policy and funding, and have looked in particular at the role of taste, where what may be

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called the ‘taste for difference’ has seen art of the Caribbean pressed into the service of multiculturalist and urbanist agendas among arts organisations of a key North Atlantic metropole. In this cultural economy, markers of taste have issued from outside the Caribbean region and formed the landscape of value in which artists move in global space.

The coupling of Suriname and the Netherlands through art exhibitions in 2010 was revealing of the sorts of positions that artists and their works have adopted in response as a way of coping with these circumstances.

Email: Leon.Wainwright@open.ac.uk Acknowledgements A previous exploration of my work on this topic appeared in the journal Etnofoor, 24(2), 2013, pp. 13–40. The current article was developed with the guidance of anonymous peer reviewers on behalf of Caribbean Intransit.

References Barson, Tanya and Peter Gorschlüter (eds.).

2010 Afro Modern: Journeys through the Black Atlantic.

Liverpool and London: Tate Publishing Ltd. Bourdieu, Pierre 2012 [1993] The Field of Cultural Production.

Cambridge: Polity Press.

Crowley, D. 1957 Plural and Differential Acculturation in Trinidad.

American Anthropologist 59(5): 817–24 Fijalkowski, Krzysztof and Michael Richardson 1996 Refusal of the Shadow: Surrealism and the Caribbean.

London: Verso.

Gans, Herbert J. 2009 [1969] The Politics of Culture in America. In: Lee Rainwater (ed.) Social Policy and Public Policy: Inequality and Justice.

New Brunswick, NJ.: Transaction Publishers. Pp. 353-360.

Grantsaan, Gillion and Remy Jungerman (eds.)

2009 Wakaman: Drawing Lines, Connecting Dots: Contemporary Art Suriname.

Amsterdam: Fonds BKVB. Harvey, David 2008 The Right to the City. New Left Review 53, Sept/Oct: 23-40.

Herskovits, M. and F. Herskovits 1976 [1947] Trinidad Village.

New York: Octagon Books.

Hitchcock, Peter 2003 Imaginary States: Studies in Cultural Transnationalism.

Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

Khan, Aisha 2004 Callaloo Nation: Metaphors of Race and Religious

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Identity among South Asians in Trinidad.

London and Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Lefebvre, Henri 1996 [1968] Writings on Cities.

Cambridge, MA: Blackwell McRobbie, Angela 2009 Reflections on Precarious Work in the Cultural Sector.

In: B. Lange, A. Kalandides, B. Stober and I. Wellmann (eds.), Governance der Kreativwirtschaft: Diagnosen und Handlungsoptionen.

Transcript Verlag. Pp. 123-139.

Meijer zu Schlochtern, Thomas and Christopher Cozier (eds.)

2010 Paramaribo Span: Contemporary Art in Suriname.

Amsterdam: KIT Publishers.

Paul, Annie 2007 Infinite Island: Contemporary Caribbean Art. Brooklyn: Brooklyn Museum.

Paul, Annie 2003 The Enigma of Survival: Travelling Beyond the Expat Gaze. Art Journal, 62 (1): 48-67.

Poupeye, Veerle H. 2011 Between Nation and Market: Art and Society in 20th Century Jamaica.

Emory University, unpublished doctoral thesis.

Sheller, Mimi 2004 Consuming the Caribbean: From Arawaks to Zombies.

London and New York: Routledge.

Tancons, Claire 2007 Lighting the Shadow: Trinidad in and out of Light. Third Text 21(3): 327-339. Reprinted in: http://storage.smallaxe.net/ wordpress/2007/07/20/lighting-the-shadow-2/ ter Braak, Lex, Lilet Breddels and Steven van Teeseling eds.

2010 6(0) Ways: Artistic Practice in Culturally Diverse Times.

Amsterdam: NAi Publishers.

Thissen, Siebe 2010 Beyond the Watch and the Pen: Public Art in Paramaribo. In: Meijer zu Schlochtern, Thomas and Christopher Cozier (eds.), Paramaribo Span: Contemporary Art in Suriname. Amsterdam: KIT Publishers. Pp. 32-44.

Uitermark, Justus, Ugo Rossi and Henk van Houtum 2005 Reinventing Multiculturalism: Urban Citizenship and the Negotiation of Ethnic Diversity in Amsterdam. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 29(3): 622-40. van Binnendijk, Chandra, Paul Faber and Tammo Schuringa 2010 Shaafijs en Wilde Bussen: Straatkunst in Suriname.

KIT Publishers: Amsterdam. van Binnendijk, Chandra 2010 A Dynamic Picture: The Cultural Climate in Paramaribo 2000-2010. In: Meijer zu Schlochtern, Thomas and

Christopher Cozier (eds.), Paramaribo Span: Contemporary Art in Suriname. Amsterdam: KIT Publishers. Pp. 47-57. van Binnendijk, Chandra and Paul Faber 1995. 20 Years of Visual Art in Suriname, 1975-95.

Rotterdam and Paramaribo: ITDG Publishing van Eijl, Corrie 2009 Migranten in Nederland, 1948-2000. Een kwantitatieve analyse van sekseverschillen.

Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis 6(2): 3-33.

Wainwright, Leon 2012 The Emotions and Ethnicity in the Indo-Caribbean. In Maruska Svasek (ed.), Moving Subjects, Moving Objects: Transnationalism, Cultural Production and Emotions.

Oxford and New York: Berghahn. Pp 222-244.

artists, curators and writers from other parts of the Caribbean, outside the Dutch colonial and postcolonial territories. Issues of North-South relations in regard to art practice and the right over representation (as much as the right to the Caribbean’s citites’) of course extend to other Caribbean nations and relationships with their former or continuing Biography: Leon Wainwright is Professor of Art History at the Open University, UK and the author of Timed Out: Art and the Transnational Caribbean (Manchester University Press, 2011) and Phenomenal Difference: A Philosophy of Black British Art (Liverpool University Press, 2017).

Wainwright, Leon 2011 Timed Out: Art and the Transnational Caribbean.

Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press.

Yelvington, K. A. (ed.)

1993 Trinidad Ethnicity.

London: Macmillan Caribbean.

Notes: i Among the vast literature on Trinidad alone, see: Herskovits and Herskovits 1976 [1947]; Crowley 1957; Yelvington 1993. An extended bibliography appears in Khan 2004. ii ArtRoPa commenced in February 2007 and was funded by the Centrum Beeldende Kunst Rotterdam (Rotterdam Centre for the Arts). Paramaribo SPAN: Hedendaagse kunst in Suriname (in English Contemporary art in Suriname) marked the 145th anniversary of De Surinaamsche Bank, 26th February until 20th March 2010, held at the Bank’s premises in the centre of Paramaribo. The accompanying catalogue was published in three editions, Dutch, Portuguese and English (Meijer zu Schlochtern and Cozier 2010). It followed the 2009 exhibition at Fort Zeelandia, Paramaribo (20th February to 1st March): Wakaman: Drawing Lines, Connecting Dots: Contemporary Art Suriname (Grantsaan and Jungerman 2009), funded by the Intendanten Culturele Diversiteit Project, an initiative of the Fund for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture (Fonds BKVB), Amsterdam, the Netherlands. iiii Together these three Trinidadians oversaw the associated website in the form of a blog: http://paramaribospan.blogspot.co.uk/

This builds on my work around Indo-Caribbean artists elsewhere in the Caribbean (in Trindad), relating to the matter of artists’ agency and its limits (Wainwright 2012).

iiv

v ‘Doel van ArtRoPa is het versterken van de culturele infrastructuur en het bevorderen van de interculturele dialoog. Dit betekent uitwisseling van ideeën en het stimuleren van creativiteit en diversiteit.

Juist kunstenaars hebben de mogelijkheid om verbindingen tussen verschillende culturen te leggen, samen te werken en als sleutelfiguren ervaringen uit te wisselen.’ www.artropa.nl vi Notable, and indeed problematic, is that during the Span programme there was a line of questioning about the participation of

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Nimah Muwakil Zakuri

Gendered National Voice: Women in Trinidad and Tobago Art, 1956-1971

Keywords: Gender, representing women, visual culture, visual arts Feminist theory has proposed that women in all societies and belonging to diverse cultures across the globe are in one way or the other subordinated to their male counterparts (Rosaldo et al 17, 67). This generalized pronouncement has been the basis of numerous amounts of studies aimed not so much at determining its validity but at analyzing the specific trans-cultural frameworks that create and perpetuate such scenarios (189). Analysis of the public/private binary is one method of examining the ways in which the status of women is viewed by a particular society. This binary deduces that the public sphere that relates to such things politics and economics are related to men and furthermore, given a higher status than the private sphere, associated with the “activities performed within the realm of the localized family unit” (190), and linked to the woman. Nature versus culture is another binary that has been used to explain why women have traditionally been viewed as the lesser or weaker sex. Sherry B. Ortner in her famous essay Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?, suggests that physical and social factors, as well as ascribed mental attributes contribute to women being seen as closer to nature as opposed to all encompassing “higher” plane of culture. She points out however that “…these facts and differences only take on significance of superior/inferior within the framework of culturally defined value systems.”

(Rosaldo et al 70).

Using the tools of various disciplines including anthropology, sociology and psychology, feminists have developed theories that have exposed several deep rooted assumptions held by various societies about the role and status of women; attempting thereafter to inform policy in order to arrive at social change through equity. This universalistic approach however, has been refuted in many instances as being too ethnocentric (Williams et al 199), classist and even racist, as it sees through the lens of the white middle class female operating within the nuclear family. The basis upon which feminist theory was developed, it is argued, does not take into consideration the myriad of variables that contradict this notion of female subordination, as we move from one societal context to the other. Still as Peggy A. Sanday argues in her essay Female Status in the Public Domain, “In (some) societies women may have economic power but not authority” (Rosaldo et al 194).

Arguably, within the Caribbean context there is practical evidence of the challenge of a wholehearted acceptance of the theory of female subordination; as well however, there may be much evidence in support of it. Through the socio-historic as well as the aesthetic examination of selected works from the National Fine Art Collection of Trinidad and Tobago, this paper will analyze the way in which women were portrayed by artists during the years leading up to and during the early post independent years in Trinidad and Tobago. Operating on the premise that all art is a reflection of the society within which it operates and that artists consciously or not espouse many

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prevalent assumptions and ideals through their creations, I will attempt to determine firstly, how well broad feminist theories can translate or are able to be inserted into a Trinidad and Tobago context and secondly, if used as the benchmark, what can be said of the status of women during the above mentioned era. Adelaida De Juan, renowned Cuban art critic suggests: … a retrospective of the woman seen as the object of attention for diverse artists, offers up the changing map of social relations between man and woman, the role that they carried out in the society or time in which they lived and further still, the space assigned to the woman in her social ambit (9).

Art history, like many of the disciplines mentioned before, has also been used as a tool by many feminist critics in the unmasking ideals implicit in visual culture. It is important to note here that a complete study of the history of art of Trinidad and Tobago has never been done. Furthermore one of the only attempts at a study of the region’s artistic development was done about a decade ago by Veerle Poupeye in her book entitled Caribbean Art, which gives a good overview of the richness and vastness of the region’s art history. Notably, her study does not include a critique from the perspective of gender or women’s issues of the works that she encounters.

Poupeye does include in her study however women artists such as Jamaica’s Edna Manley and Mexico’s Frida Khalo noting their significant contributions. Feminist criticism as it pertains to art history in the New World would surely provide us with many answers and surely expose many hidden biases 1) on the part of artists depicting us as “the other” 2) and how we present ourselves to the world. Many issues many also be encountered as well when we begin to come across the unique cultural constructs and cultural heritage of the region, enabling us then to develop new theories tailored to approximate the understanding of our diversity.

The late 50s and early 60s was a time of great societal change in Trinidad and Tobago. Politically, the country was ushering in a new era in its existence with the onset of Independence.

However despite this step towards the future, there existed a significant amount of social stagnation, lingering traits of the colonial experiment, manifesting itself through issues such as high unemployment, illiteracy and economic dependency.

Artists operating during this time would have undoubtedly been surrounded by a wealth of opportunity “…to present important economic and social truths” (Barnet 178), in an effort at “…..improving us spiritually or morally, or giving us insight into the political system so that we can work for a more just system.” (178). C.L.R. James in his book Beyond the Boundary 1963, in his philosophizing on the nature of art and the true artist says that: …the blind imitation of nature was not art, not even if

The history of the Caribbean, as a rule, is complex and dynamic in itself. Beyond generalized analyses, attempts at further and compartmentalized studies of specific phenomenon tend towards the overturning of many theories that may hold true for similar happenings extra-regionally.

the repetition of the species, whereas because the male is: …lacking natural creative functions, (he) must (or has the opportunity to) assert his creativity externally, “artificially”, through the medium of technology and symbols. In doing so he creates relatively lasting, eternal, transcendent objects, while the woman only creates perishables… (75).

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that object was what would commonly be agreed upon as beautiful, for example a beautiful woman. There was another category of painter superior to the first. Such a one would not actually reproduce the object as it was.

Being a man of vision and imagination, the object would stimulate in him impulses, thoughts, memories visually creative (During 420).

The general use of a monochrome colour and the flatness of paint application add to the sense of serenity afforded by the scene that has a definite correlation with sterotypes of the Indo-Trinidadian woman as docile homemakers, religious and dutiful.

In contrast, Stollmeyer’s painting depicting two women also engaged in domestic chores exudes a more sexually charged air. Stollmeyer’s women are bare-breasted. They are, though somewhat shielded by the surrounding foliage, placed in a less private setting than the Mahabir’s women, here reinforcing two points; first is the one raised by Foucault (54) concerning the hierarchy of sexual prestige where the man in many circumstances is praised for his sexual prowess and the woman for her virtue and sexual purity. This is not to say that Stollmeyer’s women are not “virtuous”, but the fact that he chose to depict them in the nude in a public setting, rather than clothed as Mahabir did may point to another local and generalizing perception about the “looseness” and availability of Afro-Trinidadian women. The theme of the washer woman is very prevalent and popular one among local artists. Knowing to him or not Stollmeyer, buys in to the age old perception of and perpetuation of the black woman as a sexual object In 1958 Thora Mahabir paints, Preparing the Meal (Plate 1), through his idyllic depiction of the laborious activity. two (2) years later, in 1960, Hugh Stollmeyer presents us with a Depictions such as these have their antecedent as far back painting reminiscent of Gauguin’s native girls, entitled Washer as in the 1773 painting by Angostino Brunias, West Indaina Women (Plate 2). Both of these paintings depict women Washerwoman which Patricia Mohammend make reference engaged in a domestic task. Ironically, in form and content to in her essay, Morality and the Imagination – mythopoetics they both display remarkable similarities although painted of gender and culture in the Caribbean: the trilogy (72). The by a female and male artist respectively. For example, in both question we must ask ourselves here is why an artist would paintings the women are disengaged and distant from the choose to depict a theme that neither edifies nor advances viewer, thoroughly engrossed in their tasks. An invisible line a particular group of people in any direction but rather from the subject in the background to the protagonist in the undermines much of the work done in trying to dispel such fore divides the painting diagonally from left to right, and perceptions. A fine example of the work being done at this serves to guide the viewers gaze in a downward direction. time towards the advancement of women was the formation These paintings show women occupied in duties surrounding of the Caribbean Women’s Association (CWA), whose aim as the “reproductive sphere” (Rosaldo et al 195) and at first glance outlined in Rhoda Reddock’s essay on feminist research in the reinforces the woman as subordinated through confinement Caribbean, “…was to provide women of the Caribbean with a representative organization dedicated to the principle that within the domestic arena. women must play a vital role in the development and life of Thora Mahabir’s is a relatively small painting depicts an the Caribbean community.” (Bose et al 217) intimate scene of two women and an infant. The women are solemnly engaged in the preparation of a traditional Indo- To conclude this first section that incontestably illustrates the Trinidadian meal while the child looks on in anticipation. The evidence of a subscription by local artist to universally held mood of the woman in the background is dutiful, while the assumptions about gender difference I cite Linda Nochlin as woman who sits in the foreground seems almost engaged she expounds on power relations between men and women. in prayer due to the approximated symmetry employed by It is important to keep in mind that one of the most the artist in the structure of her body. The artist’s naïve use important functions of ideology is to veil the overt power of colour and volume portrays the women as objects rather relations obtaining in society at a particular moment in than living beings, they are stark and sculptural, austere even. history by making them appear to be part of the natural, This mechanized view of the women, further exaggerated eternal order of things. It is also important to remember by the repetition of the balls of dough being prepared by that symbolic power is invisible and can be exercised the protagonist brings to mind Ortner’s argument of women only with the complicity of those who fail to recognize being seen as “mere” vessels of reproduction only ensuring It was deemed that the comparative examination of seven (7) paintings by various artists created from 1956 to 1971 was a logical and localized approach to this broad topic. The dynamic character of the time period being analyzed lends to the development of a rich argument as it relates to societal reality - popular reaction - visual representation. Artists and artworks were selected primarily because of their depictions of women participating in various activities, such as religious, economic and domestic. Popular as well as not widely known artists are all featured in the comparisons, with particular attention not so much on their artistic abilities, but the implicit ideological statements in their iconography.

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either that they submit to it or that they exercise it (2).

The above quotation poignantly summarizes what my argument has been in the analysis of these two painting. At an initial glance these painting may find great favour with the viewer in terms of their provision of aesthetic pleasure. Undoubtedly many women of this period would have readily identified with these “pretty” pictures. It is not my objective to contest these initial reactions but to go beyond face value to discover the implicit and metaphoric variables at play. Thora Mahabir, a female Indo-Trinidadian artist has submitted, through her creative process, to that invisible symbolic power mentioned above by Nochlin; while Stollmeyer ingenuously exercises it. The above paragraphs made reference to the portrayal of the woman in the domestic arena; we turn our attention now to artists who depict women in the less traditional arena of work not naturally related to domestic life. According to Sanday (189), “in the evolution of human culture, social survival depends on the disproportionate expenditure of energy by males and females in three major activities: reproduction, defense, and subsistence.” (189), she further develops this point by stating that “female energy is concentrated in the reproductive and child-rearing sphere, whereas male energy is concentrated mainly in the subsistence sphere” (194). The defence sphere is taken up by males from time to time due to “the presence of human predators” (195) and “warfare” (195), at these times women perform duties relating to the subsistence sphere until the return of the men. Sandy’s generalizing postulations do not for the most part apply to the Caribbean context as we shall observe.

As history would have it, the arrival of both men and women to these shores firstly from the African continent and then from India and other and parts of the globe was precisely and fundamentally for their induction (forced or coerced) into regimes of manual labour. Both men and women were involved in the daily activities of the early plantation system, and it is not evident that women were favoured over men in the distribution of tasks. The history of shared labour on the plantation was a significant factor in the development of attitudes toward work on the part of Caribbean women today. As Tracey Skelton argues, …the development of female autonomy was arguably supported by their shared work rules with men on the plantations. The end of slavery in the Caribbean further strengthened the role of women as traders of domestic produce in the emerging markets and promoted gendered divisions of free labour (142).

Leo Glasgow 1962 painting Vendors and Limers (Plate 3), depicts a woman engaged in the economic activity of street vending she is juxtaposed in the painting by two men who while partaking of her produce, look on at the activities going on in the imagined street or perhaps entertain themselves in light conversation with the woman. Here the artist’s use of colour and his general style affords for a pleasant

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looking picture, but once again a more in depth analysis of the activity lends to a better understanding of the woman’s situation. One may argue as Skelton has that the woman in the Caribbean is generally more economically independent than her counterparts in other societies, and while this may be true to some degree, this autonomy comes with a price and in many cases not a really a matter of choice for the woman, but a matter simply of survival. If the plantation system developed new work ethics and new perspectives on women’s involvement in “work”, which for the sake of this argument we shall roughly translate into the “subsistence sphere”, then it holds true that new attitudes developed in the minds of men as well towards this sphere. Women were seen as just as capable in the mind of the newly “emancipated” man of doing anything that he could, she had gone through the same harrowing journey of displacement, torture, sub-human living conditions and forced labour as he did; and survived.

This emphasized his inability to “protect” her, and in a way emasculated him to the point where he felt no real connection to any of the duties traditionally assigned to him. He could not settle down, and was essentially a displaced individual after the fact of emancipation. On the other hand, the woman who basically had no choice in the matter of the domestic sphere due to her natural association with child-bearing was now faced with the necessary and urgent task of entering into the subsistence sphere as well, to ensure the survival of her family unit. Though this is not true in all cases, it can be said that from a very early stage women have contributed significantly in terms of the economic well being of her family. Again Skelton points out that, Despite the ongoing gender prejudice which informally denies women full access to employment and political representation, their role in households, societies and communities as producer, reproducer and shapers of personal and community relations has gained greater recognition (142).

So what were the men doing? Going back to the previously cited statement by Ortner on the absence of “natural creative functions” in the man, it can be extrapolated that as a direct result of man’s absence in the domestic sphere, diminished activity in the subsistence sphere and the almost non-existent defensive sphere, men had abundantly more time than women to engage in cultural pursuits and the creation of “transcendent objects”. Man’s almost complete dominance of sport, the arts and politics in the Caribbean is attest to this.

It is no surprise, returning to the question of the painting, that the image of the market woman or street vendor while demonstrating some level of the economic autonomy enjoyed by women, harkens back to the lack of participation by men in the subsistence sphere. It also once again brings home the point of women as re-producers rather than innovators, for as the scene illustrates the only way that a woman can contribute to the subsistence sphere is through buyingselling/planting-selling; endeavours not necessitating any real creative prowess. Etna Sanz Perez expounds on the meaning of the street vendor as she appears in Cuban art and says, The text demonstrates a close affiliation with the tradition of reflecting the working class black woman, her relation

share similar beliefs and practices however the latter “place greater emphasis on baptism for which candidates undergo instruction before they are immersed in a river.” (Bisnauth180).

Women thus are continually being tied to the physical and natural realms of life. Their status translated into imagery by our artists is the perpetuation of an idealized and distorted reality.

Art and spiritism/magic/religion have been inextricably linked since the beginning human existence. In the Caribbean, it maybe argued that many of the religious practices themselves can be considered a type of performance art because of their aesthetic components; attention to detail, repetition of body movements and the significance attached to colour and light are just a few of the concepts that lend to this argument. As Aniela Jaffé points out,

In contrast the painting by Samuel Ishak entitled Crop Time, 1969 (Plate 4), is a scene depicting men and women at work in the cane field. It is a view into the daily lives of many Indo-Trinidadians of that time, and by stark contrast to Glasgow’s painting that shows men looking down towards the woman, it situates men and women on a the same level, literally. Gender relations differ as we begin to examine Indo-Trinidadians as compared to Afro-Trinidadians; differences that can be traced to history of each group’s arrival and integration into society. This comparison however is for another study. It is sufficient to say here that relations between Indo-Trinidadian men and women seem to adhere more closely to the traditional model spheres of activity. Interactions are more fluid and could be as a result of the concept of gender negotiations put forward by Patricia Mohammed where “under apparent patriarchal control, women may not opt to openly confront the accepted norms, but continuously bargain for changes within” (14).

Religion plays a very important part in the daily lives of Caribbean people. The history of the region afforded the convergence of a remarkable number of belief systems and practices, a fact unrivalled in any part of the world. In Trinidad and Tobago, apart from the presence of the major world religions of Hinduism, Catholicism and Islam we find a wide range of other faiths, such as Orisha, which is rooted in African tradition. Due to the nature of slavery and indentureship many of the religions brought to the New World underwent a series of transformations and reinterpretations in order to survive. Studies abound on the process of syncretism for example, that gave birth to hybrid manifestations such as Santería in Cuba or Shango in Trinidad and Tobago. Here reference can be made to Joseph M. Murray on the subject of survival of tradition as he talks about the situations that evolved in Cuba,

They formed guilds and dance halls, taverns and fraternities, where they would dance the old dances. More than ever they needed the orishas and their ways of power, and they found ingenious ways of keeping them alive. This story of survival involved an unlikely partnership between the orishas and the Roman Catholic Church (27).

Interesting to note here is that whereas many of the practices mentioned above are a mix of African tradition and Catholicism, the Revivalist movement in Jamaica brought together these traditional beliefs with Protestantism. Practitioners are thus possessed or trumped by the Holy Spirit as well as many biblical characters such as prophets and apostles. The Revivalists and the Spiritual Baptists of Trinidad and Tobago (subjects of one of the paintings to be analyzed further on)

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to agricultural labour and with the product derived directly from nature… carrying out a task that requires physical rather than intellectual ability (35).

The intertwined history of religion and art, reaching back to prehistoric times, is the record that our ancestors have left of the symbols that were meaningful and moving to them. Even today, as modern painting and sculpture show, the interplay of religion and art is still alive (Jung et al 232).

The final set of paintings to be analyzed deals with the theme of religion, and the artist’s depiction of women’s role in religious activity, where religion is seen as part of the public realm, a construct of culture with which men have been traditionally associated. Sybil Atteck’s portrayal of a traditional Indo-Trinidadian festival in her painting entitled Indian Festival Hosay (Plate 5) of 1959 is a lively depiction of this annual street parade put on by religious devotees in commemoration of the deaths of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandsons, Hassan and Hosein. The scene is dominated by the presence of men who demonstrate their prowess by the dancing of the tadjas and decorated crescent moons, the spinning of fire sticks and the playing of drums. Women whose usual role in the festivities is limited to moaning and wailing behind the procession, are depicted here as mere onlookers of the unfolding events, dwarfed by the architecture in the background and the general commotion of the scene.

Marcelio Hovell’s 1971 painting entitled Baptiste Prayer Meeting (Plate 6) depicts a group of religious followers singing at a night-time prayer session. In contrast to Atteck’s painting where women play a very limited role in the proceedings, here, Hovell presents us with a group made up predominantly of women, and led by a woman. The artist emphasizes the woman’s lead role by setting her apart from the others in the background (she is closer to the viewer), she also wears a distinct colour head covering from the other women (red) and her arms are spread apart unlike the rest of the group who have more solemn demeanours.

Hovell is clearly influenced by his life growing up in a rural village in Toco, where he must have witnessed scenes (Baptist prayer meetings) such as the one he painted on numerous occasions. It was a fact that within the Spiritual Baptist faith like many other practices born here in the region, women are given prominent roles and are in many cases indispensable in the carrying out of various rituals. We see here then a challenge to the argument about women in the public domain, so even though Atteck’s portrayal of an Indo-Trinidadian religious festival illustrates the minimal role that women play in that cultural scenario, there remain numerous examples of women’s participation this traditionally male dominated cultural expression, religion.

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Thora Mahabir, Preparing the Meal. Oil on Canvas, 1958 From the Collection of the National Museum and Art Gallery

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Hugh Stollmeyer, Washer Women. Oil on Canvas, 1960 From the Collection of the National Museum and Art Gallery

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A final point that should be noted is that all the women in Hovell’s painting are barefooted while the men in the composition are wearing shoes. The choice of the artist to depict the women in this manner may be overlooked as insignificant, we propose however that the artist may be unconsciously alluding to the fact that while women play major roles in religious practices they many actually still be considered as lower status participants (if we consider bare feet as being closer to nature) than their male counterparts; possessing “power but not authority”. (Rosaldo et al 194) It is difficult to make too much of a general statement after comparing these two works but it is apparent that because of the complexity of the cultural fabric of these two islands, there more to be engage with here than just the simple male versus female dynamic. It must be acknowledged that even though many of the paintings being examined here may in some way support the proposition of female subordination, there are many others that do not.

Carnival is one of the most recognizable forms of cultural expression to have been created and developed in the Caribbean. Its manifestation as it relates to Trinidad and Tobago is the sum of the influences of various celebratory and religious practices that can be traced to even before the advent of colonialism and slavery in the Americas. It is a meeting point of continuous genius and innovation and also the culmination of a struggle that was the story of resistance and determination. The Steelpan, Calypso music and costume design are just some of the elements that continue to make carnival what it is today.

My interest here of course is how women have been presented by these artists and if these representations point to answers concerning the status of women in the Independence era.

Carnival has been a popular theme for many local painters who have challenged themselves to capture two dimensionally, the vibrancy and commotion of carnival scenes and characters.

Carnival is an activity that cannot readily be inserted into one of the spheres of human activity put forward by Sanday (Rosaldo et al 195) and mentioned earlier in this paper. In fact it is an activity that in one aspect is almost wholly centred around festivity, celebration, leisure and enjoyment, this is the aspect that is mostly visible to the public and which is portrayed by the artist. However, there is an unseen aspect of carnival that is concerned with all of the creative elements or inputs that need to be in place for the output (street parade and competitions) to occur. This creative aspect as we can imagine is still to some extent today and certainly was at the time of Independence, dominated by men. Composing for or playing in a steelband was a male dominated field, Calypso and costume design, again was a male dominated arena. In fact it was not until 1978 that the first woman, Calypso Rose, won the then “Calypso King Competition” which had to be subsequently renamed to “Calypso Monarch”.

Mahmoud Pharouk Alladin was one of the most accomplished

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artists in Trinidad and Tobago. His work in the arts extended to art education as well and he had exhibited both locally and internationally. His 1959 painting, simply titled Carnival (Plate 7) is one in which he tries to capture a lively street scene, a regular sight during carnival time. The painting depicts a crowd of merrymakers of which four (4) are discernable; three (3) men and one (1) woman. The woman who is placed almost at the centre of the painting is definitely meant to be the focal point. Here again we see the colour red associated with the woman just as in the painting Baptist Prayer Meeting. In Hovell’s painting though, the colour red probably signifies a high level of spirituality whereas Alladin’s red in this context has a sexual or sensual overtone. Alladin’s “lady in red” is loud, sexy and the centre of attention. Alladin’s painting was a reflection of the reality of women’s participation in carnival at that time. He could not have depicted her “beating” pan because she was not generally involved in any of these other types of creative endeavours. Carnival then, as a newly developed cultural expression is being depicted as an activity where women did participate but not on a creative level which in turn is actually a reflection of reality.

In concluding it can be said that the idea of universal female subordination as proposed by feminist theory cannot be translated in its entirety into the Caribbean context. Whether we chose to examine notions of traditional spheres of activity, religion or relatively new cultural forms of expressions, gender relations in the region and more specifically Trinidad and Tobago, as we have discovered, are significantly complex due to this country’s socio-historic realities and their interchange.

Though Trinidad and Tobago has a comparatively short art history, it is undoubtedly one whose analysis is valid if we are to develop a complete and comprehensive picture of the status of women in the country. Like many researchers and theorist in the past we have used the study of visual culture to trace this development. With a focus on what we have called the Independence era, that roughly translates to the few years leading up to and after Trinidad and Tobago gained Independence in 1962, we investigated seven (7) paintings from the National Art Collection in order to determine if through their work artists could point to the state of gender relations existing at that time.

The first comparison made between two depictions of women carrying out activities in the domestic sphere certainly made apparent that assumptions concerning traditional roles of women did exist, but that other factors such as assumptions about race and racial difference could not be ignored. In considering the issue of the female street vendor it was noted that even though this activity had become a prevalent one in the region (so much so that it was a popular topic for artists) it did not always translate into the female liberation or autonomy but in fact may point to an anomaly in ‘traditional’ gender relations where men actually partially or entirely remove themselves from participation in the subsistence sphere. In evaluating the role of women in religion as depicted by local artists, an arena normally dominated by men, we find that women did play more active roles here Trinidad but that

Carnival was looked at as a separate and unique sphere of activity that was two pronged, it is made up of input or creative activities and output or participatory activities, we observed that women were depicted on the output side of it rather than the input that deals with music and art, and they were as sexual objects rather than part of the creative process of carnival.

The Independence era was a time of great societal change and although some did touch on this in their work, most, especially female artists, readily accepted and portrayed scenes laden with many underlying assumptions about women in Trinidad society. It must be noted however that these artists were products of their time and that most of their work was done unconscious of these assumptions that we now use to appraise them.

It was not the intention of this research to declare, stemming from C.L.R James’ argument on the nature of true art, that the artists of the independence era were not true artists (although some may claim that they failed to be the creative and relevant voices of their time). It was a matter of including in the debate a deeper understanding of where art has come from and what direction it must take now in order that the visual power held within a work of art is not consciously wielded to sustain assumptions that promote gender inequity or unconsciously ascribed to by artists who generations from now will be representative of the cultural consciousness of this age.

Murray, Joseph M. Santería – An African Religion in America. New York: Beacon Press 1988. Print Nochlin, Linda. Woman, Art, and Power and Other Essays. U.K., Oxford: West View Press, 1989, Print

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this again depended on specific religious manifestation being looked at; for while Afro-Trinidadian women seem to been able to participate more, Indo-Trinidadian women still had very minor roles within their group.

Sanz Peréz, Etna. “Ay, Negra, Si Tú Supieras: Aproximación al Estudio de la Imagen De La Mujer Negra en la Pintura Santiaguera.”, Del Caribe. Santiago de Cuba, Cuba: Haydée Santamaría, No. 41, 2003.

Print Skelton, Tracey. Introduction to the Pan-Caribbean. Great Britain: Edward Arnold, 2004. Print Williams, Patrick., Laura Chrisman. Colonial Discourse and PostColonial Theory – A Reader. New York: Colombia University Press, 1994. Print Zimbalist Rosaldo, Michelle. Woman, Culture and Society.

California: Stanford University Press 1974. Print Biography: Nimah Muwakil-Zakuri is an Art History graduate from the Universidad de Oriente, Cuba. Nimah held the post of Head Curator at the National Museum and Art Gallery of Trinidad and Tobago for 5 years and is now the Curator of the Central Bank Money Museum and Art Collection. Her research thus far has focused on the representation of women in the visual arts of Trinidad and Tobago.

References Barnet, Sylvan. A Short Guide to Writing about Art. New York: Longman, 2000. Print Bisnauth, Dale. A History of Religion in the Caribbean. Kingston, Jamaica: Kingston Publishers, 1989. Print Bose, Christine E. et al. Global Gender Research, Transnational Perspectives. New York: Routledge, 2009. Print De Juan, Adelaida. Del Silencio al Grito, Mujeres en Las Artes Plástica.

Havana, Cuba: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 2002. Print During, Simon. The Cultural Studies Reader 3rd ed. London and New York: Routledge, 2007. Print Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality. New York and Canada: Random House, 1978 Print Jung, Carl G. et al. Man and His Symbols. New York:Doubleday & Company Inc, 1964 Print Lewis, Gordon K. The Growth of the Modern West Indies. Jamaica, Kington: Ian Randle, 2004. Print Mohammed, Patricia. Gender Negotiations among Indians in Trinidad, 1917-1947.Hampshire and New York: Palgrave in association with The Institute of Social Studies, 2002. Print Mohammed, Patricia. “Morality and the Imagination – mythopoetics of gender and culture in the Caribbean: the trilogy”, South Asian Diaspora. London:Routledge, 2009. Print

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Plate 4

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Leo Glasgow, Vendors and Limers. Oil on Board, 1962 From the Collection of the National Museum and Art Gallery

Samuel Ishak, Crop Time. Oil on Board, 1969 From the Collection of the National Museum and Art Gallery

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Plate 6

Sybil Atteck, Indian Festival Hosay. Oil on Canvas, 1959 From the Collection of the National Museum and Art Gallery

Marcelio Hovell, Baptist Prayer Meeting. Oil on Canvas,1971 From the Collection of the National Museum and Art Gallery

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M. P. Alladin, Carnival, Oil on Hardboard, 1956 From the Collection of the National Museum and Art Gallery

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Religion plays a very important part in the daily lives of Caribbean people. The history of the region afforded the convergence of a remarkable number of belief systems and practices, a fact unrivalled in any part of the world.

Nimah Muwakil Zakuri

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Tamara LaDonna Williams

Living the Movement: An exploration of dance in Orisa, Orixá and Orisha cultures Keywords: African Diaspora, Orisa, Orisha, traditional dance Introduction This text is an investigation of Yoruba, Afro-Brazilian, AfroTrinidadian, and African American traditional spiritual dances. Each of these cultures has an underlying connection to the Yoruba tribe of West Africa. I explore the connecting forces, mainly the Orisas (spiritual deities) of these societies as it relates to dance. Specifically, I focus on the movements of the Orixás found in Brazilian Candomblé, the movements of the Orisas in traditional Ifa dances of Yoruba culture, movements of the Orishas in Trinidadian Shango/ Orisha tradition, and divine spirits represented in African American Ring Shout.

Orisas (Nigeria), Orixás (Brazil) and Orishas (Trinidad) are divine forces in the spiritual practice of Ifa, Candomblé and Shango/Orisha respectively. Orisas provide sacred tools for one’s existence while on earth. In Ifa and Shango/Orisha, Orisas are revered as entities helping to guide and protect devotees through their life journeys. In my book, Giving Life to Movement (Moving Spirits, 2016), I explain that each Orisa is associated with a specific element(s) of nature and has correlating character aspects based on the mythology of that Orisa. The mythology exists in the form of fables and riddles.

Religious ceremonies are dedicated to the Orisas; imagine a party being thrown and the guests of honor, the Orisas, arriving. The Orisas arrive to the ceremonies oftentimes mounting initiates through spiritual transcendence. The term mounting has derived from the phrase “mounting a horse,” since a horse bucks when a person mounts it for the first time. The receiver of the Orisa may have a similar, jerking reaction during the first few times the Orisa transcendence occurs. In Ifa, Candomblé, and Shango/ Orisha, music and dance are central elements as they are both used to call upon, honor, pray to, and worship the Orisas. Orisas may be worshiped by singing songs dedicated to them and performing movements or dances in reverence to them. Orisas may also be worshiped through offerings of prayer, food, flowers, and more. Dance honors Orisas through symbolism, movement meditation, and higher connection through the ase of the movement. Ase is the spiritual life force that flows through all things, it may also signify the power to make things happen and change. All Orisas are guardians to specific elements of nature. For example, the divine force called Yemanja is custodian to salt waters. The spirit of Sango is the guardian of fire; Oya controls wind and so forth.

The multiplicities of these spiritual systems that I have researched continued to intrigue me as I examined them deeper. I am fascinated by the correlations of the movements, practices and traditions found in Ifa, Shango/ Orisha practice, Candomblé and Ring Shout. The dances, songs, rhythms and symbology of Orisas across the Diaspora are complex and ever-evolving. Through this personal narrative of my experiences developing Ayedun

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Mosebolatan, I take you, the reader on a brief journey exploring Orisas through my experiences. I begin with short definitions of each spiritual practice, starting with Ifa. Ifa The Shango/Orisha traditions of Trinidad, as well as various aspects of the Ring Shout tradition can be traced back to the African spiritual practice of Ifa in Nigeria. Ifa involves Orisa (spiritual guides) and Orunmila (the witness to life’s creation) originating from the Oyo region in Nigeria.

In this tradition, practitioners dance, sing (in call and response form), gather as community, and perform rituals, in addition to several other ceremonies. In Ifa, practitioners believe they are sent to earth (aiye) on a specific mission, and it is the practitioner’s responsibility to fulfill their mission in order to reach their earthly destiny.

The practitioner may use several tools to assist them in reaching their good fortune. One tool is the Ori, which is the personal guide/spiritual connection to the most high. Other tools that are often utilized are the Orisas which may be used to overcome challenges and earn good fortune. In addition, ancestor spirits may be employed; these are the spirit entities that are from one’s personal blood lineage that have lived on aiye and can provide assistance and guidance. Orunmila is honored as the second in command to the most high and practitioners consult this spirit through divination for guidance. Ifa is not a spiritual practice that is solely dedicated to a specific time and place for devotion. Ifa is implemented into the everyday life of the community.

Divination is performed weekly (every fifth day, according to the Yoruba calendar) and daily regiments and tasks are determined as a result of divination. Sacred Odu verses are applied to life occurrences to determine one’s best actions to take. The energies of music, prayer and dance are given daily to Divine Spirits as offerings.

Brazil Candomblé is a spiritual practice that was created by the slaves of Brazil. The religion is blend of the Yoruba, Fon and Bantu belief systems of Africa, now fused with Native American and Roman Catholicism practices. Candomblé is an oral tradition like that of Ifa. Likewise in Candomblé, there are no beliefs in good or evil spirits, since all spirits are sent to fulfill a divine purpose. Each person is responsible for discovering their life path and attaining all that is necessary for personal evolvement on earth. The practitioners of Candomblé worship by singing, dancing and praying to the Orixás, ancestors and the most high Olodumare. There are three sects of Candomblé that exist in Brazil today Jejé, Ketu, and the Bantu.

Shango/Orisha The Shango traditional practice of Orisha was greatly preserved by the African slaves of Trinidad and their descendants. In this region of the West Indies, it is

Ring Shout Ring Shout is one of the oldest surviving spiritual praise and worship forms still practiced by descendants of African American slaves in the southeast of the United States. The term Ring Shout is derived from the counterclockwise movement performed by practitioners in their worship ceremonies.

Ring Shout or “Shouting” was a spiritual practice found in the Americas not only in the United States but also in Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and other areas of the Caribbean. In Trinidad, the “Shouting” community is currently known as the Spiritual Baptists. Ring Shout is an integral mixture of Christian songs from the southern black Baptist church, poly-rhythms, call and response, gestures, movement and trance that has been preserved

by West African slaves and their offspring.

This project has been inspired by my recent travels to Brazil, Trinidad, and Nigeria, as well as my African American heritage. With this in mind, I create work that investigates the connections between the dances of the Orisas in each of these cultures. In the process of this work, I also consider the social constructs that have created the present structures and conditions of these traditional dances including; coloniization, slavery, and modern society. This is especially important to highlight on Hollins University’s campus, since much of the earlier domestic labor in the functioning of this campus was facilitated by the hard work of slaves.

Besides having an awareness of the social constructs in place relating to Black heritage, other essential elements for this project that are required include live drumming, spoken word, singing and offering reverence to nature.

Across all African derived spiritual practices these contributions are foundational. Upholding these elements in my choreographed work is necessary as it presents an opportunity for traditional and ritualistic dance experiences to be shared in an academic space in the form of performance. In return, this research will become the vessel in which my subsequent work in the African Diaspora can be developed. I envision this work being performed in non-traditional venues throughout New York City after the premiere at Hollins University.

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Shango that is honored and revered as the Orisha that carried the spiritual practice through the slave trade the state of Oyo in Nigeria (even today). Shango is a warrior and owner of thunder. Shango provides his followers with protection and courage on their paths. This spiritual practice was once named Shango, since Shango had much influence on the religion in the new land.

Nowadays, most practitioners prefer the term Orisha practitioners over Shango. Orisha in Trinidad is most often practiced as a blend of ancient African religions, Christianity brought to Trinidad by the Spaniards in the 16th century, and Hinduism from the East Indian migrants that arrived to Trinidad in the late 18th century. Orisha worship in Trinidad may include two or more of these religious forms. This integration has occurred throughout the years as a means of cultural survival so the spiritual faith could continue to be practiced. Practicing the Orisha faith was illegal in Trinidad (as in most countries in the Americas) during slavery and well into the 20th century. The slaves of Trinidad were forced to practice Christianity, and they used the new religion as an outward cover so that slave masters would not recognize the continuation of the practice of the Orisha tradition. Through the years, this cover began to merge with the practice of Orisha and once other cultural groups arrived, their influences also became apparent in the Orisha tradition, again as a means of survival. During the earlier period of slavery, slave masters oftentimes held gatherings for slaves to dance and perform for them, solely for entertainment purposes.

However, after the 17 century, it was illegal for slaves to dance, play drums or speak their native language.

I have always been captivated by the movements of the African Diaspora in my studies of dance. I find the rhythms of the drums and the syncopation of movement in the body to be nourishing for my soul. I am fulfilled by these styles of movement and they usually come quite naturally to me. I have defined this type of experience as tapping into the blood memory of my moving body. In performing these forms of movement, my body tells a story. I learn most from the inherited knowledge of the body. From the time that I took my first West African dance class at the age of ten, to the first time I heard the Cuban rhythms of rumba in the studio, or dancing to hip-hop in my bedroom, my interest in African and Afro-folkloric dance has continually grown. I have a curiosity that is persistent and I believe it responds to the deliberate and successful attempts to eliminate African heritage and knowledge of African heritage from the African American people in this country. I have a yearning to unearth the artistry and spiritual connections that were demolished due to the removal of cultural movements brought to the Americas by slaves including dances of worship, social dances, language and the sound of the drum. I continue to see this type of erasure occurring presently with the African drum circles and dancers being banned from performing on the stoops of Bedstuy in Brooklyn or in Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem.

In recent years I have made an effort to study these cultures closely through travel and self-immersion to have a deeper knowledge of not only the dance styles but the socioeconomic conditions associated. Worldwide, nearly all things associated with the Orisas are presently feared due to the propaganda, misrepresentation and purposeful cultural and spiritual eradication due to colonization. Those at the forefront of this movement to get rid of African spirituality left a lasting imprint of terror and detestation in not only the new settlers of the Americas, but also in the direct descendants of the Africans who were practicing other traditional Orisa religions. These mindsets of fright and hatred towards Black people and their spiritual practices still remain true today.

My previous dance making has always been a montage of all of my dance experiences and training, whether in ballet, hip-hop or salsa. In the past, I have

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created dances that were influenced by the African Diaspora and contemporary West African dances. The choreographed movement would be considered that of the contemporary genre, with syncopation and accents of rhythms within the body. The movement, though contemporary in style, may include isolations of the hips, winding motions of the body or traditional West African dance steps between the leaps and pirouettes (classical ballet turns performed on the ball of the foot). Nonetheless, in those works I was not able to concentrate solely on the dance cultures I was researching.

My travels have taught me that dance is not only movement; it is the knowledge of the body. This knowledge is shaped by living experiences, societal conditioning, and blood memory (subconscious connection to ancestry). I know this work is a part of my being and life, mostly due to the fact that I am strongly tied to the Orisa community as a practioner; it is my mission to bring appropriate awareness to the sacred, traditional dances of the Orisas. In doing so, I find myself making connections in my work as time goes by. Since this exploration is extraordinary in its concept and environment, I believe the nature of the work will develop beyond the norms of art performance. The manifestation of this new piece occurs through the expression of movement from the African Diaspora in the Yoruba lineage. In addition, I am asking myself the following questions throughout the creation process: (1) What are the fundamentals of AfroBrazilian, Afro-Trinidadian, and African American societies that have been preserved in culture as descendants of the Yoruba lineage? (2) How has the oppression and struggle for freedom and rights in spirituality and creativity played a role in Candomblé, Shango/Orisha, and Ring Shout traditions? (3) What are the current mental and physical conditions of people in these regions? These are important questions for me to consider as I embark on this journey of spiritual and dance investigation.

Although my work is not directly addressing societal matters, it is important for me to be aware of the systematic structures that affect African based spiritual practices. I imagine that my theoretical research is visible in the story and message that the dance shares. It is evident in the movement, gestures, spoken words, and song. The relationships between the theoretical research, practice and performance are interchanges that have been living within me. As stated previously, I am a practioner of Ifa and Candomblé of the Yoruba lineage and it has been a part of my life journey to research the theology and dances related to them. Bringing my investigation of spirituality into performance is a revolutionary step towards rectifying the spread of false-truths and what I consider damaging mental conditioning.

The Journey In this documentation I am sharing my personal memoir of my expeditions which are described in order of occurrence in relation to region and location. This exploration is a journey through times and spaces. The result is a collection of images, expressions, recognitions, and teachings. I started this process by utilizing my records and documentation of my travels to further analyze this work. This documentation includes video footage and journaling done while visiting each area. I conducted several interviews with practitioners and artists that are closely tied to these spiritual beliefs and dances. These specific research materials are essential to my process since

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I have a personal connection to the discovery of this content through lived experience and investigation.

I began my research years ago with my travels to Brazil, Trinidad, and Nigeria, studying movements of the Orisa (Orishas, Orixás) and spiritual cultures. During the fall of 2014, I focused on developing movement phrases based on my journaling and video documentation from my travels to these regions. I worked with the students at Penn State University in work-shopping this movement and creating dance vocabulary that best embodied the significance of this new work. Afterwards, the creative process continued with my dance company, Tamara LaDonna Moving Spirits, Inc. in New York City. We analyzed the movement created with the students and progressed it to a greater relationship with nature through exploration with the professional dancers. We furthered our theoretical development by examining my personal relationship to the Orisas and my research, while adding context to the dance via song and spoken word.

Why create this work?

Dance and Spirituality Dance and spirituality has been a great influence in my life journey. Since I was a child, my most valued moments have been centered around dance and spirituality. In recent years, I have found movement and dance to be my liberation in spiritual practice. For instance, in practicing Candomblé, I use dance as a form of meditation and prayer to connect to my higher self. In this state I am most liberated and enlightened. This liberation comes from my discovery of a hidden history and practices banned from the descendants of slaves. Through my investigations I have realized a stronger sense of self and a connection to my ancestry that was intended for eradication.

Approaching dance from a spiritual standpoint has taught me the importance of dance in everyday life. I have learned that the body’s motions can never be replicated; a specific movement will always be performed differently each time in space. I was not aware of this notion until dance became a part of my spiritual practice. I now know dance as a form of worship, dance as an offering to the universe, dance as healing, and dance to connect with divine spirits. Dancing unites.

Honoring I am sharing this choreography in a nontraditional western dance setting- outdoors. This is my interpretation of Orisas as I have experienced them in nature. It is important to present work pertaining to African and all traditional spiritual practices as a method of educating scholars, teachers and students respectively, about the past and present existence of dance in spiritual practices and the significant impact that dance movement has in communities. This is my way of honoring the Orisas and my ancestors by writing and presenting work dedicated to their essence and energy. My personal relationship with the Orisas has tremendously inspired my experiences have given me the impulse to research and share my findings in my own communities. My work is not an imitation of movements of the Orisas or Ring Shout; instead, it is a carefully researched interpretation of history, mythology, movement/dance prayers, and my personal practice. Each dance movement, gesture and song has been developed as a creative expression of my analysis.

Acknowledging that Hollins University is privileged space, we are performing outdoors and not on stage in order to pay homage to the forces of nature and the spirits of the ancestors that worked as slaves on the campus. I am presenting my work on the grass and clay of Hollins campus for various reasons to: • Share work about Orisas and the intercontinental spread of Orisas • Bring recognition to the vitality and perseverance of these spiritual practices • Spread awareness of and educate about the Orisa traditions and Ring Shout • Attempt to debunk negative stereotypes about Ring Shout and Orisa practices • Create a forum for open dialogue about western society’s overall treatment/attitude towards traditional spiritual practices, specifically those that utilize movement o Honor the work of the spirits who were forced into laboring on the soils of the United States of America • Allow accessibility to people that generally may not attend shows in a concert dance theater due to the historical context of the proscenium stage.

Dancing in the Parks Performance Moving Spirits received a grant from the Brooklyn Arts Council to present an afternoon of dance in a public housing park in Brooklyn. On May 30 2015, Moving Spirits along with Alpha Omega Theatrical Dance Company, Sydnie L. Mosley Dances, Ruka White, and Rakiya Orange performed for the community of Bushwick.

Local organizations performing included students of the Arts & Literacy Program, students from the Beacon Center for Arts & Leadership, and The Black and Gold Marching Elite. Community dialogues were facilitated in between performances by Jose Morales of El Puente Bushwick Center and Piper Anderson.

Moving Spirits performed an abbreviated version of Ayedun Mosebolatan in the park. Sharing this work with this community was vital, since many lower income residents in the United States do not have an opportunity to view concert dance.

With Dancing in the Parks: Bushwick Community Festival we were able to bring the dance to the doorsteps of the public housing community. The ladies of Moving Spirits danced in their white skirts and tops, and tennis shoes on the Blacktop of the playground. This is the energy of Brooklyn. In order to reach the people you have to go to them and summons them, just as this dance is a ritual to summons the Orisa spirits. The children in the parks stood up and danced in front of the company, mimicking arms swinging and reaching, bodies turning and knees bending.

After Moving Spirits’ performance, community members approached me in tears expressing how touched they were by the work. One woman mentioned the connection that she felt to the dance, but did not know how to express it in words. I recognize this as the power of the body. There were no words needed in that moment.

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As I think about the history of Black people in the United States and worldwide, the current situation of Black people and the increased amount of State Violence against them, my work has a vital mission. It is not enough to only share work on a stage that people see and maybe think about at a later time. I want my work to force people to think critically about the content and form. I urge audiences to engage with their bodies and mind: feeling uncomfortable, feeling sadness, feeling anger, feeling safe, feeling relieved. I am creating work to empower Black lives and I find it less and less necessary to do that in a concert stage setting. On that stage, dance does not reach the people that I wish to engage and share with. For me, the stage separates the elite from the lower class. To see work on the stage becomes a privilege. I intend for my work to go beyond that privilege and reach those that are carrying the soul, heart and essence of my work; I seldom find them sitting at my performances in a traditional theater.

Ritual In June 2015, I became much more intrigued with the concept of ritual in the rehearsal process. In watching the dancers in rehearsals and knowing that deeper investigation in the spiritual aspect of the work was needed, I decided to implement ritual into rehearsals.

Ralph Lemon outlines his rehearsal process in the creation of a new work that was a dance ritual interpretation of “hole-in-the-wall” community gatherings in the South.

The southern folks danced and drank liquor during these gatherings. Lemon decided that the alcohol was such a significant part of the experience that it became part of the rehearsal and performance process. Alcohol is also vital in Orisa-based spiritual practices. In the Yoruba spiritual pantheon alcohol is a powerful spirit entity called Oti (gin and rum). It is used in ritual to remove a person’s ego, cleanse, and call upon divine spirits. When taking this into consideration, I realized that the use of alcohol needs to be an essential part of Moving Spirits’ rehearsal process. In the past, the dancers have had a hard time with the body becoming a portal for the energies to pass through and move in the body. The dancers were thinking too much, not realizing the power that they possess or the power of the spirits in which they danced.

The dancers arrived to Roanoke, Virginia on June 2nd, 2015 to continue the rehearsal process with me after their month-long period of unaccompanied practice. It was here that I implemented the use of alcohol as a form of ritual. We began our first rehearsal late night at 10pm.

Exhausted from the twelve hour journey from New York City the previous day, I asked the dancers to enter our rehearsal space with an open mind. “There are no judgments here”, I explained. I want us to release “ourselves” from the work and allow the Orisas to arrive and share the dance. I remembered during one of our class sessions with Ms. Edwards she asked, “How do we dance spirit?” I believe we let spirit dance through us. On this night with the dancers, I gave them each a small, clear plastic cup. We were lucky to have a drummer, Lamar Lewis, in the space to experience with us. He also took a cup. Each dancer, Lamar and I each touched the top of the bottle of gin. We looked each other in the eye and I poured just enough gin in each cup for them to feel the effects. “My chest is warm”, Michelle says. “I want another shot”, I turn around and see Freyani sitting with her arm extended, cup in hand waiting for more. I poured a second round for all of the dancers and say: VOL 3 | ISSUE 6 | FALL 2021

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“This gin is a spirit. That is why we say “Wine and Spirits” when referring to alcohol. As you dance tonight, remember that these drinks are to help remove your ego. This dance requires that you remove all thoughts and reservations about your dancing and allow the energies of nature to enter your body temple to express.”

One by one, the dancers slowly got off of the ground, handed me their cups and stood in the space. With the djembe (African drum) wedged between his legs, Lamar started to play for the dancers. It was a transforming and empowering experience.

The dancers and Lamar relinquished themselves in ways I had never seen. For the first time with Moving Spirits I observed the essence of Orisas in movement, space and body.

I realize that many people may not understand this dance, the concepts of the Orisas, why I have chosen the white fabric for the dancers to perform, the vocalizations or many other aspects. Whether onlookers get it or not, watching this dance will allow people to view movements of the Orisas, and inevitably receive this work in the presence of the Orisas.

On June 5th, 2015 , this work was performed as the final presentation for my MFA thesis and it rained. The dancers performed for 20 minutes in the non-stop rain. Nature chose to dance with us on that day. I am delighted to share the thoughts of a dancer regarding her experience on that day.

“I’m not quite knowledgeable of the Orishas but whenever I do the movement I feel like I am driven from an outside force. For this performance in particular I felt an intense energy which could have been because of the spot where we actually performed the piece. Dancing in the rain made it harder, which made me fight for the movement even more. It’s like that phrase “staying in the frying pan”. I had no choice but to stay in it because the piece wasn’t just about me having a difficult time; it was about more than me in my physical being. I appreciate this process because it made me humble and sometimes living in the 21st century you forget about the beauty in nature, and the connection that we have to Mother Earth. Sometimes you have to go further away to become closer to yourself.”

-Imani Nzingha

References Daniel, Yvonne. Dancing Wisdom: Embodied Knowledge in Haitian Vodou, Cuban Yoruba, and Bahian Candomblé.

Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005.

Wiliams, Tamara L. Giving Life to Movement: Understanding Self-Actualization in Silvestre Dance Technique. New York City: Moving Spirits, Inc., 2015.

Dunham, Katherine. Island Possessed. Garden City: Doubleday, 1969.

Williams, Tamara. “Video footage of Salvador, BA; Trinidad and Oshogbo, Nigeria”.

Harding, Rachel E. A Refuge in Thunder; Candomblé and Alternative Spaces of Blackness. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000.

Williams, Tamara. “Personal Journal Notes Including Quotes from Rosangela during Intensives and Workshops. 20112014 in Salvador, BA. October 23-26, 2013 in Port of Spain Trinidad. November 23-25, 2014 in Morro de Sao Paulo, BA.”,

Houk, James T. Spirit, Blood and Drums: The Orisha Religion in Trinidad. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995.

Lima, Samuel. RioOnWatch.org. May 11, 2011. www. rioonwatch.org/?p=1151 (accessed July 7, 2015).

Neimark, Phillip J. The Way of Orisa: Empowering Your Life through the Ancient African Religion of Ifa. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993.

Prandi, Reginaldo. Mitologia Dos Orixás. Illustrations by Pedro Rafael. Sao Paulo, BA: Companhia Das Lettas, 2001.

Ralph Ellis, Ed Payne, Evan Perez and Dana Ford,. CNN: Shooting suspect in custody after Charleston church massacre. June 18, 2015. http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/18/us/charleston-southcarolina-shooting/ (accessed June 29, 2015).

Rosenbaum, Art. Shout Because You’re Free: The African American Ring Shout Tradition in Coastal Georgia . Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1998.

Thompson, Katrina Dyonne. Ring Shout, Wheel About: The Racial Politics of Music and Dance in North American Slavery.

Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2014.

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Biography: Tamara Williams ((Fákẹmi Sàngóbámkẹ) is a native of Augusta, GA and currently an assistant professor of dance at UNC Charlotte. Her choreography has been presented nationally and internationally in Serbia, Switzerland, Trinidad & Tobago, Jamaica, Mexico, and Brazil. In 2011, Williams created Moving Spirits, Inc., a contemporary arts organization dedicated to performing, researching, documenting, cultivating, and producing arts of the African Diaspora.

Williams’ scholarly work includes: Giving Life to Movement: The Silvestre Dance Technique, "Reviving Culture Through Ring Shout" published in The Dancer-Citizen, and The African Diaspora and Civic Responsibility: Addressing Social Justice through the Arts, Education and Community Engagement (forthcoming).

A version of this article is forthcoming in a monograph entitled, Fire Under My Feet: Historical Perspectives on Dance in the African Diaspora, edited by Dr. Abiola Ofosuwa.

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Children Dancing (Photo by Oron Bell)

Figure 33

Moving Spirits at Dancing in The Parks (Photo by Oron Bell)

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Elvis Fuentes, Meyken Barreto

FLOW: Economies of the Look and Creativity in Contemporary Art from the Caribbean IADB June 2014 Changes in the global economy have impacted the Caribbean in the last decades. There was a shift from traditional plantation systems and exporting commodities, such as sugar, tobacco and indigo to oil and tourism industries. No less important are the economies of creativity, entertainment and connectivity, the so-called ‘orange economy,’ which finds fertile ground in the region. Sports, with baseball players as new commodities; music, from salsa to calypso to reggaeton; economies of the look, from skin toning to Dominican hairstyles to Venezuela’s beauty pageant culture - this aesthetic arsenal, more visible in the cultural landscape of cities, finds reflection in the works of contemporary artists. Attentive, critical and open to understanding the human challenges that such changes represent for the region, they also contribute to the international aesthetic dialogue which places the arts as a central tool, a sensitive engine, for the economic growth and social development of the Caribbean.

FLOW: Economies of the Look and Creativity in Contemporary Art from the Caribbean showcases works by twenty-seven artists from fifteen countries. Drawing from the IDB Art Collection, as well as private collectors, art galleries, and from the artists themselves, Flow explores the way in which creative popular expressions, often dismissed as minor arts, are employed by artists to critically comment on today’s image-driven cultures.

In the urban dictionary, “flow” refers to the rapper’s ability to rhyme in a skillful manner; it’s an aesthetic quality that denotes mastery of improvisation and creativity, which often turns into power and prestige. However, “flow” also stands for an attitude of tacit approval of what’s mainstream and widely accepted; which is why “going with the flow” is a popular motto for adapting to prevailing attitudes, offering little resistance to them. It often means yielding to peer pressure in detriment of one’s own interest; here the collective trumps the individual. Thus, in the semantic field of contemporary urban culture, “flow” comprises almost counterpointing meanings; it is as fluid a concept as the term itself.

In the context of this exhibition, the term “flow” underscores one of the most important trends in contemporary visual culture in the Caribbean – the appropriation of elements of popular culture in relation to the economies of the look, which foster concepts of embellishment and image-making throughout the region and its diaspora. This includes make-up, hairstyle, nail art, aesthetic surgery, tattooing, piercing, and other body modifications, as well as fashion and the jobs of costume design, and performing arts developed in the context of the carnival; all these become an aesthetic catalogue from which artists depart in dealing with hot-button economic, and sociopolitical issues. Borrowing motifs, mimicking methods and caricaturing attitudes in relation to ideals of beauty, these artists unveil the often-invisible straits that connect beauty and power, and revise gender and racial stereotypes.

The exhibition is divided in three sections. Surfaces includes works dealing with the notion of appearance as cultural

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signifier, which plays an important role in the construction of aesthetic subjectivities in a dynamic dialogue with established canonsof beauty. Interested in the expectations of femininity, Jessica Lagunas realizes an endurance performance of sorts when she exaggeratedly applies nail polish, lipstick, and eyelash tint on herself until the containers are emptied.

Lagunas effectively mocks the oversaturation of makeup which women are expected to display before going out on a date or even to work. In her mixed media drawings, Nicole Awai combines the technical and the capricious. A legend of commercial names of nail polishes which she employs to paint, suggests an appearance of sophistication of the banal.

Details of mechanical parts and gingerbread architecture point to the typical and modular, meanwhile the double portrait stresses her interest in the complexities of human psyche.

Marlon Griffith often designs carnival costumes and parade performances of great impact in the context of art events. In this series of photographs, however, manifestations of popular aesthetics turn intimate as they permeate such a traditionally private practice as the powdering the neck.

This whimsical gesture highlights the centrality of creativity in ordinary people’s lives. Likewise, Firelei Baéz lets her character’s imagination fly when she depicts a woman’s elaborate hairstyle being done by birds. Fantasy imbues this scene, which suggests a special moment of playfulness and solace. On the opposite extreme of the spectrum is Kelly Sinnapah Mary. Her photograph of a woman in a provocative pose featuring overblown lips is blunt and direct as it deals with sexist cultural fixations that often translate into violence against the female body. Generically titled Vagina, her current series highlights the inherent tensions within domestic spaces, where comfort often masks forms of domestication and submission.

From a less individualist, but rather socio-economic perspective, Jairo Alfonso presents a horror vacui drawing, informed by the excess of consumerism. He depicts an accumulation of objects, devices and accessories, which flood the pictorial space. They have in common their linkage to the industries of beauty and aesthetics, underscoring the beauty canon as a main concern of contemporaneity. On the other hand, Ebony Patterson exercises a cultural critique of a social space that she has been studying for years, Jamaica’s dancehall. Her installation explores the relationship between dance, music, fashion and dancehall culture imagery through an ultra-baroque language that denote excess and the blurring of boundaries between genders and identities. Interested in the troublesome imagery of the ethnographic tradition, Omar Richardson focuses on recovering the memory of symbols that links the Caribbean’s canon with African ritualistic practices. He depicts characters strengthening this trans-Atlantic continuity.

Politics is at the heart of Ana Olema’s indagation on the socialist body in her natal Cuba. She mimics the practices of body modifications by proposing to create a tattoo with

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an official emblem from Cuba’s hegemonic discourse in the context of the school system. This tattoo was to replace the original emblem, which students receive for free. Aware of the association of tattoo with prison and marginal cultures in Cuba, she adopted the problematic idea as an official proposition to the Ministry of Education. In Venezuela, mecca of beauty pageant culture in the Caribbean, Regina José Galindo realized a performance reflecting on the invasive procedures to which models submit their bodies in order to undergo modifications in pursuit of an ideal of beauty.

Cut through the line is a poignant critique of these practices. It consisted of a surgeon drawing on her body the multiple modifications she would need to undergo to perfect her own body.

Acces(sories) explore the indexicality of objects from the material culture of urban centers, and how they come to impact one’s image. From the fashionistas’ obsession with brands to the excessive nature of the bling-bling to the omnipresence of weaponry on the streets, these objects serve as codes of access to underlying realities.

Fashion informs the artistic practice of Gerard Hanson and Sheena Rose. In Gun Salute, Hanson intervenes with acrylic paint on a photograph of a young black man.

The man stands in a dignified pose against a wall, looking somewhere outside the picture. With a thick, orange stroke, Hanson creates a halo of sorts around his Afro hairstyle.

Combating negative stereotypes of blacks in the media, he highlights the bright, colorful spots in an often black and white image. Lighthearted and playful, the video animation

by Sheena Rose also combines the mechanically reproduced (video footage) and the hand-made (drawing and painting). It shows her walking around the city. She performs her quotidian actions like a self-aware consumer of banality, a celebrity in the making. Similar in tone, Winston Strick’s American Woman relates to consumerism in the context of tourist economy and the souvenir, this time around presenting the stereotype of the female consumer of goods. In both cases, humor is a key tool to tackle the issue without overexploiting it.

From the culture of celebrity associated with hypermasculinity Miguel Luciano and Freddy Rodriguez appropriate and resignify motifs. Luciano covers a plantain with platinum to create a sui generis sculpture of the so-called bling, the jewelry piece that rapper icons usually employ as markers of identity. The shiny, hard surface of the platinum hides a soft, rotten core. This expression of power finds an interesting correlation in Rodríguez’s golden portrait of Alex Rodríguez’s signature swing. Popular musicians and baseball players are today’s most precious exports from the Caribbean, where scouting practices resemble exploitative farm systems of the past.

Comfort is central to Jessica Kairé’s operation to manage brute force, which she identifies not only with outlaws, but also with repressive actions of the state apparatus. In this multi-part series, Kairé remakes grenades, guns and bullets as well as manoplas and batons in soft materials as a way to counter the culture of violence in urban centers. Responding to similar concerns, Límber Vilorio has developed a whole line of enhanced protective items, such as cars, tires, and motorcycle helmets entirely covered with bullet shells.

Countering this omnipresent culture of ferocity and hypermasculinity associated with urban culture, Elvis López creates a narrative of passion and perdition in Aurora’s Ecstasy.

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She-Devil is a fictitious character, a seductress who traps men through her good looks and witchcraft and devours them. In López’s installation, conceived as a crime scene of sorts from which She-Devil has rushed out, viewers find evidence of her vulnerability - her glass shoe comfortably resting on a cushion reminds viewers of the Cinderella story, questioning their assumption that she is evil.

Amusing as they often are, popular celebrations sometimes end in distress. Euphoric energy turns into chaos.

These are topics grouped in Vanity Fair, a reflection on the paradisiac image of the Caribbean that is propagated by tourism. Abundance of nature and visual richness coexist with awareness of mortality.

Remy Jungerman’s inspiration comes from the Maroon culture in Suriname and from Western trends of avant-garde art. His work features abstract patterns (referring to both modernist and traditional Surinamese fabrics) juxtaposed to the photographic image of a maroon. On top of this, and centered in the pictorial space, is the silhouette of a carnival mask, the Red Devil. The palimpsest neutralizes each image, which appear convincingly silent on the picture plane. On the other hand, Edouard Duval Carrié deals with the stereotype of the primitive subject as a modernist sign associated with the region. He created an image in blue hues of a fictitious character, whose richness in decorative details and Neobaroque language may very well lead people to take him as the real thing.

Expressions of popular art also deal with outdoor festivities and rituals, such as Mireille Delice’s drapeau works, and Althea Bastien’s batik designs. Delice’s drapeau depicts a scene of La Reine brisée using the traditional iconography of Vodun flags. Pioneering in batik for decades in Trinidad, Bastien showcases five masks of Caribbean carnival in imaginative shapes.

The take on the concept of Vanitas, a long-standing genre in the history of Western art, is quite peculiar in some artists in the show. Inspired by the idea of dead animals as trophy heads for hunters, Alessandra Expósito uses chicken skulls and decorates them in meticulous ways, adding horns, inlaid incrustations and fictional names to create a fetish object of sort. Meanwhile Joscelyn Gardner depicts botanical specimens that were secretly used as natural abortifacients on 18th century Caribbean plantations. They appear entangled with contemporary braided hairstyles tied to iron collars and other torture tools that were used against female slaves accused of abortion. This feeling of cultural and historical discomfort is also shared by Marta Pérez García’s colorful and baroque engravings.

She uses a reduction woodcut procedure in which the matrix is lost as the work is completed. The horror vacui compositions contrast with the poignancy of the loss, and the vivid colors counter the grotesque faces of characters immersed in an environment of hostile signs.

Abundance and exoticism find expression in Keith Morrison’s watercolors, Market III and Market IV. He revisits the genre of the still life by dealing with stereotypical images of the nature and culture of the Caribbean. Colorful bowls are filled with tropical fruits and plants, animals, musical instruments, and clay figures reminiscent of aboriginal idols and African slaves. Despite this exuberance, Morrison strikes a somber tone due to the stillness of the picture. Far from static, the playful video by Donna Colon and Jonathan Harker

Curatorial essay from the exhibition FLOW, InterAmerican Development Bank (IADB), 2014. Published with permission from the IADB. FLOW was organized concurrently with Caribbean: Crossroads of the World at Perez Art Museum Miami.

FLOW expands the lens on Caribbean art to Caribbean contemporary art since the show at PAMM took a historical perspective.

Biography: Elvis Fuentes is a Ph.D. Candidate in Art History at Rutgers University. His research interests focus on the afterlife of Soviet visual culture in Latin America–in particular Cuba and Nicaragua–and the impact of the Cold War in contemporary artistic practices and aesthetics. For over fifteen years, he has served as a curator at art institutions in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the United States. Awarded Grand Prix at the 26th Ljubljana Biennial (2005), Fuentes has curated exhibitions across Europe, Asia and the Americas. He has recently been appointed Chief Curator for the San Juan Poly/Graphic Triennial.

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reanimates the genre by means of performing a Tropical Zinc-phony of mangoes rolling on rooftops of zinc panels in Panama. The path of the fallen fruit, at times followed by other mangoes in a contagious movement, may be seen as a metaphor of art itself for it is often one that sets into motion an entire symphony in the face of adversity.

Biography: Meyken Barreto is a curator and currently an adjunct lecturer at City College of New York, she is also an art writer. Recently she has curated the exhibitions Comedy of Errors at Vox Populi, Philadelphia, 2021; Shifting Streams.

Twelve artists by the Hudson River at Hostos Center for the Arts and Culture, New York, 2020; and co-curated the group exhibitions My Body, My Battlefield at GIV, Montreal, 2021; All That You Have Is Your Soul at Faction Art Projects, New York in 2018. Barreto is currently part of team of curators for the project VEZA 2 organized by SOUTH SOUTH Platform.

A-Rod six of thirteen (A-Rod seis de trece), 2007. Acrylic on canvas, 40 x 40 inches. Courtesy of the artist. ©Freddy Rodríguez.

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Suelin Low Chew Tung

Grenada Traditional Mas: Fragmented Transmissions, An artist’s study Keywords: ShortKnee, carnival, carnevale, jab jab, moko jumbie, grenada, traditional mas

ABSTRACT Grenada’s annual carnival celebration is distilled from fragmented transmissions of African and European culture, history, tradition and religion. Reassembled in an island environment, our Traditional Mas portrayals of the ShortKnee, Jab Jab, Vecco and Moko Jumbie and others are in essence avatars of resistance, rebellion and survival.

My current practice eavesdrops on that African-European conversation. Using historical documents to support an ongoing project of original and reinterpreted artworks tracing the transmission of elder knowledge from Old World to Grenada, my Traditional Mas oeuvre searches out present-day ancestral ‘impersonators’, in the guise of existing players in the annual carnival – the ShortKnee, Vecco, Jab Jab, and Moko Jumbie - and seeks to resurrect dormant characters like the Pizané, Matador and the sculptural grotesques of the Long-Mouth animal masque, legacies from our colonial plantation era.

BACKGROUND TO CARNIVAL Pre-Lenten Carnavale (farewell to meat) exists wherever there are Catholic populations. French Roman Catholic priests - Franciscan Capuchin, Dominican and Jesuit – were documented on La Grenade, Grenada’s name under French rule, since it was first settled for France in 1649. No records exist of the first carnavales here, but it is reasonable that under French rule, variations on this pre-Lenten tradition of revelry preceeding the prescribed period of penitence leading up to Easter were observed (Martin 2012).

Once the island changed hands, there seems to be little documentation of carnevalesque revelry, though a 1770 legislation targeted to the enslaved, punishes disorderly behaviour (Smith 1808). Sugarcane played a minor agricultural role in French Grenada, until British planters introducing a sugarcane monoculture (Niddrie 1966).

This new labour-intensive monoculture system employed thousands of African slave labourers, who were exported from major ports including Senegambia, the Bights of Benin and Biafra, and West Central Africa. Interestingly, as rum exports from Grenada were on the rise, in 1789 legislation was passed, ‘for prevention of sale of rum and other spirituous liquors to slaves’ (Smith 1808). Again evidence is as yet uncovered to link this to carnevalesque revelry. The end of forced labour on August 1, 1838 presented opportunity for the former ‘enslaved subjects of the Queen in the West Indies’ baptised in Christian ritual, to enjoy greater revelry to express their newfound freedom. However, the 1897 Grenada Handbook states that ‘the conduct of the liberated people in Grenada on that day was most exemplary. They spent the early part of the day in their several churches, and then united in festive gatherings, but there was no drunkenness or disorderly conduct.’ There are no descriptions as to what occurred at

these gatherings, festivities were probably toned down as it appears that the 1794 Vagabond Act (Smith 1808) was still in force. And, as it turned out, Christian missionaries, chapels, churches and places of worship were ordered to be open on August 1 and to hold at least two services, as part of the official thanksgiving celebrations, as per a July proposal put forward by Governor Smith (Kerr-Ritchi 2007) - in practice, maintaining control.

Within a few years, Emancipation and Prepenitence carnavales became one secular carnival festival on the Catholic calendar. British occupation was unable to uproot many French influences language, culture, religion and political insitutions entrenched among the slaves, free blacks and free coloureds. Little is recorded about the impact on carnival by the indentured labourers from Malta and the Portuguese from Madeira, but the religious and cultural impact of the next immigrants to Grenada is still evident. Hundreds of Yorùbá arrived as indentured servants in 1850, (Warner-Lewis 1991, McDaniel 1998), and settled in the villages of Rose Hill, Concord, Munich, Chantimelle, La Fillette, Mount Rodney, Hermitage and Mount Rich. To ensure the African soul was not extinguished (Karade 1994), a conscious masking behind Catholic patron saints and social-ritual performance developed (Warner-Lewis 1991). As late as 1852, French religious influence existed in Grenada with an Act passed to naturalize Francis de Casta, a Roman Catholic priest. This special Christian interpretation based on surviving elements of African spirituality (Thompson 2010) ensured survival of African traditions which would later become recognised as an important part of Grenadian carnival culture (Steele 2003).

The pre-Lenten celebration of carnival continued more or less unchanged. Post WWII saw the beginnings of officially organised series of masquerade events, moving out from the countryside and into the main town, and becoming increasingly popular. Just as the newlyfreed celebrated in the streets from as early as daybreak, ‘jour ouvert’ became standard practice to open the annual carnival. In 1974, carnival in Grenada was celebrated in May because the date conflicted with February 7 celebrations for the newly independent tri-island nation. In 1984, the date was removed to the second week in August (Payne 1990), not to commenorate Emancipation but to satisfy the need for an economic summer attraction postRevolution-Intervention/Invasion, and far from the extensive shadow cast by neighbouring Trinidad’s carnival machinery. This change of date permanently

1 This paper is derived from Chapter 3, titled “Public Art and Controversy,” of my doctoral dissertation Between Nation and Market: Art and Society in 20th Century Jamaica (Emory University, 2011) An earlier version of the section on the Emancipation monument also appeared in Jamaica Journal 28:2&3 (2004) 2 This artist’s surname is also spelled as Gonzales.

3 At present, there are seven National Heroes: Marcus Garvey, Paul Bogle, George William Gordon, Alexander Bustamante, Norman Manley, Sam Sharpe, and, the sole female, Nanny.

SPECIFIC MASQUERADE TYPES SHORTKNEE The ShortKnee is a cloth masque where the performer must always be completely concealed by the costume during performance (Babayemi 1980). Double-width pants worn gathered short at the knees, names the character, and this name dates back to the 1920s (Taylor 2009). Yorùbá influence is observable in the costume embellishments (Greenfield) and the selection of the ShortKnee fabric, which symbolises the heavily layered fabrics of the traditional Egúngún costume, which itself represents a multi-layered culture derived from a rural hunter economy with traditions associated with ancestor worship. The ShortKnee performer is disguised in an Egúngún restyled French Pierrot costume, constructed from a total of six and a half yards of a collage of heavily patterned fabrics (Mitchell 2011). Completely concealed from head to toe (hood, mask, tunic, blouse, pants, socks, shoes), each ShortKnee player represents the embodiment of African ancestral power, as in Egúngún masquerade (Babayemi 1980). Players procession in waves, blowing whistles and chanting out village discretions and events which have occurred since the last carnival. The ShortKnee are said roll into a place - as opposed to walk. The Yorùbá verb to parade, yide, derived from yi, means to roll (Taylor 2009), and as they approach a village, their dance movements appear to be a progressive flailing of arms and legs (GNCRC 1993), with rhythmic foot stomping of anklebelled feet hitting the streets in a circular manner observed among the Yorùbá to bring peace and healing (Thompson 2010). White powder acts both as performance gimmick, and representation of Orisha worship (Bascom 1993).

JAB MOLASSIE Molasses holds fragments of memory from the Grenada plantation era – both in our West African food retentions and its use as a viscid costume for a particular traditional carnival masquerade. To contain uncontrolled burning of sugarcane fields, slave gangs from surrounding properties were most likely mustered to the sound of horns, conch shells and whips. Post Emancipation, burnt sugarcane (French cannes brulées) anglified as ‘canboulay’, is perhaps the event which gave rise to the Jab Molassie, the Molasses Devil, setting the stage for an annual roasting of the dual authority of slavery - religion and law – and using both to do

so. The original Jabs drenched their near-naked bodies garlanded in chains or thick rope, with molasses, freedom symbol and revenge – robbing the profits of the estate and using a blackened blackskinned body to speak out against society’s refusal to acknowledge their involvement in and contributions to the agricultural and industrial production of sugar (Aching 2002). The prohibitive cost of molasses results in Jab Jabs, as the entire genre is now referred, being covered in either dark oil and grease, or coloured muds or body paint of white, red, green, yellow and blue. The Jab Jabs is a horned masquerade. The players sport headwear – either a chamberpot, construction hardhat, or paint bucket adorned with real cattle horns or imitation horns made from the dried pods of the Royal Poinciana or Flamboyant tree (personal observation), becoming ‘horned embodiments of power’, addressing an aspect of Yorùbá culture in which horned figures symbolise power and strength of the ancestor spirits (Pencheon 2000). A whip or stick, pitchfork and a rope tail, plus the inclusion of an imitation or live snake (GNCRC 1993) complete the costume.

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severed connections to the Catholic liturgical calendar, but did not diminish the attraction to mystical elements in French Catholic ritual. A creole faith phenomena from known African traditional religions, connections and cultural memory was constructed (Murrell 2010) and appears in the costuming and identity of the characters known as Vecco, Jab Jab, ShortKnee and Moko Jumbie. They are part of our ‘religion-based-history’and follow in the footsteps of historic and cultural street theatre: West African Gelede and Egúngún masquerades, the European Commedia dell’arte and religious Passion Plays.

VECCO The word Vecco is a reduction of the French words vieux croix (translated as old cross). The Vecco figure types are masked and based on either a priest/monk figure or an undertaker - the mask is either a whitened face, or a skeleton-type mask, representative of death. The standard long hooded priest or monk’s garments with wide sleeves are the genesis of several variants of hooded and fringed Vecco costumes in solid colours, to brown and white, black and white, red and black, red and white, purple and orange, blue and orange, purple and yellow, and other complementary combinations (personal observation). The Vecco undertakers are figures very similar to the top-hatted Baron Samedi of Haitian Voudou tradition, also known as Baron La Croix or lord of the cross, one of a family of spirits that embody the powers of death, represented as a mortician. The Baron Samedi figure wears either black or white, wearing a tall hat, both elements associated with death and the dead in Voudou (Braziel 2008). Over the years allowances for colour have been made and the undertakers are now similarly coloured as their hooded counterparts - maintaining tradition while making the masquerade more of a visitor expectation of carnival. Both Vecco figure-types carry whips and sticks, and en masse, they parade to pronounced stomping of heavily-spiked and cobbled footwear. Incidentally, the Carnival Regulation Act, CAP 41 of 1917 and several of its subsidiary rules state that during carnival no person shall ‘play the masque known as jab jab or vie cour’, and lists punishments of imprisonment, caning and monetary fines for violators appearing in costume likely to ridicule any practised religion, or for throwing, smearing and daubing persons with any substance, or carrying whips or sticks or wearing masks, or spiked footwear in a public place.

4 Scott also printed a promotional booklet.

5 These comparisons may have been influenced by Stanley Kramer’s acclaimed film Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), which opened in Kingston on February 13, 1963 (Gleaner February 10, 1963).

6 Recent research suggests that this portrait may not actually be of Bogle, although it appears to have come from the Bogle family, but the original photograph is now lost and definitive authentication is not possible at this time. (Boxer 2010) The photograph had however already in 1959 been publicized as a portrait of Bogle (Gleaner 1959) and it has since the mid 1960s served as his official portrait.

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MOKO JUMBIE Masked stilt-walkers are sacred guardians that bridge the ancestral spirit world and our earthly present in several African territories (Katz 2013). The Moko Jumbie is placed in the Eastern Caribbean as early as 1791 in Saint Vincent (Young 1807, as quoted in Nicholls 2012) and appearing as a single or two performers wearing wire mesh or papier mache masks or starched cloth with eyeholes cut out. In Grenada, these performers also follow a fusion of West African tradition with elements gleaned perhaps from stilt-walkers in Western Europe, where stilts have been used probably before the 1800s as a means of transport where there were no roads, or in areas of marshy lands. The Moko Jumbie performs on 8 to 13 foot stilts. Many may still wear a skull mask and straw clothing made from the dried leaves of a banana cultivar called Moko, giving rise in local usage of the character, as against evidence suggesting an Upper Guinea origin (Nicholls 2012). An elaborate hat offsets a combination of full skirts of straw or combed rope, and pants covering the feet of the performer and part if not all of the stilts, and a jacket with sleeves extending over their hands. The costume elongates an already extended silhouette, giving the Moko Jumbie the appearance of a looming scarecrow as it dances through the streets, ‘foreseeing evil’ from a towering height for which payment collected from balconies and second floor windows is required for services rendered.

MY ARTISTIC PROCESS The power of these portrayals has influenced this artist’s storytelling on the painted canvas. My preferred media are acrylic paints and oil pastels. I have also worked with inks, dyes, charcoal and more recently molasses. The substrate changes depending on available resources and the context of the image. I have painted on fabric, canvas, canvas and watercolour paper, recycled brown paper and styrofoam packaging, printing industry paper waste, plywood and hardwood construction waste and recycled vodka bottles. Using various mixed media, my works explore ritual and spiritual connections with the island’s history and allow me to posit theories about the origins of our traditional mas culture.

My process of substitution and translated artworks frees the mas portrayals from the carnival restriction and opens up for me a new understanding, of our history as art subject, of its characters as art objects. My work twists convention about portraying Carnival outside the realm of carnival, about connecting heritage with art, about ‘what Grenadian art is’. In 2010, the 46th Annual Grenada Arts Council Exhibition was held alongside tercentenary celebration of the capital, the Town of Saint George. The theme was to depict any event from within that 300 year period. My two entries were a Facebook page showing George Washington responding to Captain La Grenade’s 1791 alleged request for asylum for 60,000 free coloured persons of Grenada and their slaves to be allowed to relocate to the southern US states to live...the land flowing with milk and honey – and a triptych titled The Lost Streets of Saint George’s showing three streets, Shelburne, Pradine and Fort, closed off to extend residential turned commerical building space (Mains 2010) with accompanying explanations.

Many maps, surveys, occasional sketches, watercolours and correspondence on Grenada from 1650 to 1899, are in private hands or public institutions

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in the UK or US. These overseas archives of historical accounts provide much fodder for artistic visualisation and interpretation, given the little there is on the island in terms of originals or copies. Inspired by the book America A History in Art (Scheller2008), I began to research, using source material from publications by local historians, as well as the 1897 Grenada Handbook as my starting points, moving on to the Library of Congress and

Figure 1a: Grenada Carnival ShortKnee. Webber, David. 2011.

the UK National Archive, among other places. Finding a place to start that would make the subject of history visually appealing, is the genesis of my explorations into the Traditional Mas portrayals, starting with a child-sized ShortKnee doll I created in 2007. It was exhibited crucified on a black cross, in protest about our traditional carnival being shunted aside in favour of ‘bikinis and beads’. I subsequently created several series of works substituting the ShortKnee for the French Pierrot, and other works channelling it as West African Egúngún.

SHORTKNEE ILLUSTRATIONS This photograph shows a ShortKnee in parade. Its West African-influenced restyled French Pierrot costume is constructed of several heavily patterned fabrics, and typically comprises a white towel hood (referred to as ‘in

Figure 1b: Carnival at the Grenada National Museum 2003.

sheep’s head’), a painted wire mesh mask rimmed in tin strips cut from milk cans (Lakay 2011), a sleeveless tunic embellished with mirrors, which act as n’kisi or sacred object

A translation inspired by American artist Jacob Lawrence’s 1946 War Series, The Line was part of a larger display at the Grenada Pavilion of the Shanghai Expo 2010, China. It speaks to historic violent gang-like territorial confrontations between ShortKnee troupes and with Vecco bands from different villages. Materials: Acrylic paint, oil pastels, canvas.

Figure 1c: Calabash Masks. The ShortKnee Mask: Fragmentary Reminder of Captured Peoples. 2012.

Figure 2b: Absolut ShortKnee. Grenada ShortKnee: Aroused & Absolut 2012

Inspired by an early version of clown copyright, painted faces on eggs, as found in Clowns International, England. In the absence of a similar collection of ShortKnee masks for display or research, I began to sketch masks on half-cut calabashes, or boli. The calabash was used to create masks before bulk imports from Europe early in the 20th century. Several references point to the word boli as a sacred object used to contain an offering and/or a spiritual or divine power. The black markings on the masks may well be satirical representation of colonial male facial hair growth fashions, but could equally stand for African facial ‘country marks’. Materials: Acrylic paint, dried and halved calabashes.

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(Jacob 2011), a blouse with double length sleeves fastened at the wrists and double width knee breeches. Ankle bells and a bottle of white powder make it complete.This photograph shows ShortKnee wearing a headwear variation - starched fabric and wire crowns, referred to as ‘in goat’s head’, over their white towel hoods.

In a manner similar to the ongoing Absolut Vodka advertising campaign, my Absolut Shortknee seeks to create a similar movement using the ShortKnee on an established global icon.. Materials: Recycled bottes, acrylic paint, oil pastels.

Figure 2c: ShortKnee Aroused. Grenada ShortKnee: Aroused & Absolut 2012

My diminutive carved work is a sketch translation of Jaimaican artist Edna Manley’s monumental bronze sculpture Negro Rising. Materials: Recycled styrofoam, acrylic paint.

Figure 2a: The Line. Chantuelle Talks Series. 2010

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waste, acrylic paint, oil pastels.

Figure 3a: ShortKnee Roadblock. Bois Causeur (Wood Talker). October 2012.

Figure 3c: 30 Pieces of Silver. ShortKnee: Creature of Religion. August 2012.

This small work made from recycled beer cans, represents the payment received by Judas. The ‘silver pieces’ were made to accompany another work, First Breakfast (not included in this document) - a ShortKnee translation of Da Vinci’s Last Supper, showing the ShortKnee meeting and breakfasting together before heading out to parade. Materials: Recycled aluminum and copper wire, permanent marker, acrylic paint.

Figure 3b: Vecco. Bois Causeur (Wood Talker). October 2012.

These two images form part of an exhibit of 50 works created to accompany exhibits at Grenada National Museum highlighting the enduring legacy of African cultural survivals in Grenada. Roadblock speaks to the habitual blocking of roads and streets by troupes of masqueraders, to gain a captive audience for their performances. Vecco depicts hooded masquers gathering. Materials: Plywood construction

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Figure 3d: Chantuelle: Grasp of the Silk Cotton. July 2011

This is a translation of Mexican painter José David Alfaro Siqueiros’ 1956 Figura - a figure in a tree. This work shows a ShortKnee struggling to get in or get out from a thorny silk cotton tree and its spiritual connections with the earth, sky and underworld. Materials: Acrylic paint, oil pastels, crumpled brown packaging paper.

Figure 4a: Transition: Grenada ShortKnee channelling Yorùbá Egúngún.

Figure 4b: Detail head of ShortKnee as Egúngún.

This image shows the transition from a Grenada ShortKnee into a semblance of a Yorùbá Egúngún figure. The transition starts with a black line drawing of a ShortKnee in three-quater profile, gradually covered completely with found fabric scraps as well as remnants of handmade batik. The use of batik references Yorùbá textile resist techniques. Materials: White gloss paper waste from printing industry, acrylic paint, found and donated fabric.

Figure 5b: The Gods Are Watching. ShortKnee Compositions. March 2012.

A translation of Charles Watts’ 1985 Upward Glance representing culture and tradition surviving the Atlantic crossing.

Figure 5a: Blue ShortKnee. ShortKnee compositions. March 2012.

A translation of German Expressionist painter Willi Jaeckel’s 1926 Der blaue Götze (The Blue Idol). The colour blue as n’kisi or sacred object against ‘evil eye’, used locally in paint or in balls or cubes of laundry bluing.

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ShortKnee. The figure holds a slave register, a book of names against a sketch of a pair of authentic shackles, part of the Westherall Estate Distillery museum collection, in the parish of Saint David.

Figure 5c: Jinn of Maran. ShortKnee: Jinn of Maran. July 2012.

A translation of Puerto Rican artist, Julio Tomás Martínez’s 1910 El genio del ingenio (the genie of industry). Using the ShortKnee as genie or jinn, and a detail from an 1822 watercolour of Maran Estate, a sugar plantation in the parish of Saint Mark, titled ‘The Buildings of Maran Estate in the Island of Grenada. The Property of Thomas Duncan Esqr. Novr.

1822’. This watercolour and pencil on paper artwork is in the JCB collection at Brown University, acquired before 1871 and is described as ‘View of the Maran plantation in Grenada. Built environment includes dwellings, [sugar] mill, and stables.

Includes two black [slave] figures and domestic animals.’

Figure 5d: Spirits of ShortKnee with Book of Names. December 2010.

A translation of Spanish painter Juan Gris’ 1924 Pierrot with Book. Chantuelle: Instrument of history depicts the merging of two Old World elements which make up the Grenada

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On the premise that ‘common objects become strangely uncommon when removed from their context and ordinary ways of being seen’ (Wayne Thiebaud), I placed each translated work in context of the shared parentage of the ShortKnee.

Finding parallels in other artists’ works on war, migration, despair and exile generated other images with the ShortKnee figure as subject.

An invitation to show my work as part of the Grenada display at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo in China galvanised the portfolio that was to become ICON. The challenge for me then, as now, was to present an obscure character and still give it room to keep its religiocultural identity. In the absence of documention like Belisario’s sketches of the Jamaica masquerades of the formerly enslaved, when ICON: ShortKnee as Art opened in 2011 the fifty-three works revealed valuable insights about the ShortKnee to a public more accustomed to the carnival ordinary, as seen in the plethora of photographic capture of carnival over the years. I drew attention to a category of carnival performance culture and its intercultural and political significance, and presented as contemporary art.

It was a salient representation of Grenadian expressive culture distinct from neighbouring nationstates despite a shared political history.

I found Grenada’s Pierrot-variant the ShortKnee to be as important to Contemporary Grenadian Art as the Pierrot was to Western Art in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, given the wide interpretations and contributions to the Pierrot figure over the past 300 years by Western artists who were inspired by the Pierrot (Low Chew Tung 2011), as well as a present resurgence in this figure as art object as evidenced by internet research. In addition to my original works, I have reinterpreted over 150 works of diverse artists to date. These works have raised questions about the parallels between the other traditional masques, and provided opportunity for me to focus on the specifics of these vanishing traditions, hopefully to lay a foundation for future scholarly research. Some of these images support my art-historical papers which have been presented at conferences in Grenada, Jamaica and Puerto Rico. I am also moving forward in studying the other Grenada ‘impersonators’ and their parallels found in Caribbean areas with similar histories of masked figure-types. These include Puerto Rico’s Vejigantes, Antigua’s John Bull and Highlanders, the Virgin Islands’ Clowns, Belize’s Wanaragua, Saint KittsNevis John Bull masquerade, Martinque’s carnival and Jamiaca’s Jonkonnu. The Le Malade and le Diable characters of Le Carnaval de Paris 1840 also find Grenadian counterparts.

Le Malade, a man in nightshirt and nightcap carrying an overflowing chamberpot is similar to the Grenada Pizané or Pissen-lit, a man in crocheted nightdress who exhibits a red ‘menstrual cloth’ and a spoon to stir the contents of his chamberpot.– perhaps in reference to morning and evening ritual before a sewer system and indoor plumbing was installed in the main towns (GNCRC 1993). It is worth noting that Pissen-lit is French for dandelion, a local variety of which, the Cassia occidentalis, is used as a coffee substitute, and for kidney and bladder problems. Its local name is piss-a bed, a creolised play on words. Le Diable, the devil, of Le Carnaval

CONCLUSION Impersonation of ancestral spirits is usually connected with festivals surrounding agricultural activities. My Traditional Mas oeuvre searches out present-day ancestral impersonators, in the guise of existing players in the annual Grenada carnival – the ShortKnee, Vecco, Jab Jab, and Moko Jumbie. Others which are dormant and/or disappeared, include the Pizané, Matador and the sculptural grotesques of the Long-Mouth animal masque (Payne 1990). These characters are the result of evolving artistic reinterpretation of ideas and folklore based on the religions and cultures of displaced peoples brought to Grenada, from both sides of the Atlantic. While remnants of Old World extant in Grenada have been documented

by Donald Hill, Frances Brinkley, Alan Lomax and others, in this artist’s opinion, nowhere is the syncretised AfricanEuropean spiritual culture more evident that in the Traditional Mas portrayals. My art and writing support my view that these characters are authentic survivalist expressions of an admittedly controversial history. With limited artistic intervention to make icons from the portrayed, and without an archive of carnival history in Grenada, this segment of our heritage is in some danger of simply disappearing. Frequent interaction between artist and historian is required.

References Aching, Gerard 2002. Masking and Power: Carnival and Popular Culture in the Caribbean.

Art Fabrik, Young Street, Saint George’s, Grenada Artstung in Grenada. http://artstung.blogspot.com Babayemi, Solomon O. 1980. Egúngún among the Oyo Yorùbá.

Bascom, William R. 1993. Sixteen cowries: Yorùbá divination from Africa to the New World.

Braziel, Jana Evans 2008 Artists, Performers, and Black Masculinity in the Haitian Diaspora.

Britannica. Passion Plays. http://www.britannica.com/ EBchecked/topic/445807/Passion-play

Magazine.

Ford, Paul Leicester. Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, June 20, 1791 Philadelphia. The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes. Federal Edition.

Government of Grenada 1917. Carnival Regulation Act, CAP 41 Government of Grenada. Grenada Handbook 1897

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de Paris, is represented in Grenada’s Traditional Mas as the Jab Jab, as well as the popular devil figures of Martinique’s carnival.

Puerto Rico’s Vejigantes for example are the direct result of artist intervention. Their artists turned a demon character, into a national icon, whose papier mache masks are sought after as valuable works of art. Unfortunately, the same does not hold true for the Grenada figures of resistance. In spite of the specific competitions aimed at the rejuvention of this art form, some public opinion state the Grenada portrayals may be Obeah in practice (Phillip 2011). Taking my cue from the Clown Egg Collection, owned and maintained by Clowns International in England, I began to catalogue some ShortKnee masks designs - each mask is distinct to its wearer - on to boli, half-cut and dried calabashes.

Greenfield, Molly. Cataloguing a Mystery: a Yorùbá Egungun Grenada Carnival Corporation. http://www.spicemasgrenada. com/ Grenada Criminal Code 1987 Sections 143-145: Practicing Obeah etc. http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/text.jsp? file_ id=253233 Grenada National College Research Centre GNCRC 1993.

Grenada Carnival: A paper prepared for the Grenada National Museum. Includes personal communications of 11 Grenadians Jacobs, Curtis 2011. Grenada historian, personal communication.

Karade, Ifa 1994. The Handbook of Yorùbá Religious Concepts Katz, David 2013. Dancing in the Dragon’s Den: The Moko Jumbies of Trinidad Kerr-Ritchi, J R. 2007. Rites of August First: Emancipation Day in the Black Atlantic World Library of Congress. Letter from Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, June 20, 1791 Low Chew Tung, Suelin 2011. Art exhibition ICON: Carnival on Canvas, ShortKnee as Art. Low Chew Tung, Suelin 2011. The Grenada Shortknee Street Performance to Canvas, Getting Past the Carnival. Double Voicing and Mutliplex Identities Volume 2.

Low Chew Tung, Suelin 2012. Our Present Image: The Grenada ShortKnee, Instrument of History. Paper presented at the Negritud Afro-Latin American Studies 3rd International Conference San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Low Chew Tung, Suelin 2012. The Grenada Shortknee: Ritual in Exile. Paper presented at the College English Association, Caribbean Chapter Conference, Arecibo Puerto Rico.

Mains, Susan. 2010. Grenada Arts Council 46th Exhibition Celebrating 300 Years with the Town of St. George’s, Grenada.

Blurb.com Martin, Angus communication.

2012.

Grenada

historian,

personal

McDaniel, Lorna 1998. The Big Drum Ritual of Carriacou.

Drewal, Margaret Thompson. Yorùbá ritual: Performers, Play, Agency, Volume 1

Mitchell, Winston 2011. Veteran ShortKnee from Marli in the parish of Saint Patrick. Purcell, Lakay, Andy aka 2011. Captain of the Hermitage Saint Patrick ShortKnee band. Personal communication.

Fenger, Frederic Abildgaard 1917. Black Mardi Gras. Harper’s

Murrell, Nathaniel Samuel 2010. Afro-Caribbean Religions. An

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Introduction to their Historical, Cultural and Sacred Traditions.

Temple University Press, 2010 Nicholls, Robert Wyndham 2012. The Jumbies’ Playing Ground: Old World Influences on Afro-Creole Masquerades in the Eastern Caribbean.

Niddrie, D. L. 1966. Eighteenth-Century Settlement in the British Caribbean Payne, Nellie 1990. Grenada Mas’ 1928-1988. Caribbean Quarterly, 36, 3-4, 54-63.

Pencheon Creighton 2000. The “Cowhead” Figure in West African Cultural Traditions.

Phillip, Nicole L 2011. A Carnival Theme Rooted In Our Traditions http://www.grenadabroadcast.com/news/allnews/11662-dr-nicole-l-phillip-writes.

Scheller, W.G. 2008. America, a History in Art: The American Journey Told by Painters, Sculptors, Photographers, and Architects Smith, George 1808. Laws of Grenada 1763-1805 SpiceMas Corporation 2011. Inaugural Traditional Mas Competition a Huge Success. http://www.spicemasgrenada. com/press/2011/07/inaugural-traditional-mas-competition. shtml. Accessed August 24, 2011 SpiceMas Corporation 2011. J’Ouvert. http://www. spicemasgrenada.com/mas/ Accessed August 24, 2011 Steele, Beverly A. 2003. Grenada: A history of its people. Oxford: Macmillan Caribbean.

Taylor, Caldwell 2009 The story of the Shortknee. Available on http://www.spicemasgrenada.com/press/2009/06/the-story-ofshortknee/ Thompson, Robert Farris 2010. Flash of the spirit: African and Afro-American art and philosophy.

Warner-Lewis, Maureen 1991. Guinea’s Other Suns: the African dynamic in Trinidad culture. Dover: The Majority Press.

Biography: Low Che Tung explores Traditional Mas characters derived from fragmented religion and sociocultural traditions of disparate peoples transplanted from their ancestral homelands to this island environment. She discusses her findings through conference and journal papers. My mixed media paintings have been shown in group shows in Andorra, Spain, China, South Korea, Switzerland, Haiti, Romania, Slovenia, the UK, the USA, Trinidad and Grenada.

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Global Threads Article on the Work of Tara Keens-Douglas In Tara Keens-Douglas’ hands, architecture adopts a new kind of weight. Her constructions cling to the body. She shapes a shifting space which transforms with the movements of the figure it adorns. In a series titled Ecstatic Spaces, KeensDouglas crafts costumes out of paper, rope, and other materials that adhere to neither the conventions of costume design, nor those of building construction. Her work’s great challenge, and its great triumph, can be found in the act of translation. Her costumes navigate the nuances, limitations, and epiphanies that come about when one seeks to shift from one mode of describing culture to another.

Her hybrid practice is rooted in both her academic and her biographical background. Ecstatic Spaces began in the classroom as a thesis in the Architecture Master’s Program at the University of Waterloo in Canada. Keens-Douglas is from Trinidad, and so the culture of her home became a natural source from which to cull inspiration. What better place to understand this tradition than in the transformative jubilance of Carnival? She embarked upon an architectural project which focused on the way in which Mas costumes might shape the surface of the body, and the space surrounding that body.

Before she caught her stride, Keens-Douglas says that she “was designing like a creative young person. But writing like a middle-aged white man.” By this phrase perhaps she means that the language surrounding the costumes she was making was not properly suited to the experience of encountering them visually or viscerally. In order for her ideas to be truly legible, they would have to carve out their own language from relevant fragments of the discourses surrounding her practice. And so, what began as “really academic” became the evidence of “a very personal experience.”

She found a personal voice when she began to allow the limitations of her hands to dictate her architectural construction. They are costumes, not models, and they are hand-made, built up bit by bit. The work eschews sterilized perfection and mechanized construction. In each piece there is a tension between the individual and the institution. Keens-Douglas notes that the costumes worn by the players in popular Mas bands are increasingly massproduced with cheap labor abroad. Her project had to be hand-made, because “Making [one’s own costume] makes it more real than [just] wearing it.” This offers a very particular perspective on the effects of globalization in the celebration of Carnival. Her costumes are made in Canada, a great distance away from Trinidad. But they can take the artist’s personal history with them. Their hand-made construction is a declaration that the notion of authenticity need not be tied exclusively to a singular national provenance.

By extending beyond personal and physical

boundaries, Keens-Doulas’ work asks the viewer to evaluate her own size in relationship to the world. To be a participant in Trinidad Carnival is to undergo a shift in scale. It is to expand beyond the boundaries of one’s own body and to become much larger than oneself. Famed “Mas Man” Peter Minshall describes this phenomenon by saying: “there is something else my work tries to be at its best, to inspire the ordinary man to say, ‘Look at me, look how much bigger I am than I was before I went into this thing!’” If people participate in Carnival so that they might become a part of something larger than themselves, then what exactly is this something, and how does one go about joining it?

Keens-Douglas has found one answer to this question. For her, that something is a kind of popular body. It is body built with the architecture of conflicting intersecting dialogues: the personal & the global, weightiness & ephemerality, etc.

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When speaking of the process behind the creation of her work, Keens-Douglas reports that she used “variously scaled ‘spikes’ to draw attention to areas of the body used to communicate, whether as threat device or sexual lure.”

She allows the gestures of the body to speak to an individual’s social intent. The forms are non-verbal, yet still legible.

The “ecstasy” of Ecstatic Spaces can be found in the malleable surface where the body meets the surrounding world. In some ways, costume marks the boundary between carnal meaning and semiotic meaning. Ecstasy is hidden within, in this liminal zone. What is felt in the flesh becomes articulated by the movements of muscles.

What is sensed is translated into what is “read” by the eye of another. Visual and tactile experience are unified.

Costumes enhance the movement of the body while allowing this movement to be read with the specificity that might be expected of a text.

Two of Peter Minshall’s characters that can be compared to Keens-Douglas’ project are “Tan Tan” and “Saga Boy” from the 1990 band Tantana. Their giant silk bodies flutter wildly at the slightest movement of the much smaller human beings that bear their immense mass. They appear to be simultaneously weightless and gargantuan.

We know that the movements of each character are an extension of the gestures of a single person. The performer is quite literally installed within the structure surrounding her.

Keens-Douglas writes that her costumes “make a new “facade” or emphasize one already in play. They are, in a way, architecture of the persona.”

Each piece in her project is referred to as one of four operations: appropriation, exaggeration, submersion and sublimation. She says that each costume represents a “feeling” rather than a “character.” A character is a fully formed cultural entity. It is appearances paired with sometimes fixed sentiments. Her work loosens this pairing

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in order to isolate visual artifacts that are given, from those which are mutable.

She writes that the works’ “significance lies in its affirmation of identity, while accommodating an emotional and sensuous experience.” This phrase sets up at least two distinct goals: to transcend the quotidian aspects of the body and to exist firmly within one’s own skin. When thinking about Mas one must consider whether these goals truly conflict with one another. In Ecstatic Spaces the viewer finds room for them to be complimentary. This is because the forms which make up the costumes evoke concepts which are much larger than their minimalist structure. They are built simply yet are infinitely complex in their meaning and origins.

Of Mas costumes, Keens-Douglas writes “They are all tools of communication, a medium between body and space. Each transforms the body during carnival, through its disguise and extension. Together they produce an out of body experience.” The models wearing her costumes speak beyond their bodies, while simultaneously highlighting the silhouettes of their form.

The space surrounding the costumes is equally as important as the objects themselves. Keens-Douglas writes of carnival as an opportunity to actualize the “shadow self.” A shadow is the silhouette formed by the light we do not reflect. It is the negative space we carve out of that which is visible. It is the self we form by taking away from the architecture that has been given to us.

According to the artist, carnival costumes “stand in for the bodies we do not have.” Negative space bears equal importance to constructed form in many of the works in Ecstatic Spaces. When the model lifts her arms, the jagged edges of paper frame the air around her. Material can inscribe the spaces where the body is not, and to lend these spaces their own particular yet fleeting content. The costume marks the boundaries or limitations of the figure as well as the figure’s strengths.

When describing contemporary Carnival, Keens-Douglas notes that the participant is, “no longer on a raised platform.” Mas bands, bystanders, and everyone in between move about on a level playing field, the Savannah. A platform implies a moment of respite from juxtaposition. It is the surface upon which we position that which is meant to be observed at a distance. When placed on a platform, an event appears isolated. It is implied that an event is above the fray: above everyday dissolutions of meaning. When on a stage, performance becomes a specimen to be observed, rather than a force to be swept up in.

Keens-Douglas’ works are simultaneously transcendent and tragically mortal. Some are made from fragile fibers like paper. Paper is not a common covering for the body; it is the surface of choice for written material. The viewer can see how Keens-Douglas’ work allows the academic or the esoteric to be imbued with a new kind of literacy. Gesture is articulated on paper, but not with the written word. Instead, paper speaks by taking flight from the gesticulations of the model.

Ecstatic Spaces appropriates culture on many levels: architectural, social, diagrammatic, and perhaps spiritual.

But it does not merely mimic, it transforms by compounding

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these dimensions into one surface. It enables each dimension to take on the meanings associated with the next. Keens-Douglas notes that “even the Savannah is an appropriated space.”

During most of the year, its grassy expanse is used for a variety of activities that have nothing to do with Carnival. It is taken over temporarily and its societal significance is shifted. Carnival is embodied for only two days before it disappears into the realm of memories, recordings, and preparations for the coming year.

Keens-Douglas’ work appropriates both physical and conceptual space. It acknowledges the fleeting nature of these sorts of intersections. Of the experience of both her work and of Carnival, she says that one must be allowed to “throw it away at the end.”

Biography: Ilana Harris-Babou (born 1991) is an American sculptor and installation artist. Harris-Babou was born in Brooklyn, New York, and currently lives and works in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where her studio is located. Harris-Babou’s first institutional solo exhibition in Europe, which was presented in tandem with her solo show Tasteful Interiors running from August 16 through November 5, 2021, at ICA @ UTC in Chattanooga, USA.

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By extending beyond personal and physical boundaries, Keens-Douglas’ work asks the viewer to evaluate her own size in relationship to the world. To be a participant in Trinidad Carnival is to undergo a shift in scale. It is to expand beyond the boundaries of one’s own body and to become much larger than oneself.

Ilana Harris-Babou

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introduction

Katherine Kennedy

Voids and Representation: Surveying the Growth of Artist-led Initiatives in the Caribbean

Keywords: exotification, artist-led initiatives, independent spaces, contemporary art, Caribbean culture, international relations I do not claim to be unique. Like most [people] in the creative field, I straddle many roles and frame myself in a number of ways: Barbadian artist. Writer. Editor.

Communicationsa and Operations Manager for artist-led initiatives.I consider each role as vital, or that each [one] feeds into the other. In some ways, I feel like both an insider to the Caribbean art scene, as well as an outsider.

There can be a perceived chasm between working practically in the arts and working in arts administration or advocacy, even when the two intersect. The latter often involves dwelling on the fringes to gain an overview of what is happening in the region, as well as studying models of arts organizations further afield. These are the kinds of boundaries constantly negotiated by those involved with independent or artist-led initiatives. Here, I aim to investigate how, or if these initiatives envision responding to, enriching or developing the local arts environment, and the value of forming regional and international connections to these pursuits.

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The emergence of initiatives such as Ateliers ’89 in Aruba, founded in 1989, or El Espacio Aglutinador, founded in 1994 and the oldest ongoing independent art space in Cuba, paved the way for other [informal initiatives ] across the Caribbean, such as Popopstudios International Center for the Visual Arts in the Bahamas (1999); Beta-Local in Puerto Rico (2005); The Instituto Buena Bista (IBB) in Curaçao (2006); Alice Yard in Trinidad (2006); L’Artocarpe in Guadeloupe (2009), ARC Magazine (2011); The Fresh Milk Art Platform in Barbados (2011); New Local Space (NLS) in Jamaica (2012); and 14°N 61°W- aninformal gallery in Martinique (2013), to name just a few. These have largely been in response to the region’s lack of governmental support and infrastructure surrounding the arts.

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However, these organizations, while doing groundbreaking work, face insider/outsider contentions within their own countries. There is a level of resistance to understanding contemporary art [even among other artists] and an assumption that it represents elitism, despite many of these platforms considering themselves to be grassroots, based on their proclaimed principles of openness. Rejecting the somewhat intimidating ‘white cube’ aesthetic, a number of these initiatives operate out of atypical spaces and incorporate the sites’ unconventional stories into their work. Instituto Buena Bista’s location on the same physical plant as a functioning psychiatric clinic allows for cooperative programmes to be designed for the artists and students to work with some of the patients, breaking down societal stigma associated with mental illness. Fresh Milk is on the site of a former sugar plantation, now a working dairy farm, and rather than shy away from this loaded [past], it strives to open up avenues for conversations about its history, while building an inclusive environment that reclaims land which once signified trauma and exclusivity.

While these are examples of ways in which informal

collectives work from the ground up with the communities around them, the idea of who is considered an ‘insider’ or ‘outsider’ is complicated in a region whose history of colonization and consequent denial of voice continues to affect our mentality. I see this tension playing out in Barbados; both personally and professionally, subtly and overtly. For instance, remaining ‘authentic’ can be of great concern within the Caribbean context. The cultural melting-pot [in the region] was forged from a plethora of diverse influences – some retained, some enforced and some adopted. Due to the complexity of our identities, we may become hyper-aware or protective of them, which contributes to nationalistic attitudes and a certain pressure to assert ownership. But how can authenticity be defined? To what extent is an ‘authentic’ representation of the Caribbean dictated by generalized views and expectations, which actually flatten the hybridity and complexity that connect the islands in spite of differences.

Artist-led initiatives tend to challenge the nature of culture and embrace alternative thought processes and practices. Does that detract from their grassroots status, making them ‘inauthentic’ or less relatable? Is this penchant for critical thinking suggestive of the same exclusivity/hierarchy they protest, or does it instead foster an environment where people who fall (or walk) outside of (nationalist) norms can feel safe in their expression and find a sense of belonging?

The introduction of the publication The Politics of Caribbean Cyber Culture (2008) by Professor of Popular Culture and Literary Studies at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus, Curwen Best, begins “Caribbean culture, as we know it traditionally, died in the decade of the 1990s.” (Best 1) In a workshop held at Fresh Milk in late 2014, Trinidadian/Bahamian writer Christian Campbell referenced the fact that, as Caribbean people, we are perpetually moving across boundaries; whether physical shorelines or via the constant translating we do within the region itself and in an increasingly globalized world .

Campbell’s notion of movement beautifully encompasses the breadth of the Caribbean, acknowledging that the languages we speak and the references we draw on extend beyond different linguistic [or geographical] territories. Our cultures and dialects are in fact translated/ transferred across the globe, resulting in an ebb and flow of influences going out, as well as coming in. While this movement is expressed as fluid process, it may in fact spark a variety of issues and concerns.

Concepts of cultural retention, cultural erasure and cultural renewal are in such precarious balance within the Caribbean that there is always a fear of tipping the scale. These issues undergird distinctions between culture and heritage. How can we make clearer the difference between the two, facilitating progress, without one threatening the other? Best shares in this regard that, “External factors have occasionally threatened the demise

Many Caribbean contemporary artists act as a medium for exchange in broader cultural contexts. Functioning alone in the arts can be isolating in the largest of countries, let alone the smaller islands. Despite the benefits of virtual connectivity, mobility within the region remains riddled with challenges. Having the support of a community can be crucial in mitigating this isolation and many independent or artist-led initiatives take up this mantle of community-building when governing bodies have let it slide. But insularity can occur even within the most open of organizations and personal relations can become fraught. Finding myself experiencing isolation even while existing and operating within a communitybuilding regional artist-led initiative shook me. While my conviction in making a change in the arts did not falter, I became consumed with the difficult question of whether or not there is enough of the multifaceted support necessary to keep these types of spaces relevant and afloat, or if the spaces I worked for (Fresh Milk and ARC Magazine) have run their course.. Maybe, I thought, it was time to take a step back and listen to fellow artists and creative activists locally, regionally and internationally, to gain some perspective myself.

Late 2015 was a challenging period for Fresh Milk, as many of the issues with which the platform had been grappling came to a head, such as sustainability, the intrinsic value of the organization to the local and regional arts communities and how to move forward approaching its fifth anniversary. To this end, Fresh Milk has been undergoing an evaluation, which has, among other things, stirred conversations around culture, race, diversity, inclusivity and longevity. This is a necessary yet overwhelming process, requiring not only looking critically inward, but also at the society in which we (myself as part of a two-member team of Fresh Milk) function.

In the Directory of Autonomous Contemporary Visual Arts Initiatives – Latin America (2014), one of the opening essays titled ‘Some Hypotheses about Autonomous Contemporary Art Initiatives’ by Jorge Sepúlveda T. and Ilze Petroni states: There is a difference between an artist, an art collective and art initiatives. The first carries out his/her own desire through material transformation using material means. The art collective carries out the desire that the members have beforehand agreed on among themselves. Autonomous art initiatives make real the desire of the other. (Petroni and Sepúlveda T. 35) Though the specifics vary from country to country, a common thread tying these organizations together is the recognition of a void in the arts community and the drive to fill it. However, just as important as the similarities between the spaces are the differences between them. caryl* ivrisse-crochemar, curator and founder of the independent contemporary gallery 14°N

61°W, refers to the “quasi-invisibility of French Caribbean artists, even within the region” which highlights unfortunate disparities across the islands.

Despite the large gaps in visibility and support that they are created to fill, the majority of these artist-led initiatives are at least partially self-funded and supplement this by applying for grants, or using crowd-sourced funding and other means, to support their programming. New Local Space, for example, funds each residency through a vigorous Kickstarter Campaign . Alice Yard has actively decided not to apply for grant funding and has a fluid mode of working in which they offer a location for artists to create work freely, without requirements or restrictions. Alternatively, the Instituto Buena Bista (IBB) receives some support from Dutch funding entities. I had the opportunity to visit IBB in 2012 for a collaborative project with Fresh Milk. Their main activities revolve around education and the idea of giving back to the country from which one comes.

In an interview I conducted with co-founders Tirzo Martha and David Bade, I was inspired by their ardent belief in moving beyond a single moment; investing in a new wave of artists, rather than focusing on the individual.

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of traditional phenomena, but they have also resulted in the forging of new and renewed phenomena” (Best 12). Best approaches this issue from different angles, raising issues of power and who controls the bulk of what we see on the Internet and in the media. While these arguments are certainly valid, it is equally valid for someone of any culture to take an interest in and interrogate or respond to what they encounter through international access. The concern then lies less in immeasurable authenticity and more in ensuring equity and respect in how cultures are engaged with and acknowledging the power dynamics that arise when looking at internal and external gazes or influences. The arts play an interesting role in this negotation of culture and heritage.

The Directory of Autonomous Contemporary Visual Arts Initiatives, which included part of the Hispanic Caribbean in its research, included the initiatives’ various mission statements, as well as views on the roles and relevance of these initiatives to Latin America. The book itself has become a tangible representation of the network and volume of initiatives in these territories, in that way reminding me of Fresh Milk’s online map of art spaces in the Caribbean. Neither of these archives see themselves as complete. Both are ongoing and invite those who are interested in doing so, to share information so that these resources can grow. The French and Spanish-speaking Caribbean are admittedly blind-spots for most artist-led initiatives in the English-speaking Caribbean.

While this is not intentional, it reveals the effect of historical divisions that were imposed on the region, and illuminates areas in which links need to be strengthened.

These linguistic and cultural divisions highlighted another area in my discussions with artist-led initiatives: that is, if there are concerns around who is included/excluded from these initiatives, why are artists and art-activists not approaching one another as creatives to explore aligning visions? What might be preventing this kind of discussion and collaborative work and what are some of the obstacles to this kind of alignment of vision/collaboration/discussion?

There is no singular guideline for creating an independent art initiative, nor any rule that says that as an artist, you are obliged to create one. According to the essay ‘Zones of Resistance’ by Kamila Nunes, which addresses Brazilian autonomous spaces, if entities such as these were to reach the stage where they were “…established as a model, a formula that dissolves the principle of freedom which guarantees their existence” (Nunes 42) then they would enter the realm of private institutions. Perhaps the fact that Fresh Milk has had the freedom to go through restructuring sheds a positive light on its autonomy. Sustainability is still a goal – financially, physically and spiritually. If we are supporting the arts and maintaining that they are a viable and positive part of society, then we need to establish and demonstrate that in our own practices. A key factor is that, as obvious as it may seem, there is no such thing as sustainability for such spaces without the artists themselves.

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Reaching out to practicing artists in Barbados, the Caribbean and the diaspora for their views on artist-led spaces was enlightening. A recurring word among some artists, when I asked about their local art communities was “fragmented,” with “several different groups [hosting] events geared towards fostering better relationships among creatives and the public, but tending to stick to their own circles.” At the same time, there were those creatives who felt part of a strong support system in their community, with one artist in New Providence, the Bahamas, describing it as “extremely close knit and ever growing…nurturing, accepting, and vibrant.” This in turn inspired her to give back by working at galleries and educational institutions. Another form of giving back, which is sometimes overlooked, is purchasing artwork, letting artists know that “people not only support them but love the work enough to want to own it.”

In terms of how artists feel these artist-led initiatives can better serve their communities, listening and carefully assessing circumstances are at the heart of the matter. Whether artists are in need of professional guidance, workspaces, or opportunities to show their work, network or make presentations, there must be an active dialogue for these malleable entities to be shaped cooperatively and grow organically. Every artist I surveyed expressed that they would be willing to participate in programming run by independent or artist-led initiatives, with a notably positive response being given to the annual regional residency programme Caribbean Linked . Taking place at Ateliers ’89, each edition of this programme includes artists from across the Anglophone, Francophone, Hispanic and Dutch-speaking Caribbean.

Artists in the diaspora shared similar sentiments as their regional counterparts, but expressed doubt as to whether efforts should be diverted into diasporic outreach when these initiatives already have their work cut out for them locally. An important element of this was the stated mandate of each space or initiative. Michèle Pearson Clarke, a Toronto-based Trinidadian artist put it this way: I think it is important to define whether an organization, exhibition or residency is interested in the perspective of artists living and working in the region, those of us in the diaspora, or both. All are equally valid, but tensions can arise when it is not clear who is being included and who is being excluded.

ARC, for example, expressly includes the diaspora in its demographic and has grown to reach over 70,000 people.

Holly Bynoe, Director of ARC Magazine and Chief Curator at the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas shared that “[by capitalising on] social media and with internet proliferation changing the region’s landscape, we began to look at new opportunities to connect professionals and other interested parties.”

Another trend has been artists in the diaspora seeking out projects or residencies in the Caribbean as a way of reconnecting with their roots or exploring how their work might evolve or be read through this local or regional frame of reference. Returning to ideas of respectful and equitable exchanges, the risk is when those coming from the diaspora project their own expectations - which may be coloured

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with nostalgia, or understandably shaped by their own local experiences - on to a place, and do not hold the culture and lived realities of its inhabitants in the same esteem.

This may lead to a kind of neo-colonial lens that is in some ways more difficult to discuss, as levels of privilege and disenfranchisement become complicated in these shifting contexts. Investing in local artists was one of the reasons visual artist Annalee Davis founded Fresh Milk in Barbados in 2011. One requirement of Fresh Milk’s resident artists is to complete some form of community outreach. This can occur with the general public, Barbadian artists, or students ranging from the primary school level to BFA students at Barbados Community College. However, small initiatives with big visions seem inevitably to find themselves reaching past their original mandate when they see another deficit not being tended to in the art environment. This can lead to these initiatives becoming overburdened or stretched too thin. By extension, it may also invite criticism from observers, who view them as failing their core group or over-stepping their bounds.

On the subject of stepping outside of boundaries, how best can artist-led initiatives in the Caribbean work in tandem with international arts spaces without bending to externallyprescribed criteria? Every artist I contacted answered affirmatively as to whether they would exhibit or attend a residency internationally, regarding it as an opportunity for learning, growth and broadening their outlook and individual art practices. Similarly, independent and artist-led initiatives agree that strategic partnerships with organizations abroad are essential for sharing work and transcending our territorial limits. But the value of these relationships does not erase memories of historical conflict, or justified fears of the exotification and ghettoization of Caribbean art.

Too often, there have been exhibitions that use the label ‘Caribbean’ in a narrow way, stereotyping the work into what is deemed representative of the region according to uninformed, foreign assumptions. That being said, just as Caribbean-based artists do not want to be stereotyped by others, it is more productive to judge each encounter on its own merits and allow for the possibility that these spaces might present genuine opportunities for exchange. In 2014, I attended the opening of the exhibition Alles Maskerade! at MEWO Kunsthalle in Memmingen, Germany, which looked at manifestations of Carnival across several cultures. The show included work by Barbadian artist Ewan Atkinson, Trinidadian artist Marlon Griffith and co-director of the Ghetto Biennale in Haiti, Leah Gordon, but their contemporary takes on festivals were displayed in conversation with pieces from Europe, Africa, Latin America and Australia. Curator Axel Lapp, rather than compartmentalize the artists based on nationality, brought together an inclusive exhibition about the ideology of masquerade in expanded cultural contexts, drawing remarkable connections.

When the Chief Curator of the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), Tobias Ostrander, first visited Fresh Milk in 2014, he gave a presentation about PAMM and expressed interest in what he called “Strategic Regionalism,” seeking to create increased dialogue between the Southern United States, the Caribbean basin and Central and South America. He also made mention of the danger of falling into the familiar issues of stereotyping or misrepresentation, but relayed a desire to

attempt to mitigate these shortcomings. This has solidified into This has solidified into actions such as PAMM becoming one of the core partners along with Fresh Milk, ARC and Res Artis that came together to make the first iteration of the Tilting Axis The conference a reality. Held at Fresh Milk in February 2015, this meeting – built on and made possible by the decades of groundwork already put in by Caribbean creatives advocating for regional cohesion in the arts – wove its way into the fabric of Caribbean history. Participants from independent, artistled and formal Caribbean arts organizations gathered in one location, along with groups from the UK, US/China, Senegal/ Paris and Brazil, to form action plans around the sustainable development of contemporary Caribbean art.

I will not speak at length for the attendees, as their own reports are housed online and it would be a disservice to summarize their forthright accounts about the value of the meeting; as well as anxieties from ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ about how this [conference] would be received. This platform too was not without its shortcomings and contentions, and like the online map of Caribbean art spaces, not everyone was represented – but working with what was available, the founders persevered because of their conviction that it was crucial to take that first step. Also like the map, Tilting Axis is ongoing, expanding and learning. A midpoint meeting was held at the invitation of Videobrasil in São Paulo as part of a Public Programme at the 19th Sesc Festival and Tilting Axis 2 was hosted in February 2016 by PAMM. Other unlikely collaborations are also springing up from the conference, such as a budding partnership between the Barbados-based Fish and Dragon Festival (a celebration of cultural dialogue between Barbados and China) and China Residencies (a comprehensive online directory of China-based artist residencies which cultivates creative exchange).

As part of my research for this piece, I interviewed Gaëtane Verna, Director of The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto, Canada. Having no prior engagement with the gallery, this conversation gave me some helpful perspective from an international institution that has not had much involvement with the Caribbean. At the end of the conversation, I developed an affinity for the gallery in relation to the struggle of balancing local and international art fairly, while trying to adhere to mandates and meet expectations.

In 2014, The Power Plant hosted the exhibition Pictures from Paradise: A Survey of Contemporary Caribbean Photography, organized by Wedge Curatorial Projects, Toronto, in the shipping containers behind the gallery. When asked if holding this exhibition drew a diasporic crowd, Verna said it did, but as she mentioned – “it would be great if the people that came out for this Caribbean work came to other shows as well.”

The nature of contemporary art is being able to speak to a plurality of experiences – is this not why [some] in the region are adamant our work can be shown without the prerequisite of being dubbed ‘Caribbean’, but appreciated for its quality and message? Underrepresentation is an undeniable problem but it must be balanced with seeking out meaningful and varied engagements that allow us to become part of a wider conversation rather than implicit in our own invisibility.

Likewise, international institutions have the responsibility to reflect on their own positions of power, preconceptions and biases when attempting to reach an equilibrium working with marginalized spaces and communities..

Although the key word in artist-led initiatives is artist, everyone who has pledged themselves to creative causes ought to be recognized as integral parts of this cultural ecosystem. Perhaps there could be a greater focus on mutual empathy: with organizations ensuring the artists they cater to feel represented and heard, while these artists in turn do not negate the work and representation of those behind the initiatives – many of whom are practicing artists themselves.

The interactions between artists and artist-led initiatives are part of a symbiotic relationship that has enormous potential for growth, if nurtured under the right conditions, and with collective input.

I do not claim to be unique [in the struggles and achievements I have been part of in the Caribbean arts ecosystem], but I do claim to be part of something larger than myself. What felt like a difficult process [of reassessing Fresh Milk’s role and purpose] has become necessary growing pains. Even if it results in permanent stretch marks, it will act as a reminder of how far we have come, how far there is to go, and reaffirms my commitment to the development of contemporary Caribbean art.

Sincere thanks to all artists and organizations who generously shared their thoughts and opinions with me for this article.

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References i Best, Curwen. The Politics of Caribbean Cyber Culture. 1st ed.

New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Print. ii Also referenced in Katherine Kennedy’s contribution to the publication Solitude Atlas. Stuttgart: Akademie Schloss Solitude, 2015. Print.

iii Petroni, Ilze, Sepúlveda T., Jorge. Directory of Autonomous Contemporary Visual Arts Initiatives – Latin America.

Córdoba: Curatoría Forense, 2014. Print. iv ivrisse-crochemar, caryl*. Founder of 14°N 61°W, Martinique.

Online interview. v Anzinger, Deborah. Founder of NLS, Jamaica. Online interview. vi McGuire, Natalie. Community Programming Curator at Fresh Milk, Barbados. Online interview. vii Hunter, Dominique. Guyanese artist. Online interview. viii Minnis, Jodi. Bahamian artist. Online interview. ix Alleyne, Llanor. Barbadian artist. Online interview. x Maldonado, Sofia. Puerto Rican artist. Online interview. xi Gosine, Andil. Toronto-based, Trinidadian artist. Online interview. xii Pearson Clarke, Michèle. Toronto-based, Trinidadian artist.

Online interview. xiii Bynoe, Holly. Director of ARC Magazine and Chief Curator at the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas. Online interview. xiv Simon-Kennedy, Kira. Co-founder of China Residencies.

Online interview. xv Verna, Gaëtane. Director of The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto. Phone interview.

Biography: Katherine Kennedy is a Barbadian artist and writer.

She graduated with a BA in Creative Arts from Lancaster University, UK (2011). She currently works for the Fresh Milk Art Platform in Barbados as the Communications and Operations Manager and has contributed to ARC Magazine of contemporary Caribbean art as a Writer, Editor and the Assistant to Director. Through these platforms, she has coordinated and managed programmes such the Caribbean Linked residency & exhibition programme at Ateliers ’89, Aruba, and the biennial Transoceanic Visual Exchange (TVE) international video, film and new media exhibition. Her written work has been published with platforms such as Sugarcane Magazine (Volume 1, Issue No. 3) and Robert & Christopher Publishers in the A-Z of Caribbean Art (2019).

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Fresh Milk Art Platform Inc. The Fresh Milk Art Platform Inc. is a Caribbean non-profit, artist-led, interdisciplinary organization that supports creatives through engagement with society and cultivates excellence in the arts. The idea for Fresh Milk developed over years of conversations around the need for contemporary artists in Barbados to have a safe space to innovate, gather and create, as well as to counter the nearly 100% attrition rate of BFA students at Barbados Community College (BCC).

Given the traumatic legacy of the Caribbean, the region is not always associated with the idea of nurturing. Fresh Milk moves against the grain of history by supporting different kinds of activity on this loaded site, a working dairy farm operational originally as a sugarcane plantation from the mid 17th century. The organisation fosters an open, critical environment which favours meaningful engagement in a hospitable space favouring various processes of art making including inter-disciplinary work and research based art practices. By strengthening regional and diasporic links and shaping new relationships globally, Fresh Milk aims to span creative disciplines, generations, and linguistic territories in the Caribbean. Through the residency programme as well as the specific projects Tilting Axis, Caribbean Linked and Transoceanic Visual Exchange, Fresh Milk continues to contribute to the collaborative ecology of the creative Caribbean.

Residencies Fresh Milk officially launched its international micro-residency programme in 2013 after a number of successful projects by invited artists. Formalizing the programme and opening it up both locally and to interested international creatives seemed like the logical direction for the platform to take as interest grew, and as we more carefully considered how best to increase visibility and expand critical dialogues around contemporary art beyond our shores. As the framework developed and decisions were made, such as becoming a member of network of over 400 residencies, Res Artis, we wanted to ensure that our core concerns of giving back to Barbados and the Caribbean were not overshadowed by international commitments. We asked ourselves- what should we look for in a proposal; what are the requirements, if any, of the residents; what will Fresh Milk’s role be in their stay, and how can we facilitate the best experience for the artist and the community?

Fresh Milk has received a large number of proposals between 2013 and 2016 and we have hosted 10 local and 24 international residents. We have noticed a few natural trends emerging in terms of the types of submissions we receive. One is a significant interest from Caribbean diasporic artists who are seeking a connection to the region in order to explore how their work, which is often read in contexts outside of the Caribbean, may resonate or change from within it. For example, Canadian artist of Barbadian heritage Nadijah Robinson, while considering her sense of belonging in the island versus Toronto and through presenting her work to final

year students in the BFA programme at BCC, mentioned that she began to consider her goals as a socially engaged artist in an alternate way.

This lends itself to the other trend we have come to look for in applications; artists seeking to carry out some form of community outreach while they are here. Although we consider this a ‘requirement’, we have found that most people include this in their proposal regardless, which shows a genuine interest in the local creative arena as opposed to the appeal of simply having a studio space available to work in isolation. These engagements - sometimes spawning from previous connections, such as our meeting Scottish curators Tiffany Boyle and Jessica Carden of Mother Tongue in Glasgow while participating in group project with other organizations from the Commonwealth - often result in ongoing projects or return visits. Mother Tongue will be returning to Barbados in 2016 to curate an exhibition locally.

In March, 2015 we hosted Barbadian-Canadian visual artist Jordan Clarke, who while at Fresh Milk explored her Caribbean identity. She took the time and space to focus on her practice, connect with the Bajan community and exchange ideas with local artists, especially those dealing with identity politics in their work. Jordan confronted some of the underlying ideas around her disconnect with the Barbadian side of her ancestry, and saw her experience in the island as a starting point to build on as she investigated this part of her culture and herself.

Alongside the international residencies, we have continued to support local artists through the ‘My Time’ local residency programme, kindly funded by a group of philanthropic donors. Between April and May, we were very pleased to have Simone Asia participate in this. She saw this period as a “playground for opportunities,” taking the chance to experiment with surface, scale and technique while exploring and responding organically to the environment at Fresh Milk.

Our final residency of 2015 was with Danish artists Maj Hasager and Ask Kæreby, who Fresh Milk first connected with as a result of a fellowship the platform was awarded in 2014 to spend three months working with Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, Germany. Maj, an artist, and Ask, an electronic composer, spent their month undertaking research in Barbados, engaging with the local arts and music community. Maj instigated discussions focusing on notions of praxis and materiality while Ask conducted a series of experimental sound workshops. The public event FRESH MILK XVIII provided a platform for them, as well as featuring the Beyond Publishing Caribbean team speaking about selfpublishing in Barbados.

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Annalee Davis

Our interest is in building thoughtful, sustainable and mutually beneficial relationships that will nurture local, regional and international artistic discourse and practices.

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Tilting Axis The inaugural conference “Tilting Axis: Within and Beyond the Caribbean - Shifting Models of Sustainability and Connectivity” was held at Fresh Milk on February 27-28, 2015.

It aimed to promote greater conversations and interactions between artists and professionals working within artistled initiatives across the wider Caribbean region, build and redefine historical relationships with those in the North, and establish open dialogue with active networks emerging in the Global South.

The roving meeting, conceptualized by ARC and Fresh Milk, expanded to include partnerships with Res Artis and PAMM who collectively hosted the initial gathering. Tilting Axis facilitates emerging ideas to resonate and take shape outside of our singular environments, many of which are small islands functioning in vacuums of institutional support.

The notion of ‘tilting the axis’ refers to shifting the focus of our gaze; which most often looks to the north; to understand and value our own strengths and lived realities while looking south to build alliances. The goals of Tilting Axis are to (i) promote greater conversations and engagement between artists and professionals working within artist-led initiatives across the Caribbean (ii) create opportunities for integration and collaboration to take place regionally and between international foundations, cultural organisations and practitioners (iii) enable local, regional and international artist networks to share best practices, methodologies and ideas (iv) develop action plans for continued collaboration and for moving the Caribbean out of a peripheral position into larger art conversations (v) open dialogue with strong networks emerging globally in the South (vi) build and redefine historical relationships, from our perspective in the Caribbean, with the North. (vi) meet annually, both in and out of the Caribbean, to grow the network, explore new models and effect change.

The declared focus of the inaugural meeting was on sustaining the visual arts and connecting the Caribbean to itself. The small two-day conference brought together 31 individuals, independent art organisations, national galleries and museums operating across the Caribbean, U.S., E.U., with links to Africa and China. For the first time, Dutch, Spanish, French and English artist led initiatives met physically in the Caribbean. It was critical that this gathering took place on Caribbean soil and that the visual arts sector was considered from within the archipelago as a counterpoint to many decisions often made about the region from external locations.

Tilting Axis reaffirms the critical value of networks popping up in the region, confirms relationships beyond inherited colonial legacies and traditional trade routes.

Tilting Axis is becoming an annual gathering, confirming a commitment to support the region’s community of creative activists within an archipelago both linked and fragmented by colonial encounters, post-independent challenges and more recent economic trials. The tilt, or the shift; collectively expressed as a reframing of the Caribbean beyond linguistic divisions and national borders, allows us to become more expansive and mobile, continuously opening us up to varied possibilities and diverse conceivable possibilities.

PAMM is the host of the second meeting in 2016 and the National Gallery of the Cayman Islands will host it in 2017.

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Caribbean Linked Caribbean Linked III took place in August of this year at Ateliers ‘89, Aruba. The Caribbean Linked Artist Residency Programme, organized by Fresh Milk, ARC and Ateliers ‘89, is a crucial space for building awareness across disparate creative communities of the Caribbean by finding ways to connect young and emerging creatives from all of the linguistic regions with each other. The participants this year were Natusha Croes, Jodi Minnis, Ronald Cyrille, Simone Asia, Manuel Mathieu, Aiko Maya Roudette, Razia Barsatie, Marvi Johanna Franco Zapata, Leasho Johnson, Alex Kelly, Leo Aguirre, Diego Espinosa and Natalie McGuire.

This third iteration of the residency programme was a longer and arguably more honed project, evolving into a mature awareness of creative collaborations in the Caribbean and allowing for strong bonds between the artists to form.

As one of the directors Holly Bynoe stated: “There is this knowledge, this knowing within knowing and being within being that makes me fully confident that the group this year got it, and they have left a mark on me. They understand the nature of it; The nurture of it; Its hidden parts; Its vulnerability and its audacity; Its truth and function; They understand its impossibility and they are grateful.”

A requirement for participating in the Caribbean Linked residency was that the artists had to engage with the Aruban public via presentations on their practice. These were done in nightly succession, and this openness between the artists, as well as the collectively shared vulnerability on presenting to audiences, contributed to the almost immediate kinship formed within the residency group. This really exemplifies the ideals of Caribbean Linked, providing a platform that transcends geographical limitations and connects young creatives to help strengthen the regional network of practice in the arts.

Transoceanic Visual Exchange From January to October 2015, Fresh Milk reflected being a ‘cultural lab’, by connecting three geographical regions via an experimental project Transoceanic Visual Exchange (TVE). The aim of TVE was to transcend traditional geo-political borders of the Caribbean, Africa and Aoteaora and broaden cultural understanding in contemporary artistic practices in film and video work in those regions. Fresh Milk partnered with two other artist-led spaces: RM, in Auckland, New Zealand; and Video Art Network Lagos in Nigeria, Africa. The initiatives first met as participants of International Artists Initiated, a programme organized and facilitated by David Dale Gallery, Glasgow.

One main aim of the project was to facilitate a ‘community of curatorial practice’. At Fresh Milk, the project team did so by holding two workshops with regional creatives working in film and video. The groups used the space to interrogate the nature of film, new media and video works in the Caribbean, how they are created, interpreted and widely received. The main summary points from the conversation suggested the mediums should embrace diverse themes as opposed to ones centred on identity; that film is a ‘safe space’ to bring up difficult societal discourse; and how film & video can be used as an exploration of the space between ‘fine art’ and ‘popular culture’ in the Caribbean.

The project culminated in a series of screenings

spotlight

taking place in Barbados, Nigeria and Auckland. The Barbados events, held in collaboration with the Bim Films Festival, The Errol Barrow Center for Creative Imagination (EBCCI) and the Barbados Community College, featured work by the following artists: David Gumbs, Versia Harris, Katherine Kennedy, Michele Pearson Clarke, Romel Jean Pierre, Olivia McGilchrist, Carlo Reyes, Nick Whittle / Alberta Whittle, Darcell Apelu, Rebecca Ann Hobbs, Ngahuia Raima, Louisa Afoa, Nkechi Ebubedike, Akwaeke Emezi and Lambert Mousseka.

The Fresh Milk team found that reception of the events in Barbados, though not as expansive as new media screenings regionally or internationally, provided diverse audiences, outside of the usual contemporary art community.

For instance, during screenings with the Bim Films Festival, we had attendees who had never encountered experimental film works before, which generated interesting dialogues post-screening. At the EBCCI, the audience was mostly film students, who had layered opinions on non-traditional methods of using film as a creative medium.

Conclusion This will be Fresh Milk’s fifth year in operation and we will reflect on the work we have done while determining a strategy of sustainability moving forward that will allow us to respond to the needs of the local environment first, while maintaining our commitment to the region through continuing co-managing upcoming residencies and projects such as Caribbean Linked and Tilting Axis.

Biography: Annalee Davis is an Independent Arts Consultant and a Visual Artist living and working in Barbados. From 2016-2018 she worked as Caribbean Arts Manager for the British Council managing arts programming in Cuba, Jamaica, and Trinidad & Tobago. She is the Founding Director of The Fresh Milk Art Platform in Barbados (2011); a co-founder of Caribbean Linked (2012), a residency programme for young Caribbean artists from all linguistic parts of the Caribbean which takes place in Aruba at Atelier's '89; and a co-founder of Tilting Axis (2014), an annual meeting which moves in and out of the Caribbean contributing to a healthier cultural eco-system for the visual arts of the region.

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introduction

Marta Fernandez Campa

A Conversation with Kishan Munroe: Connecting Languages

Keywords: cultural heritage, identity, transnational routes, memory, role of art and history Bahamian artist Kishan Munroe has a great ability to adapt himself and his artistic practice to a wide range of situations and mediums. He expresses his art through painting, photography, video, multi-media interactions and writing. In so doing, he takes an approach that captures the human experience across linguistic, cultural and geographic boundaries.

Adaptability, connectivity and a shared universal language are three philosophies at the core of Munroe’s artistic process – these ideas were also very present during our conversation.

interviews:

Munroe’s ability to adapt to new places, languages and contexts has been central to his ongoing multimedia project “The Universal Human Experience”, for which he has travelled extensively across numerous countries documenting different reactions to human conflicts and resolutions. This sense of adaptability and openness to new situations and ways of understanding art, go back to the artist’s childhood.

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KM: Growing up in the Bahamas I lived in a creative household, where I was always encouraged to explore and produce (artistic) things. I was surrounded by creative instruments and was given the freedom to take things apart and put them back together. Investigation and innovation were encouraged.

Both of my parents were educators, so education was always very important. During my formative years, from primary to high school I was active in the arts; not only the visual arts, but also music and theatre. I was very involved in sports, took voice-training classes and played various musical instruments. All of these disciplines helped me tap into the sensibility of artistic expression, especially as different genres interconnect across the artistic spectrum. For instance, terms such as rhythm, composition and mood are all expressions that are not only used in visual arts, they also exist in music, literature, and even in sports. You can see a ‘crescendo’ sometimes, you can reproduce that visually as well as through sound. It’s almost as if you are transcribing what you are seeing or feeling into a different sense. I was interested in this possibility to connect across artistic boundaries, to create a statement through art, make it audible and then be able to amplify it or bring it down a little lower depending on the audience I aim to communicate with.

MFC: As Munroe affirmed during our conversation, his formative experience in the US facilitated a unique insight into the socio-political and historical connections that link the histories of Africa, the Caribbean and the US, where the structural legacy of the past and its inequalities persists today.

KM: I went to Savannah College of Art and Design for my undergraduate degree and I double majored in Painting and Visual Visual Effects, specifically computergenerated effects (particles and procedural effects… like explosions and bombs). These genres exist

basically on opposite ends of the spectrum; on one end there is traditional fine art and on the other end there is computer-generated effects using mathematical expressions and software. It’s a field that is still evolving to this day. But I learnt a lot of things in between, like web design, film/video, photography, and different types of animation.

For a long time, I was the only black student in the Painting department, in a city that was one of the first slave ports in America. There was also a process of gentrification going on. The university had basically taken over downtown and all the black neighborhoods, so to speak, were being pushed further back. For me, understanding the history of art, the history of slavery and gentrification, being from the diaspora and being the only black painter in my department made me acutely aware of these issues.

Because I was seeing the world from a foreign, more Caribbean perspective my approaches and ideas were not always understood. For instance, the colors of the Caribbean are a lot different, they’re a lot more saturated and sometimes my colleagues would say about my paintings ‘Oh, this lobster is too big’ or ‘the color is all wrong’ because they did not understand the Caribbean reality. There was this struggle for me to explain myself, and explain where I was coming from.

I decided to confront notions of identity, placelessness, transitions and history in my M.F.A thesis, which I also finished at Savannah College of Art and Design in 2005. In my thesis, Of Cords and Passages, I analyzed my family members and myself and explored our individual histories. For this project, I used passport photos as reference to paint photorealistic portraits in large format; they were 5 x 6 feet in dimension. These investigations all happened during the period when the controversial war in Iraq was fresh and there was much ongoing debate regarding profiling. I wanted to explore the idea of how is it possible to analyze the physical characteristics of an individual to learn more about who they are? How can you read the history of an individual by studying the physical characteristics of their face in particular?

I started likening the struggle of the Caribbean diaspora to that of the development and vulnerability of the human fetus. Umbilical cords are supposed to sustain life and bring the fetus vital nutrients from the mother, but, then again, they can also be the very vehicles that lead to the fetus’ demise. The mother can pass on harmful substances and diseases to the developing child completely dependent on her for survival. The umbilical cord can also potentially wrap itself around the neck of the fetus.

MFC: After completing his M.F.A thesis, Munroe became In Studio Artist at the Telfair Museum of Art in Savannah.

Through his work for the museum, the artist worked in an outreach community program teaching art to both young and mature students in the city. He describes how these experiences shaped his vision of artistic practice as activation of critical enquiry and activism.

KM: I would spend time in retirement homes with senior citizens from the ages of 70 to 90, usually working on projects where they were tasked to interpret literature and then express their responses visually through art. During these sessions they would sometimes share their life stories with me; the highlights and the regrets. They also offered their often opinionated views about what they thought I should be focusing on at that age, what I shouldn’t do in life, what they liked about me and where they thought I should be heading next.

The next day I would find myself working with young children and adolescents from the ghetto. Initially I had to break through a fortified façade that they had formed as they naturally adapted to the harshness of their immediate environment. I used the vehicle of art to teach them effective communication, discipline, conflict resolution through deliberative dialogue and the many possibilities of the art industry. I taught them visual technology and although, at first they did not want to attend classes, after a while they were anxious for every opportunity to learn and create. That was actually the humble beginning of my journey in utilizing art as a catalyst for change. How do you change people by showing them, ‘ok, you can learn a lot from what an artist has to say in his art or that you can even use art to make statements of your own’. Art was really a platform for me to agitate and activate those individuals. I think that’s where that activation process and my interest in sociology began MFC: Munroe’s research and conceptual process is key to his artwork. As he describes it, the transition from undergraduate to graduate studies offered a new perspective on his artistic process and has shaped his work ever since: KM: There became all my career into the something it.

was a point in my career when my practice about the statement, as opposed to earlier in where I was more concerned about getting best art school or being able to paint as quickly as possible to prove that I could do

I think this is one of the major transitional moments for most artists, that perceptual shift. All of a sudden there was an intellectual hub and I was not only expected to create something that was visually and conceptually stimulating but I also now had to explain it, explain the significance of the artwork and all that happened prior to it: the process. Why am I doing this? What am I all about? So all of these introspective aspects came into play.

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As individuals we are all attached to various things (umbilical cords) in life that are designed to keep us alive but for some reason, whether it be due to our abuse of them, or other external factors such as politics or just by plain fate, we are harmed by them. Utilizing this metaphorical visual language –the symbology of umbilical cords and fetuses—I told the stories of my family members and myself. I painted black and white photorealistic portraits, which were then juxtaposed to paintings of fetuses struggling in voids of darkness. These large diptychs (6’ x 10’) were physically and psychologically challenging for me at that time. I also had to paint my own portrait by objectively analyzing my self from a new perspective. When you have to recreate your self, or rather, the illusion of your self through paint, you begin to observe yourself from a completely different reality and that reality can play with your mind.

MFC: Upon his return to the Bahamas, Munroe continued to write about his experiences and how he felt about the different issues that shaped those experiences and his own work. As a result, he started to conceive The Universal Human Experience, an ambitious and rich multi-media project that encompasses most of Munroe’s creations to date.

KM: I came home and I started (out of frustration) to write about my feelings: what I felt about societal and political issues. As a result of my graduate studies it was habitual for me to express myself extensively through writing before commencing the actual art making process.

Beforehand, I mainly made preliminary sketches prior to tackling the main work but when I started documenting my thoughts through writing, I quickly found that often I preferred my ideas to exist in my sketchbook solely as text because every time I reviewed them the texts would inspire more visuals. So I started writing; sometimes it would be as long as ten pages which then potentially generated at least four different visual ideas.

That stream of consciousness developed into The Universal Human Experience. I decided that I would travel around the world alone and document conflicts and resolutions in order to examine how people responded to certain historic and contemporary contentions in their immediate environment. Initially, this project was based upon more popular historical conflicts such as the World Wars, but progressively I became more interested in anthropology and the little known stories as I started traveling and learning more. I grew particularly interested in the history and effects of colonization and decolonization as well as the role of contemporary art intervention as a means to bring about some form of social change.

The first place I traveled to was the Caribbean festival of the Arts, Carifesta X, Guyana in 2008. I thought it was a pivotal place to commence my investigation because I was able to identify, within the festival’s participating countries, exactly what those nations considered to be indicative of their culture. I could see the similarities and the differences across Caribbean nations; evident was the universality in their use of colors, the physical characteristics of their people, and also the languages and dialects they used to communicate. So I decided to move around, observe and explore, always documenting and examining what I encountered.

Originally this project was somewhat of a challenge for me, to find myself, because I was at that age when I had just come out of college, contemplating what I should do with my life and my qualifications. I thought about the old traditions of traveling. During the 17th-19th centuries fortunate Europeans would take The Grand Tour of Europe and it was

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considered to be the best way for a gentleman to complete his educational journey. I decided to re-vise that tradition. I lay claim to that tradition as part of my culture too, considering The Bahamas is a former British colony and the fact that I have European blood in my ancestry. I thought I’d take part in that tradition too by reinventing it as a globalized, 21st century version of the traditional Grand Tour.

MFC: Considering how loaded the notion of the ‘universal’ and ‘universal experience’ is in narratives of modernity, the Enlightenment and Eurocentric worldviews (where it often comes to represent common cultural assumptions through the lens of Western cultural paradigms), I was intrigued as to how his project presents a different idea of the ‘universal experience’? Especially as it seems that this project demands that we draw connections among geographies outside narrow cultural paradigms.

I think the concept of universality has KM: changed dramatically in the last decade and a half due to technological advancements. I mean, I can be here (The Bahamas) right now having this conversation with you in a foreign land through Skype and I have the ability to simultaneously start or participate in a revolution in some other part of the world, like Israel by using my smart phone. In many ways nowadays the concept of universality is very much technologically based; this has made the world a lot bigger but in many ways it has gotten a lot smaller and much more immediate. So how does that affect universality?

How does the transfer of information make a remote part of Africa a lot more connected to some part of Switzerland? There is something universally revolutionary about the possibilities of wireless transmissions, access to more free and unrestricted information and the development of new methods of communication: methods of communication that are generally less controlled by corporate media or government.

Generally unregulated conversations although we are still being secretly analyzed. It’s getting more and more complicated these days.

That’s one element of universality that this project explores; the global connections in a globalized society.

One of my main objectives is learning how to identify the symptoms of reoccurring contentions. When analyzed closely, these days there seems to be a strong connectivity through technology, namely the Internet. For example, I flew from The Bahamas to New York for an Occupy Wall Street protest at Zuccotti Park that I myself learned about through the media (television and the internet).

There, mass gatherings of people were protesting against global and financial inequality. I was taking photos and videos of people from all over the world that came to Zuccotti Park to participate and document this event and the process of social change unfolding. This was an American conflict that had global implications.

Nowadays conflict resolution is considerably dependent on

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the documentation and dissemination of information – people feel safer in these moments of violence and tension, when they know that what transpires is being recorded. If any acts of violence occur in those contexts, and someone gets assaulted it is somewhat comforting knowing that there would exist evidence through the documentation of photography or video. For example, I encountered many peaceful protestors who would ask me to accompany them from point A to point B during active protests, and I’d ask ‘Why? You are a lot bigger than me’ to which they would reply ‘ but you have your camera and I’d feel a lot safer if you’re there’. I get that response a lot, especially in protests and conflict oriented contexts, partly because I throw myself in the middle of conflict.

Often, my only protection is my camera. For instance, again during Occupy Wall Street I was exiting the subway with a large group of peaceful protestors.

At the street level the crowd was immediately met and surrounded by police officers who began attempting to push us back down the staircase into the subway; they began jabbing and shoving me in my chest with their clubs. Irritated, I asked the police officer whose aggression I was subjected to, ‘could you please stop shoving me I can’t move’ but he persisted to jab me.

So I grasped my camera, fixed it on his face, badge number and all the other identifying marks that I could find and I showed it back to him on the camera’s monitor. He then withdrew."

MFC: Munroe’s photographic and video documentation of protests like Occupy Wall Street or the protests against Troy Davis’ execution, among others, offer a different perspective of conflict to what we often see in the popular media, where stories are very much mediated, offering highly edited views on what happens in these instances of unrest, vindication and conflict. Munroe also talked about the different types of communication and affiliation that can be forged during encounters like Occupy Wall Street, and I asked him about the ways in which sign language to signify agreement, like a twisting of the wrists, was being used in protests all around the world.

KM: Exactly, exactly. Yes, they also used sign language in Occupy Wall Street. Excessive noise was prohibited…To people who can’t speak or hear, this is noise (hand gesture).

Being in Occupy Wall Street and being able to witness all the different methods of communication and the resolutions (and how people adapted to the situation) was intriguing.

There were also makeshift signs bearing messages like ‘Berlin supports Occupy Wall Street’ or ‘Britain supports New York’ but how were they informed about this movement? It all goes back to technology. Part of the reason why I started this project was recognizing the reality that mass media is biased and many of these large corporations themselves have political agendas. I realized that if you switch from Fox to CNN for example, you get two very different perspectives, so the only way to truly understand the narrative is to witness and examine it yourself, unframed and unskewed by obscured lenses.

MFC: Research is often very important to the work of artists and it can take on very different forms and expressions. So I was curious to know what was the role, and benefit, of research in a multimedia project like The Universal Human Experience?

KM: It’s not wise to walk into a situation completely blind. It’s always important to get ready beforehand and know about where to go and where not to go. If something happens, where is the embassy? How long can I drive before I can refuel? You need to be updated on what is happening in that country: the social and political climates. What are the conflicts in that area? How do they respond to people like me? Am I putting myself in danger? So one of the first things that I do before I travel somewhere is do research on the region. I also try to connect with people in that country beforehand. Then, the act of travelling itself becomes research because you’re always in conversation with other people who either live in that particular place or are visitors too, so there is always an exchange of experiences and resources.

An important element of The Universal Human Experience project is adaptation. When I was in Los Angeles, it was my intention to make the epic journey through Central and South America into Argentina but at the time I knew very little Spanish. This presented the enormous challenge of linguistic adaptation. I was also traveling alone so there was no one else there for support, companionship or protection. I had to adapt to literal seclusion and also the sense that I was isolated even when I was surrounded by thousands of people at times. The language barrier muted me and so I relied more heavily on non-verbal communication until I could begin to effectively express myself verbally. If you’re really serious about what you do you must be ready to accept tough challenges.

I methodically planned my investigative journey in this way to be able to empathize with the millions of immigrants who flee to other countries in search of a better life. I wanted to experience what it felt like to be alone, alienated, misunderstood, homeless and desperate. Along my journey through Central America I was learning Spanish at gas stations, hostels, markets and motels. In this process of learning, I had to put myself out there, and be vulnerable. For months and months, I just stood out. There was nowhere I could hide; I felt like I was some exotic animal. And people would give me strange looks as they analyzed me out of curiosity. But it was a part of the painful process of adaptation: understanding identity and the ability to empathize with the plight of displaced people whom I aim to understand.

interviews

Another example, I was in Los Angeles when Michael Jackson died. I was driving along the highway when I got a call from my friend who told me that Michael Jackson had just passed, and he asked ‘where are you?’ And when I told him, he said, ‘well you’re only a few blocks away from the hospital, you need to go there’. So I made my way to the hospital and no one was there, just a lone cameraman walking with his tripod. I was one of the first persons on the scene. My entire journey has been a series of coincidences that have often placed me right in the center (heart) of significant incidents being watched by the world. There were journalists and fans from all corners of the earth who had flown in. I witnessed and documented those situations through my independent lens. Later I turned on the TV, and watching the news coverage, I saw perfectly cropped images and I could not recognize the place. It didn’t look the same. Information – in this globalized society where everything leads back to commercialism – is very much framed. In many events that I documented, that which the public at home watching TV was sold to be reality, was often nothing more than cleverly cropped fragments of sensationalism designed to entertain and instill fear.

During my travels I interviewed a great number of individuals who lived through traumatic experiences. There were those who at some point had taken the lives of other men and also those who had loved ones that fell victim to murder in conflicts. I spoke to persons who endured tragedies such as the civil war in El Salvador. I recall sitting down with a middle-aged man who was notorious in his town for killing many enemy soldiers in the civil war. As I looked him in the eyes, somehow I couldn’t fathom the fact that he had killed scores of men, because he possessed such a tranquil disposition. A lot of these men and women that I encountered, who survived horrific conflict, would eventually break down in tears as they began sharing with me intimate details of experiences they had seldom spoken of before. So it was imperative that I learn how to gain the trust and respect of the individual, my subject. It transcends what we commonly perceive to be communication.

In essence, you have to reach out and project a certain spirit or a certain presence, and people pick up on it."

MFC: Much of the work by Kishan Munroe shares a focus on histories that have been ignored or which have not been sufficiently explored and acknowledged. His multimedia and collaborative installation Swan Song of the Flamingo, a casestudy for The Universal Human Experience which was exhibited at the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas (November 2013March 2014), reexamines the sinking of the Bahamian ship HMBS Flamingo in 1980. Out on what was supposed to be a 10day patrol of Bahamian waters, the Flamingo proceeded with the arrest of two Cuban fishing vessels that were illegally fishing large quantities in Bahamian waters. The response of the Cuban military to this arrest was an attack on the ship, which sank as a result. Most of the crew survived the attack but four marines were killed in the operation. Neither the Flamingo nor the bodies of the four deceased marines were ever recovered. Swan Song of the Flamingo finds different avenues to document and tell this event. This is what inspired Munroe to initiate this project: KM: A lot of the situations I have dealt with in my work are not completely unknown. It’s just that people all too often don’t pay attention to the events that transpired and the implications of those histories. I think my job as an artist is to represent the concepts and experiences of these narratives that have been relegated to the periphery of the historical discourse, to bring some awareness to their significance while simultaneously strengthening relevant cultures. This is the case with the history of the Flamingo.

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There is a commemorative ceremony held annually yet still, for the most part, people have no knowledge of the actual events. Of those who do know, many do not truly understand the significance of the narrative. How is that even possible? This was the only such conflict in the history in the independent Commonwealth of The Bahamas. So how is it that we as a nation haven’t paid attention or homage to what it is that transpired in the past, especially when it helped shape our international policies?

I guess you can say that my job with Swan Song of the Flamingo was somewhat similar to that of a forensic scientist. I had to start from scratch because a lot of the information about the events still hadn’t been documented or properly archived. Using an interrogative methodology I dissected and then visually reconstructed the events based on survivor and witnesses accounts.

The attack happened in 1980, more than 33 years ago and the marines who survived the ordeal felt as though nobody really cared for their well being; they felt the pressure of being expected to resume “normal” lives despite having experienced severe trauma and not receiving proper psychological treatment for their post traumatic stress disorder.

The men also complained that they received no form of monetary compensation from the government. Over the years several of the survivors have publically spoken out about those harrowing experiences but the discourse continued to diminish and was seemingly in danger of being forgotten. It was almost as if the narrative was becoming a myth.

The most important thing for me was to achieve more recognition for the marines and to show the significance of the tragedy and the role it played in our history. I decided to vicariously revisit those harrowing moments through their recounts. Fully aware of the complexity of the subject matter the historical context of this tragedy was taken into greater consideration.

Unfortunately, since the commencement of the project three persons who were directly involved in the narrative have passed away, which means that we are quickly loosing our heritage due to untold stories.

MFC: Following up on the issue of historical amnesia, I asked Kishan what he thought about the possibilities of intergenerational, community-based or even familial-based forms of remembrance versus national or institutional deficiencies to remember and commemorate the past, especially as ignoring the past collectively can have great implications on the future shaping of communities.

Figure 1: If I Ever Rise, oil on canvas 60'' x 120'' VOL 3 | ISSUE 6 | SPRING 2016

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Figure 2: Artist, Kishan Munroe working on painting, "Sacrifice".

Oil on canvas.

Figure 3: Artist, Kishan Munroe "Sacrifice".

Oil on canvas.

60" x 72"

Interestingly enough, through the course of my investigations I found out that I was related to some of the surviving marines. Ragged Island, which was invaded by the Cuban military following the attack is the island where my family is from, so I had already known many of the witnesses of the invasion. Those that I did not know, I got to meet as a result of my investigations. So in trying to explore the story of the nation I actually learned a lot about my ancestry.

Simultaneously I was unearthing my own family history.

Another interesting thing about the Flamingo incident is that there were surviving marines who had not really discussed their experiences with their families. I guess they were still somewhat traumatized. One of the most traumatized of the survivors granted me an exclusive interview and I was surprised to learn that his family had little knowledge about the Flamingo attack or even that he had survived it. It wasn’t until he retrieved the blood-stained shirt that he was wearing the day of the attack (which was neatly folded and stored away in a plastic bag) that his wife and children learned of his involvement. To my surprise he entrusted the war relic to me.

I decided to exhibit this captivating embodiment of his sacrifice by putting it on display in the gallery; you could literally see his DNA and signs of his struggle hanging on the wall. He died shortly before the opening of the exhibit, so he never had an opportunity to view the show.

If our culture and heritage is going to survive we must encourage our people to not only speak about our history but to read, write and make music about it. The intergenerational, community based and familial modes of remembrance are especially important to The Bahamas as it is a fairly young archipelagic nation with a small population.

We even refer to the outer islands as the “Family islands”.

Ragged Island is therefore considered a “Family Island”. In this context we can see how familial remembrance is important. Few Bahamians were aware of the Cuban invasion of Ragged Island even though it is a part of The Bahamas.

I think you need to speak a universal language to effectively communicate certain ideas. And art speaks every language; it is about what dialect you choose to use at a given moment. I feel that when you approach issues with sincerity that sincerity is evident in the outcome of the finished product.

For me the process of art making is a spiritual journey. After I’ve infused my work with the passion born of empathy and understanding (gained from extensive research and personal experiences), the narrative is given new life. It is my hope that my artistic expressions spark further dialogue for the sake of posterity.

MFC: Kishan, how did Swan Song of the Flamingo evolve as a collaborative work? From painting, to poetry, music and dance, this multimedia project presents a complex and multi-layered expression of the Flamingo. How did this collaboration come about?

KM: 2013 marked the 40th anniversary of The Bahamas' independence and the Flamingo marked a defining point in the history of our independence that has gone unrecognized for far too long. The Swan Song of the Flamingo salvaged this almost forgotten historic event from the scrapyard of national memory. On the milestone marking a generation I sought to devote my time to giving back to Bahamian culture what it lost many decades ago with the hope that we could begin to acknowledge, heal and find the way forward as a country. In that way it was a patriotic national effort for myself. Of course this project (on a broader view) speaks of international relations as well.

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KM: As they say, if you ignore the past long enough it won’t only be forgotten but it will never be known to future generations. In the Caribbean we have an oral tradition of passing down our heritage. Some people actually want us to forget it, because if we stop speaking about it, then the generations who are not yet born will never get to know to inquire about it.

I started Swan Song of the Flamingo in 2010 and began contacting other contributors in 2012, two years after I started my extensive research investigations. At that point I felt that I should not wear the hat of a nationalist – because when one starts thinking too nationalistically the integrity of the project could potentially be compromised. I felt it was important to invite other artists and social scientists to respond to the information that I had gathered in order to add their creative voices. I contacted people like Obediah Michael Smith, Rey Escobar, Joann Callendar, Cleophas Adderley, Lee Callendar, Patricia Meicholas and Sonia Farmer, and invited them to share in the experience.

As the project evolved I had the privilege to also collaborate with acclaimed underwater specialist filmmaker Gavin McKinney and the elite commando squadron of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force.

This endeavor eventually received unprecedented support from the government and corporate sector of The Bahamas.

The Royal Bahamas Defense Force (RBDF), facilitated my investigative requests and have continued to show significant support for the undertakings of the project. The contributions of the RBDF certainly took the project to another level I could not have anticipated.

The project also received unprecedented corporate support from the LJM Maritime Academy. The institution purchased the body of paintings that I created to ensure that the historical maritime narrative as communicated through the collection of works remains together.

I also worked with the National Ballet of Cuba. I worked with prima ballerina Amaya Rodriguez and choreographer Eduardo Blanco. I took the Morse code distress message that was sent by the Marines on May 11, 1980 and shared it with the Cuban collaborators. In response to the notation Cuban musician Rey Escobar created an instrumental capturing the mood of the message.

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Figure 4: Artist, Kishan Munroe Interior Detail of "Swan Song".

Figure 5: Artist, Kishan Munroe "The Sinking of HMBS Flamingo," Oil on canvas.

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Figure 6: Interview Still of Oscar Miller - survivor of the attack on Flamingo (deceased)

Figure 7: Joann Callender performing a solo from the opera Our Boys

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He was responding to the situation of the ‘Flamingo Incident’ without me addressing the issue as he had the statement in his hands (the Morse code is actually a concise statement telling you everything you need to know). I also gave the Morse code (audio) to Eduardo and Amaya and they choreographed a dance and I photographed it. I photographed their performance on the wall of the Malecón, in Havana. That photographic series was later entitled ‘Amaya’s Empathy’ because the core objective of the project is to encourage acknowledgement and understanding of one another.

Amaya and Eduardo came to the Bahamas and they performed live at the opening. It was interesting to see the crème de la crème of Cuban performance art representing Communist Cuba responding to the still classified (in Cuba) sinking of HMBS Flamingo, in The Bahamas. No one could predict how it was going to turn out but the result was a beautiful thing. The audience loved their performances.

The public response to the exhibition was overwhelming.

Present on opening night were the surviving crewmembers of Flamingo, the families of the deceased victims, the GovernorGeneral and two of his predecessors, high-ranking officials from the Bahamas government, representatives from the Cuban and United States governments and numerous other persons. The attendance that night was unprecedented.

Hundreds more made their way to view the exhibition in subsequent weeks. This project was groundbreaking in many ways. Without a doubt the highlight of f this production for me was being able to work with the surviving marines

Figure 8: Former El Salvadorian Guerilla member interviewed by Kishan Munroe

themselves and the families of those killed in the line of duty.

Without their generosity and cooperation none of the achievements of this endeavor would have been possible.

Their story is finally being told.

MFC: Swan Song of the Flamingo has won Kishan a 2014 Bahamas Icon Award for Fine Arts. Additionally, Kishan Munroe is also the first Bahamian artist to ever exhibit artwork within the Senate building of the Bahamas. That same year, it was displayed in the lobby of the Senate Building, a space which had previously only displayed European artwork.

As Kishan himself states, KM: Until now the only paintings to ever grace the walls of the Senate building were limited to that of European portraits of British royalty. We (Bahamians) have begun to appreciate ourselves and tell our own stories through the voices of our own people.

This bold undertaking is a strong indication that we as a people have begun to truly revise our notions of independence as we pull away from the colonial ties of the past and celebrate the royalty within ourselves. It is a great honor, after all of the sacrifices, to have my work being embraced by many in the upper echelons as well as the grassroots members of society.

To witness my work being used successfully as a tool for sociopolitical change (the way it was intended) even to the extent where the highest houses of government are supportive, acknowledging the potential and power of art to bring about significant change across multiple platforms, encourages me to keep pushing the boundaries.

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Figure 9: Troy Davis protest

Figure10: Kishan Munroe overlooking the US-Mexican border at Nogales

Figure11: (Above) Photograph: Amaya's Empathy, 2013

MFC: Munroe’s art practice invites audiences to investigate histories and social memory, thereby opening up a shared space of inquiry and reflection. The focus on global interconnectivity in The Universal Human Experience is highly personal, especially since it is based on Munroe’s own research and travelling experiences, but this project is also fundamentally collective in its reach and scope, a trait most audiences in the Caribbean region and diaspora locations can relate to. Similarly, Kishan's empathic artistic vision is also present in Swan Song of the Flamingo where social memory and mourning intertwine, demonstrating the many ways in which remembrance can honor the memory of the dead.

Biography: Marta Fernandez Campa is Special Projects Editor at Caribbean InTransit. Her main research focuses on collective counter-memory in Caribbean literature and visual culture.

essays interviews interviews

Until now the only paintings to ever grace the walls of the Senate building were limited to that of European portraits of British royalty.

We (Bahamians) have begun to appreciate ourselves and tell our own stories through the voices of our own people.

This bold undertaking is a strong indication that we as a people have begun to truly revise our notions of independence as we pull away from the colonial ties of the past and celebrate the royalty within ourselves.

Kishan Munroe

interviews

Aidan Chamberlain

Errol Ince: Trinidadian Trumpet legend Keywords: Trumpet, Trinidad Jazz

In 1950, Warner Bros released a film starring Kirk Douglas called ‘Young Man with a Horn’ which told the story of Bix Beiderbecke, the legendary trumpeter from the United States.

It showed at the Empire Cinema in San Fernando, Trinidad and amongst the audience was an 11-year-old boy. When he left that cinema he knew what he wanted to do with his life, play the trumpet.

The boy’s name was Errol Ince.

He lived in San Fernando with his father and grandparents. San Fernando was then a small, sleepy town on Trinidad’s West Coast and Errol would often skip school with his friends to have swimming races across the bay or sneak into gardens to get some of the plentiful mangos. But when Errol was 13, his father suffered a stroke and the family felt unable to look after him and sent him to the Tacarigua home for children, a few miles to the north. Although that seemed like a sad moment there was a positive side to come.

The Tacquariga Childrens’ Home had a wind band and nothing was going to stop Errol from joining it. He got an instrument and learnt the fingerings that night; the next day he started to play.

Errol started practicing hard but he had an additional motivation. There was a girl at the orphanage that had caught his eye but as girls and boys were kept separate he needed to come up with an original way to win her attention.

So he would play his trumpet to her from the dining hall at meal times hoping that she would hear him from the girls side. Errol didn’t need a teacher to tell him to play with a warm, legato sound!

At the time there was a show on Radio Trinidad called ‘People Who Think They Can Play’ and Errol saw a chance to make a name for himself. He was still only 15 but after getting permission from the home he went to the studio…and won.

He had made his mark and it wasn’t long before he was signed up with Bob Wilson’s big band, one of the best professional outfits at the time.

After leaving the home, Errol spent 5 years playing all over Trinidad and would be seen in the many dance halls with the likes of Fitzvaughan Brian, the Choyaming band and with the Jonny Gomez orchestra. He also formed his own band and recorded his first composition “Gaza Strip”.

One Wednesday in 1961 when Errol and his colleagues were taking a well-earned break after the hectic business of Carnival, Errol went to the cinema with his friend Buck Taylor. Buck was one of those people who could talk convincingly on many subjects and this day he was talking about how fantastic London was and how it was a great place to live. The cinema was an Empire cinema as was the one where Errol had seen Young Man with a Horn eleven years earlier.

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And so for the second time in his life, Errol left an Empire cinema knowing what he had to do. He returned his rented trumpet, managed to pull together TT$300 needed for the boat to England and off he went but he arrived in England with no trumpet and no money.

However, on the boat Errol had met another young man by the name of Michael Quammie. The two hit it off and it was the start of a lifelong friendship. Michael had a home in Tooting, south London and insisted that Errol come and stay with him. Michael had heard Errol play trumpet in dance bands in Trinidad and was adamant that Errol wouldn’t take a job that wasn’t a trumpet job and went about helping him find work as a trumpet player. As luck would have it, the First Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers were having auditions within walking distance of the house and so the only thing Errol needed was a trumpet. Michael rented a trumpet for Errol, Errol walked to the audition, played and got the job.

After only a year in the army, Errol was establishing himself on the London music scene and in 1966 he left the army and took the lead trumpet chair with the Ken Mackintosh big band. The prestigious Ken Macintosh Big Band was “synonymous with great big band music” (Jazz Professional) in London at the time and often broadcast on the BBC. During broadcasts extra players would be employed and Errol would share his chair with the great Kenny Baker.

Errol tells how Kenny showed him the importance of “playing on the beat” as a lead player and so leading the band. Sitting next to one of his idols was an important milestone for the young professional. Errol had listened to Kenny on the radio in Trinidad playing with the Ted Heath band and now he was playing next to him.

Tragedy struck on 8th March 1971 when Errol was afflicted with Bells Palsy. Bell’s Palsy is a condition that attacks the nerves in one side of the face and it renders trumpet players completely unable to get a note out of their instrument.

He went straight to the doctor but the doctor was unable to do anything. Desperately Errol moved on to other doctors but didn’t manage to get any effective treatment.

The dream of the boy from San Fernando seemed to be over. He could no longer play the trumpet.

Then, in 1974, he finally found some hope. He was directed to a neurosurgeon in London and told, “If he can’t fix it, nobody can.” So Errol made an appointment and on the 3rd January 1975 went into hospital for an operation. This was a risky procedure, removing a tendon from his forearm and inserting it into his face, connecting the muscles at the top of the jaw with the side of the mouth. He also had some muscle removed from his arm to replace the embouchure forming muscles around his mouth that had failed to respond for four years.

interviews When he came out of the operating theatre his face was so puffy he was unrecognisable but now the true test began.

Could he play the trumpet again? The test came in the form of a phone call from his old bandleader Ken Mackintosh asking him to play with the band in two weeks time. Errol went out and bought a trumpet and got practicing and in two weeks, he was back.

He has arranged music for his own band in New York and for calypsonians Sparrow and Chalkdust. In 2011 and 2012 he directed the band for the Calypso Monarch, the biggest Calypso competition of the year, playing solo trumpet and conducting.have come from the Tacarigua children’s home, now called St. Mary’s. If these brass players have half the experiences Errol did they are in for an exciting ride.

Move to USA

Select Discography As Band leader Gaza Strip - Produced by Romeo Abraham for Romey’s records Leh Go Meh Hand - Charlie’s Records, 1985 Charlie’s Dance Mix - Charlie’s Records 1990

In 1976 a friend living in New York came to stay in London and invited Errol over to the States for the 200th Year of Independence celebrations. Errol was so struck by life in the Big Apple that he decided to move there. Upon arrival in New York, Errol called the legendary Maynard Ferguson who he had worked with in London and said he the Tommy Dorsey band was currently touring and needed a lead trumpet as soon as possible. Calls were made and Errol was soon on a plane to Ohio to join the band.

Today Now established in New York, London and Trinidad, Errol spent many years playing on various stages with many different artists and becoming the international player we know today. He has played with most of the big names in Calypso such as The Mighty Chalkdust, Black Stalin, Lord Kitchener and the Mighty Sparrow as well as international stars such as Frank Sinatra, Maynard Ferguson and Cliff Richard.

As arranger Wine & Jam Band - Mighty Sparrow 1993 1989 to present The Bright Side Strakers – Black Stalin 1991 black man coming to party I-Time – Black Stalin 1987 Just For You – Black Stalin 2004 As Trumpet player Rhythm of the Saints – Paul Simon 1990 Biography: Aidan Chamberlain is the Assistant Professor of Trumpet and Trombone at the Academy for the Performing Arts, University of Trinidad and Tobago.

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LeGrace Benson

Bertelus Myrbel: Working in the Space Between History and Dream “If I didn’t know him I would think for sure he was on something.

But I know him well, so I don’t know where he comes up with these astonishing paintings.” So spoke a neighbor, an expatriate from North America.

Bertelus Myrbel is “on something”: it is in the air and the water and the conversations and habits of everyone he knows. What is out of the ordinary is that he is unusually attentive to all the information coming to him from today and all the yesterdays that have taken place among the people of the northern shores and plains and mountains. Their stories and music and awareness of the forces of nature are older than anyone living can remember, older even than the great-grandparents now invisible but still present. A Cuban writer who sojourned in that place among Myrbel’s great-grandparents observed everyone going about their ordinary routines of working, getting water, going to market, observing Sundays and the special times. One of the special times was Holy Week. The writer, Alejo Carpentier, knew well those Holy Week days before the high feast of Easter; but the Haitian Rara bands with their multicolored costumes and the plangent sound of tin horns , bamboo bassoons, rasping scrapers, and insistent drums were exotic. He saw the pilgrimage up the mountain to the Citadel on Holy Thursday, and in his novel connected the pilgrimage to Haiti’s old and continuing kingdom of this world. Carpentier was not on anything; just preternaturally observant –like Bertelus Myrbel.

Myrbel grew up in Milot, the village at the gates of King Henry Christophe’s Palais Sans Souci. Above, dramatically visible from the village is King Henry’s Citadelle, it’s front tower connecting Milot, Sans Souci and fortress to heaven.

From the ramparts Henry could scan the northern shore from La Tortue to Fort Liberté for any invading French ship.

Down in the village Myrbel knew about the Kingdom of King Henry and about the artists working in the atelier of the great Philomé Obin. Obin’s mission was to paint the history of Haiti from the time of Christophe forward and to train others into that educational effort. Myrbel wanted to paint like the artists in the Obin atelier, but internationally recognized Obin already had more students than there was space. Young Bertelus went over to the subsidiary studio of Arc en Ciel where followers of Obin were working and teaching. The public school he attended taught him history, but he was more excited by the lessons in the studio.

He tells of “working hard to study architecture, anatomy, and perspective”. He explained in one of our conversations in Cap Haïtien that studying architecture meant learning all about what they called “the colonial” appearance of the city when it was Cap Henry, Christophe’s royal city. Anatomy he described as learning what human figures look like standing or running or sitting, and, “...you know, running out of fear looks different from running home for food.” The notion of perspective, though roughly based on projections to vanishing points, became for Myrbel a metaphoric concern: “Each district in the city has its own perspective,” he told me. “All the people in that block have a certain outlook. They make different carnival banners.

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They may vote different in elections, so they have a different perspective. See, in this painting I show they each have a different perspective.” He depicted a Capoise celebration of International Women’s Day with three different parade groups and three different vanishing points; but in another work showing Jesus Christ on Judgment Day he converged everything top center in the glowing figure of Christ. He paints a young boy who is bathing in a sacred pool in order to be well and strong. Palm trees surround the pool where a cascade pours its healing waters toward the young man.

There was a buyer for that work. She knew little of Haiti, but commented, “There is some magic force in this little painting, isn’t there? I want my husband to have this.” Myrbel understands perspective as a centering force.

Philomé Obin laid great store by the depiction of Haitian history as an obligation. “Where so many cannot read, the pictures will tell our history. It is important for everyone to know our history.” All the artists of the north took his instruction to heart, Myrbel among them. Like all the Obinist “History School of the North” he presents Toussaint, Dessalines, Capois LeMort, Christophe –the heroes of the Revolution. Obin taught how to represent. Myrbel goes further. Like any Capoise, he sets high value on the revolutionary events from Makandal’s proto-uprising, the Bois Caiman oath, and the culminating victory at Vertiéres. He goes beyond representation to fashion a presentation, setting the drama of liberation in a mise en scene with the Taino remnant who aided them. A skeletal phoenix rises from the ashes of burned cities; cane field workers cast away their chains; there are passages from the Bible; doves and angels in clouds of glory, and illuminations emanating from infinity. His vision of Haitian history attaches his school book learning to a mythos that elicited that question, “Where does he get all this stuff?”

His setting copiously embraces the times before Columbus through the revolution an on to the Second Coming of Christ and the Day of Judgment, thus situating the deeds of the heroes into Eternal Time. This is in accord with his eclectic, ecumenical understanding of religion. His is in no wise a syncretism, but a collimation of distinct rays of enlightenment. “All this stuff” is the moral perspicacity and its symbols gleaned from of each of the religions present in the north of Haiti, gathered together with acts of history remembered, repeated, made into the legends in the school books. It is the mythos of the farmers, fishers, seamstresses, cooks, carpenters, each of of them the descendants of ancestors from Africa, Kiskeya-Ayiti, Europe or even Asia, each of them telling over and again the stories, each of them conscious in daytime and in dreams of who the greatgreat-great grandparents were. Capoise people shunt little into the obscurity of forgetfulness. They do not relegate their ancestors and their deeds to a past that is understood as over and done with. The past is active. The zanzet –the ancestors –are present. It is after all, in their city, the villages and the northern plain that they fought most of the battles that would win freedom from domination. The first oppression of the native Ayiti Taino had been by the Spaniards, notably Christopher Columbus, who claimed the

Myrbel’s response and responsibility as an artist is to make the oft-told tales visible as well as told and sung. One of his works presents a dreamed image of Queen Isabella returning to the island (see Figure 1). She begs forgiveness from Queen Anacoana, bringing a peace offering. The painting presents an admission of guilt, and a plea for reconciliation. Artists of Haiti are aware of world events, and it would be quite surprising if Myrbel and all his companions were uninformed of Nelson Mandela’s and Bishop Desmond Tutu’s Truth and Reconciliation efforts. This work, done well after the efforts in South Africa were internationally noteworthy, is the perceptive Myrbel’s foreshadowing of a hope for the future of Haiti. Among Capoise, the story of Anacoanda’s betrayal, Spanish violence, French plantation horrors, the reparations to France that permanently impoverished the new nation, the long and often vicious US Occupation are, if not everyday street conversation, at least well-circulated, oft repeated tales, with contemporary political rhetoric frequently drawing upon tropes derived from this history.

In personality, Bertelus Myrbel has a vigorous but gentle commitment to harmony, healing of divisions, saving grace from whatsoever ritual and code of behavior. It is what he dreams of not only nan domi –in sleep, but also in and for the practical everyday world.

He sets aside the ugly days and brutal minutes and hours of bondage and murderous warfare to present the culminating victory of the slave revolution in his Battle of Vertiers. Hero General Capois LeMort stands forth from his fallen horse, sword thrust forward into the fray (see Figure 2). LeMort is no whining king screaming “My kingdom for a horse” but an embodied spirit of insurrection shouting “Forward into battle, we will not surrender.” The French, who will concede Saint-Domingue on the morrow, line up in their bright uniforms to conquer.

But in the dark forest behind hero Capois are the Africans, Tainos, and Creoles who will own a new nation within a day’s time.

This is one of Myrbel’s more representational works, but the dream he had prior to beginning to paint the work informs both composition and content.

In another of his history dramatizations arising from his dream work he shows the hero-generals returning to the northern shore in their eighteenth century ships to visit the graves of the fallen, to pour libations of blessed water and cornmeal.

In yet another, General Jean-Jacques Dessalines is the oungan-priest presiding over a Vodou ceremony to exorcise all the evil persons and spirits of the time of enslavement. Philomé Obin rigorously avoided any stroke of paint that would refer to Vodou, preferring to show the emblems of Freemasonry that also had played a significant role in the Haitian Revolution.

Myrbel, immersed in a social atmosphere where Vodou, Freemasonry, Roman Catholicism, and Protestant beliefs are all intensely active, brings all of them into his paintings. He knows the stories of Dessalines whose

guiding spirit was the warrior lwa, Senjak Majeur/Ogun. He knows the story of the solemn battle oaths taken at Bois Caiman that marked the beginning of the slave revolt. For this artist, the struggle for liberty, equality and justice, begun by the zanzet (the ancestors) and still continuing, has the benefit of the encompassing Will of Bondye (Bon Dieu-God).

Thus, he explained to me, all the people who try to live in brotherly love are doing the will of Bondye in the Pentecostal, Baptist, Catholic churches and in the Vodou ounfo (temple). A devout Roman Catholic, he also attends Pentecostal prayer services, Baptist immersion baptisms, and Vodou ceremonies in several nearby ounfo. In each religious locality he discovers actions of saving grace. His depiction of the boy in the healing waters of a sacred cascade is the sib of his “Baptism of Bob”, with Bob being washed clean of sin by immersion in living waters while the pastor reads from the Bible. A close look at his paintings yields subtle signs of the presence of old, old intimations of spiritual salvation from a well deeper than historical reports.

interviews

territory for the Christian God and for Queen Isabella of Spain in December of 1492. Subsequently, in 1699, far across the ocean from Ayiti, Spain handed over the brutal regime of Hispaniola to French plantation enslavement of SaintDomingue.

Mrybel’s religious sensibility, rather than being a syncretism, or even the symbiosis that Leslie Demangles described in his The Faces of the Gods , is an accommodation of parallel but distinctive ways, each with its own long history and present, but with –as Myrbel envisions it, a convergent future in the Apocalypse. His “separate but equal” notion of religions is in accord with his notion of perspective: each quartier has its special perspective, but all ultimately oriented to the same celebration.

The living waters that flow through Bob’s baptism are in most of Myrbel’s paintings. There are forest scenes that on first look appear to be simply landscapes with cascades.

There is always more to be seen. Myrbel’s connection with water may remind those who have read Jacques Roumain’s Governors of the Dew that a spring of fresh water is more than an attractive feature: it is a necessary force of life, animated and animating, salvific in every practical and spiritual way. A man only lightly acquainted with Vodou, mulling over one of Myrbel’s Cascade in the Forest scenes, questioned, “There is Vodou in this, isn’t there?” Similar, more explicit works include ribbons tied to a mapou tree, lit candles, food offerings, folded papers of prayers; but in this one there was only the mapou that grows by the waters, the forest flora and the cascade bringing the essential of life. As in Roumain’s novel, there is more there than water, yes: Vodou acknowledgment of inspirited substance. The material accoutrements of Vodou evident in some of Myrbel’s other “landscapes” are identifying signs , but it is the land and the water itself that he presents as sacred beings. The man who looked at the works did not know about Vodou but was well-versed in the Hindu Vedas.

The recognition was direct, unmediated by signs.

A more recent work of Myrbel’s, like his earlier forests and cascades presents a multiple spiritual drama connecting the depths of the earth, the waters underground and coursing across the surface, while women take harvest from the growing crops (see Figure 3). This is the grand cycle of life, with its prayers to the Great God of All Creation, and to all the spirits animating the substances and people of this world. A Vodou service seen through a shining geometric cartouche happens in a Taino cave. In a smaller cave beside it a VOL 3 | ISSUE 6 | FALL 2021

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Protestant pastor holds his Bible, perhaps reading from it.

Enormous roots of a sacred tree embrace the caves and rise to the scene above, where, in ordinary sunlight, farmwomen gather the harvest. The ordinary and the extraordinary intersect in intertwining geometries and organic growth, scenes and symbols. It is Vodou, Pentecostal, Catholic, and older than any of them, observed attentively, thus intuitively.

This artist brings history and the zanzet, his sleeping dreams, and the practical dream of a better future forward into the present in his several political works. The contentions between certain sectors of society who claimed that inoculations were a plot and those who worked to eradicate polio; the arrival of United States airplanes to enforce the return of President Aristide; the literacy workers; the workers for women’s rights, all appeared in works that came out of conjoined lived reality and the dream state where the sense of these events becomes apparent. One of the most intricate of such paintings Myrbel alternatively titled, “Peace” and “Union Makes Force,” the motto on the Haitian flag (see Figure 4). Most Haitians will grasp the meaning of the work almost instantly, but its richness of symbols requires a bit of study by others. The composition prominently features human skulls and bones, thus any viewer will know the presence of death near and far. Vodouists will immediately know the Gede are here. The Gede are the Vodou family of lwa who preside over death and the prevention of untimely death. They accompanied the earliest importations of slaves and remain as protectors and guides over the final border.

The largest of all the skulls wears a United States helmet and carries a gun. Angels in the clear blue sky spout daggers of the flame of the Holy Spirit from their mouths, making them appear on first glance to be wasps. They are holy. They are good. They are the visitation of sharp justice. Showing me the just-finished work on a quiet Sunday afternoon in Cap Haïtien, Myrbel responded to my question about the presence of telephone poles and electric wires by pointing out that the modern electric wires are there because, “Bondye let people invent the modern communication methods, so he sends his angels to use them too.” Living water at the bottom of the painting connects the heroic ancestors in links of skulls to the present. William Faulkner, a writer of the US south, knew Vodou in the form of Hoodoo and understood, “The past is not even past.”

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Several of Myrbel’s most powerful works concern the Apocalypse, the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. In the top central sky he will place brilliant rays of light emanating either from the throne of Bondye or Jesus. In some works Jesus renders judgment, sending the wicked into darkness and the righteous to the paths of light into heaven. Myrbel has never seen the west facade of a European cathedral but he knows the same story.

The righteous are identifiably Catholics, Pentecostals, Baptists, and Vodouists. They have given honor and respect to their neighbors. They will go to be forever in the Presence of the Most High, Most Holy. One of this artist’s Apocalypses takes place on a mountain pointing to heaven. On the mountain, rising up from the valley, is a sacred mapou tree, in the hollow base of which the oungan begins the ceremony that opens the gates between heaven and earth. Country people walk up toward the brilliance, some carrying Bibles, others raising hands in prayer. There are ladders into heaven and the realm of salvation. All are welcomed.

The artist himself is as open-hearted as his optimistic works. He sees the dangers because he lives with them every waking hour.

He knows the pains of the past and the victories. In his dreams, where he learns what paintings to make next, it all comes to him, there at once: in sleep there is only here and now. He brings the visions into the light, to share back the intimations of immortality.

Biography: LeGrace Benson is Associate Editor of the Journal of Haitian Studies and author of Arts and Religions of Haiti: How the Sun Illuminates Under Cover of Darkness. She is 2016 President of the Haitian Studies Association

essays interviews interviews

Bertelus Myrbel’s religious sensibility, rather than being a syncretism, or even the symbiosis that Leslie Demangles described in The Faces of the Gods , is an accommodation of parallel but distinctive ways, each with its own long history and present, but with ––as Myrbel envisions it, a convergent future in the Apocalypse.

LeGrace Benson

introduction

Therese Hadchity

The Caribbean and Art History’s ‘Greenwich Mean Time’: A review of ‘Timed Out: Art and the Transnational Caribbean' by Leon Wainwright.

If your social circle includes visual artists practicing in the Caribbean, you may have heard the occasional grievance about the difficulty of ‘making it’, both in the region and abroad. If your friends practice in one of the multicultural capitals of the north, the tale may be of relative but conditional success - of Caribbean artists becoming visible only through certain ‘filters.’ You, in turn, may have quietly brushed your friend’s frustrations aside and ascribed them to the inevitable condition of small, resource-strapped nations lagging behind the metropole: this is just the way things are. Why get so worked up about it?

reviews:

Leon Wainwright’s book Timed Out represents the first effort to unpack this relationship and examine the fraught dynamic between center and margins, especially as it concerns art and artists from the Anglophone Caribbean and its diaspora. With his longstanding interest in the Caribbean and numerous essays on its art and artists behind him, Wainwright is somewhat of an ambassador for the Caribbean in British academia and must be commended for that alone. The book, however, makes good on the promise of the author’s many visits to and extensive research in the field by outlining from his own dual perspective the complex dynamics in which Caribbean art is presently engaged and inscribed.

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Wainwright thus sets about ‘drawing attention to political processes by which the art and artists of the transnational Caribbean have found themselves excluded from the time of modernism and contemporaneity’ (11), and have instead been pushed to both metropolitan and global margins. Placing himself in the intersection between postcolonialism (Chakrabarty), anthropology (Fabian), and art history (Kubler), he asks how the cultural centers of the post-imperial north get away with elevating their own art historical temporality to a contemporary ‘Greenwich Meantime’ (a universalized perception of when and how modernism evolved, and of what belongs to the ‘now’) - thus relegating everything else to various stages of belatedness, anachronism or provincialism. According to Wainwright: ‘It is temporality as much as location, which accentuates the distance between the canonical spaces of modern and contemporary art and artists of the transnational Caribbean’ (3).

In more general art historical terms Bourdieu has explained the ‘politics of time’ as intrinsic to European modernism and the historical avant-garde, but Wainwright scrutinizes it from a global perspective and thereby lays down a cornerstone in the broader project of theorizing the visual arts of a region with a paucity of critical analysis.

If Timed Out is more complex than the stated premise would suggest, it is because the analysis of centermargin dynamics is overlaid with the more difficult question of how to re-conceptualize art history itself. Even though the book offers a plenitude of insights and new perspectives on the visual arts of the Caribbean and its diaspora, Wainwright’s purpose is therefore not to write Caribbean art history in his turn, but to extract more far-reaching lessons for future (and global) art historical undertakings from the way the Caribbean has become a ‘shadow’ in western art-history. It should be noted, that the book’s overarching preoccupation with the future trajectory of a discipline - which, in the context of Caribbean studies, has on occasion been labeled ‘anachronistic’is both gutsy and overdue.

Digging into a vast array of strategic, aesthetic and historiographic problems and trajectories, Timed Out thus contributes to the ongoing adjustment of concepts like modernism, pop art, multiculturalism, diaspora-aesthetics and indeed ‘contemporaneity.’ Meanwhile, the book perhaps owes its broad readerly interest to the illumination of particular oeuvres and specific relationships between different diasporic factions in the UK: between such factions and the British art-establishment, between diasporas on either side (and different latitudes) of the Atlantic, and between different critical factions in the Caribbean. It even suggests generational shifts within some of these groups. Wainwright’s determination to concede the shifting and mutually entangled character of these formations is laudable.

But, though his writing is elegant and erudite, keeping up with the multi-dimensional argument does demand frequent re-reading and reconciliation. The five chapters can nonetheless be read independently, especially chapters 1, 2 and 4, which are structured as case studies on particular artists.

The book opens with a discussion, in chapter 1, of the reception of the painter Aubrey Williams, who left Guyana for Britain in the early 1950s. In a sensitive and sympathetic portrayal, Wainwright shows how the prejudice and conservatism Williams’ work encountered in both locations influenced his aesthetic development and turned it into a double-edged form of resistance. Caught up in a time-loop, Williams’ painterly abstraction was thus eclipsed by the populist cultural demands of a Guyana on its way to Independence. What might have been seen as avant-garde in Guyana was, however, already being displaced by the pop-movement in Britain, where Williams therefore registered as an oddly belated modernist. Wainwright makes a compelling argument for understanding (at least in retrospect) Williams’ unorthodox introduction of figurative elements

The charges of belatedness and provincialism that prevented Williams’ inclusion in the modernist pantheon can thus be explained away, to some extent, by his divided loyalties and deliberate ‘oddness’. Wainwright, however, anticipates the reader’s subsequent question of what might happen, if a less ambivalent ‘outsider’ were to make his (or her) way into the British art establishment – a figure, for instance, like the Guyanese painter Frank Bowling.

The second chapter of Timed Out presents a no less engaging discussion of Bowling’s frustrated relationship with the British Pop-movement, of which he was a pioneer, but judging by the art historical record, never a fully acknowledged member. According to Wainwright, the blame in this case lies, on the one hand, with Britain’s wounded pride at the moment of colonial retreat from the Caribbean, and, on the other, with the already provincial and belated nature of British pop. The members of this movement (who in Wainwright’s amusing portrayal conducted themselves as a group of burly out-of-towners) represented an internal other, and their national significance was the assertion of a quintessentially British and ‘fashionable’ belatedness visà-vis the more fast-paced American pop-movement. There was no room in this national self-revision for a ‘real’ outsider - far less a black artist from the Caribbean with superior skills.

Subtended the British reception of Caribbean artists like Williams and Bowling were therefore (among other things) anxieties about the final collapse of colonial rule in the 1960s. Though these examples establish a disheartening precedence, their explanatory power is thus limited to a particular historical moment, and Wainwright, at this point, is yet to explain what challenges lay ahead for later generations of Caribbean artists, when the former empire had been reconfigured in a multicultural Britain.

Thus turning to more contemporary matters, chapter 3 takes a more theoretical direction. Seeking to reverse the common assumption that Britain is ahead of the Caribbean in most areas, Wainwright suggests, that the former might have gleaned something or the other from the Guyanese scholar Denis Williams’ thoughts on the multi-ethnic nation. Instead of fully embracing its internal diversity, however, contemporary Britain has developed policies for ‘managing’ and commodifying difference. It speaks to Wainwright’s integrity that partly blames this situation on the internal divisions and priorities of the UK-based diaspora itself. He thus argues that the discursive and more hybridity-oriented nature of the more current version of ‘diaspora-aesthetics’ (which has been imported from cultural studies to replace the previous, but narrower concept of ‘black art’ (102)) confines its artists to a particular operative space focused on questions of ‘representation’ and their own conditions of visibility.

This ‘brief’, he contends, not only plays into the commodification of ethnicity, but threatens to suppress the material qualities by which the visual artwork precisely identifies itself as non-discursive. Underneath this discussion, however, lies the bigger question of ‘canons’ (those inherently exclusionary institutional narratives of artistic positions, contestations and ‘progressions’) and their role in the management of ‘difference’ and the preservation of existing hierarchies.

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into his abstract compositions, as a deliberate way of turning the politics of time on its head. This deliberately ‘compromised’ modernism was thus a defiant indication of his own suspension between an apolitical (or autonomous) western modernism, and an anti-colonial modernism in the service of nation-building. Whereas the chapter adds to the discovery of modernism’s many faces, its placement at the beginning of the book thus serves to demonstrate up front that while a politics of time can be pernicious, it can also be subversive.

It is in this context that the book’s conceptual tension - a sort of wave-particle duality - rises to the surface. For though Timed Out concedes the problematic nature of canons and their tendency to become markers of historical vindication, Wainwright never denounces the concept altogether – partly because the book, at one level, is about historical vindication for a marginalized group, and partly because he acknowledges that the removal of the canon won’t eradicate the underlying problems of inequality. As he says: ‘living with and without a canon are equally problematic, and never tenable for all of the time’ (107).

This dilemma also bears on the discussion of center and margin and ‘the politics of time’ itself, for the transnational basis on which much of Wainwright's argument rests precludes their polarization as dialectical opposites. If, however, they are interrelated and contingent, the prospect of ‘redemption’ (or at least acknowledgment) becomes one of ‘absorption’, which in turn erases the particular identity also brought about by the politics of time. For, as much as such politics has kept Caribbean artists at an arm’s length from the established contemporary, it has (as Wainwright indeed shows) fueled a variety of resistances and catalyzed their coming into being as a collective entity. Thus, we are left with a paradox: while eliminating the canon, the center, and the notion of an art-historical ‘standardtime’ would represent a pyrrhic victory; maintaining them ultimately means replacing one margin with another. Wainwright does not directly accede to the idea of multiple centers, different chronologies and parallel canons – presumably because it ultimately would pluralize the attendant problems as well.

Wainwright’s solution, therefore, amounts to putting more pressure on the center and generating ‘a canon that is not only self-reflexive, accepting of its temporality, and aware of its exclusions, but also transforms the structure of universal and particular that positions the canon’s dominance’ (108).

Wainwright’s effort to reclaim the artwork from ethnic or political commodification and to rehabilitate what he refers to as its ‘aesthetic depth, visual texture, intentionality and peculiar phenomenal presence’ is more fully developed in chapter 4, arguably the most methodologically innovative and strategically engaged.

Through the example of Trinidadian artist Shastri Maharaj, Wainwright describes the suffocating effect of a national culture enlisted in the formulation of a ‘Creole’ identity. Even though this dynamic occasionally has worked in Maharaj’s favor, like so many other Caribbean artists he has been unable to escape ethnic reductionism.

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determined positions and dispositions, and the perception of artists like Maharaj as an embodiment of a particular diasporic identity. The really refreshing aspect of the chapter is Wainwright ‘emotional chronology’ (a nod to Raymond Williams) that seeks to return us from the political and social over-determination of the Caribbean artwork to the material and emotional reality in which they are initially conceived - to their inscription in mundane and personal circumstances, to their rootedness in the intersection between thought and feeling. Art is made by people who have to make a living, who have a certain need for recognition, who have received, processed and developed a variety of (often conflicting) ideas and who strive for visibility through the (always limited) range of means and cultural codes available to them. While the chapter’s demystification of the oeuvre in question might have been advantageously complemented by greater emphasis on its materiality and visual texture to elicit the kind of appreciation the artist deserves, it successfully and honestly steers interpretation away from the purely representational and discursive.

Wainwright’s ‘emotional chronology’ furthermore transfers the speculative discussion of public reception to the more indisputable effect of a ‘perceived reception’ on the artist.

Extending the concerns of chapter 4, Wainwright dedicates the last chapter of the book to a further critique of the diaspora-concept as the, effectively, only contemporary frame around Caribbean art. As established in the previous chapter, its use at a national level in the Caribbean has, paradoxically, worked against the desired objective of ‘Creolization’.

Similarly, in the British context, ‘representations of blackness that provide recognizable forms of cultural difference and diversity have the outcome of reifying race …. and ethnicizing art history’ (156), and in its current transnational conception, the unifying promise of the concept of diaspora is corrupted by a distinctly American bias. The attempt to unite diasporic constituencies on either side of the Atlantic under the banners of migration and blackness is, therefore, itself deeply implicated in processes of ‘provincialization’.

Wainwright ends the chapter by returning to the Caribbean proper, where he identifies the Small Axe Collective and its off-shoots into various curatorial projects as the embodiment of a ‘new provincialism’ – though this time in the subversive, rather than the ‘belated’ sense. In a Trinidadian context, he argues, this group precisely emerged in response to the ethnic and political commodification of art. Keen to avoid such co-optation, its artists and critics have seen themselves as the nation’s ‘internal other’ or as ‘the perpetual next generation’.

Given the premise of the book, however, it is surprising that Wainwright does not here detect yet another example of the ‘politics of time’ being deployed to bolster an emerging avant-garde.

My only disagreement with Wainwright is, therefore, his suggestion that the critical and curatorial transition undertaken by the Small Axe Collective instantiates Stuart Hall’s ‘passage without supersession’ (162). If, as he argues, the Trinidadian contemporary is distinguished by

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art-historical cross-references and ‘the coexistence of several different generations’ (though I would suggest that this may be more true for the Small Axe Journal than for the visual arts community in Trinidad), it is arguably because ‘the new’ only can become visible by separating itself from ‘the old.’ Meanwhile, it is in my view exactly through a ‘politics of time’ and the effort to ‘disrupt a rendering of the Caribbean as a provincial zone’ (157) that this generational succession has effectively eliminated from the spotlight other contemporary artists, who like Maharaj remain anchored in a nation-building momentum.

It is, however, not with these considerations Wainwright leaves the reader, but with more far-ranging reflections on the ‘contemporary’ and on art-history. He thus adds a note of caution towards recent claims that the distinction between center and margins effectively has been erased that the ‘altermodern’ (which references the entire spectrum of ‘new provincialisms’) now holds center stage in the international contemporary, and that art history itself, as a dynamic between ‘avant-‘ and ‘arriere’ has finally come to an end - according to the Australian academic Terry Smith, aspiring for the contemporary now simply means displaying an awareness of the politics of time.

Wainwright rightly counters this cosmetic claim of a new and liberating ‘horizontality’ with the sobering reminder that, in the end, contemporaneity is always transient. A more pressing need, he suggests, is ‘to change the structures of art historical remembrance themselves and expose its arbiters of value’ – not the least its ‘emphasis on the nexus of temporality’ (173).

Wainwright's rigorous contextualization and relativization of his own arguments anticipates and preempts almost any contestation – apart from those necessarily due from staunchest proponents of a diaspora-aesthetic, from unflinching ‘ethno-nationalists’, or from those who think the battle for contemporary visibility is settled by ‘merit’ alone. I am therefore left with what Wainwright himself calls a ‘really awkward question' of whether artists and its diaspora ultimately of the Caribbean ‘should continue to burden themselves with the selfperceptions of cultural marginality and exclusion’ (112). By extension: why we are so afraid of ‘belatedness’? Should wish the politics of time away - at least for the time being? For what is this politics other than a direct reflection of deeper geo-political structures? What is a dominant temporality if not the imprint of strong, well-funded institutions? Might we not be well advised to turn our attention – as indeed Wainwright does – to ‘varieties of belatedness’, to see these (at least on occasion) as critiques sooner than indexes of modernity?

Rather than envisage an allinclusive metropolitan contemporary (like Smith), we may indeed turn the problem upside down and ask whether the deliberate exclusions from that scene, painful though they may be, do not in fact leave an open record of global hierarchies.

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When Wainwright observes that ‘the multicultural ‘mainstreaming’ of attention to art is not the same as more widely reaching social, political and economic change’ (107), he concedes that the impatient response to the grievances of your imagined ‘artist-friend’, which was posited in the opening paragraph, could be restated as ‘why get so worked up about the symptoms? Let’s deal with the cause.’

Such questions are produced by, rather than leveled against the book. Timed Out leaves the reader not only enlightened but also with much to think about.

Wainwright’s argument sometimes intersects with, but often counters or dismantles, dominant positions in Caribbean criticism and visual theory. It teases out and touches on just about every core question there is to be asked about Caribbean art at this moment, but it is not designed to flatter any particular artistic or academic community. Wainwright has, in other words, delivered a profoundly independent argument, which neither charts an unproblematic future, nor champions simple or popular solutions.

For artists, students and scholars from the region and beyond - and, not the least, for those participants in symposia and conferences on Caribbean visual art, who, like myself, have on occasion felt that the lack of common references or ‘mutual ground’ tends to prevent meaningful dialogue, Wainwright has therefore produced a book, which not only is immensely useful, but - well, timely.

Biography: Prior to moving to Barbados in 1990, Therese Hadchity studied art history and contemporary culture at the University of Copenhagen. She owned the Zemicon Gallery in Bridgetown from 2000-2010, while also working as a curator, art critic and lecturer. Upon closing the gallery, she returned to academia to examine political and conceptual shifts in Caribbean art and criticism in recent decades. She earned her PhD in Cultural Studies from the University of the West Indies (UWI), Cave Hill in 2016. She teaches at UWI, Cave Hill .

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I am therefore left with what Wainwright calls the ‘really awkward question’ of whether artists of the Caribbean and its diaspora ultimately ‘should continue to burden themselves with the selfperceptions of cultural marginality and exclusion’ (112). By extension: why we are so afraid of 'belatedness’? And should we really wish the politics of time away - at least for the time being? For what is this politics, other than a direct reflection of deeper geo-political structures - what is a dominant temporality if not the imprint of strong, well-funded institutions?

Therese Hadchity

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Marta Fernandez

New Directions in Caribbean Art En Mas’: Carnival and Art Performance of the Caribbean Curated by Claire Tancons and Krista Thompson, EN MAS’: Carnival and Performance Art of the Caribbean has generated much expectation and positive critical reception in recent years. This is partly due to its innovative vision. The foundation for this exhibition is performance art; specifically, nine commissioned performances that took place in different locations during the 2014 Carnival season. After their enactment in the streets of cities like Santiago de los Treinta Caballeros; Nassau; Kingston; Fort-de-France; Port of Spain; London; New York and New Orleans, these performances were then exhibited through digital media at the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) of New Orleans. A setup like this—a varied group of transnational performances that can afterwards be viewed and experienced in the space of the museum—is not only ambitious in scope, but also seems fitting to both the transient elements and defining bearing of Carnival.

The exhibition reflects the innovative vision of independent scholar and curator Claire Tancons, originally from Guadeloupe. Tancons conceived of the idea of an exhibition on Carnival and performance art during her tenure as associate curator at CAC. Tancons subsequently invited Bahamian art historian and university professor Krista Thompson, to collaborate on the curation of what became EN MAS’: Carnival and Performance Art of the Caribbean. Tancons also invited her longstanding collaborator architect Gia Wolff, a longstanding collaborator to assist with the exhibition design. The original undertaking that EN MAS’ embodies is further shaped by its projection, since the exhibition travelled in a tour organized by Independent Curators International. EN MAS’ ran from March 7-15 2015 at CAC; before moving to the National Gallery of the Cayman Islands (January 14-March 18, 2016) and later to the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas (April 28-July 17, 2016), DuSable Museum of African American History in Chicago (2017), the Museum of African Diaspora, San Francsico (2017-2018) and the Ulrich Museum of Art in Wichita (2018)1.

Through photography and video installation, the exhibition shows performances by Ebony G. Patterson, Hew Locke, John Beadle, Christophe Chassol, Charles Campbell, Nicolás Dumit Estévez, Marlon Griffith, Lorraine O’Grady, and Cauleen Smith. Although image is one of the central vehicles to transport these performances into the museum, there is also an important attention to materiality through the inclusion of objects – part of the original performances — displayed in the museum’s space. This highlights the significance of mas as a practice of unique craft, design and transformation embodied in the masquerade.

EN MAS’ depicts the rich diversity in the celebration of carnival, palpable through the connections and dichotomies between these performances, across the eight cities and six different countries where they took place.

In contrast with previous exhibitions where Carnival has nevertheless had an important (yet more peripheral) role, EN MAS’ seems to place the emphasis on the very spatial origins of this cultural expression: the actual streets,

itineraries, routes and performative practices that characterize Carnival in the Caribbean. In the article “Curating Carnival: Performance in Contemporary Caribbean Art” Tancons discusses previous attempts to curate carnival within the museum context.She suggests potential avenues for an alternative engagement: “as a possible way out of accepted ideas of artistic value and of curatorial principles, artists and curators have yet to articulate questions and make propositions that break away from the dichotomic view of that which can be curated and that which can not, of that which belongs in or out of the museum.” (39). This challenge was successfully taken up by Tancons and Thompson.

Invisible Presence, Bling Memories, by Jamaican artist Ebony Patterson, re-centers the street as a space of critique, social reflection and ritual following the spirit of Ole Mas, an approach shared by other artists in the exhibition. Patterson’s performance consisted of a procession through the streets of Kingston on Carnival Sunday, April 27, 2014. Fifty people each carried replica caskets upholstered in bright multi-colored fabrics to represent the seventy-three Jamaican civilians who were killed during the 2010 police and military incursion at the Tivoli Gardens district in Kingston. By engaging in a ritual of mourning and commemoration, following the styles of bling funerals in Jamaica, their lives and loss were made visible. There was a mixture of revelry and solemn remembrance. One of the photographic images of Patterson’s performance shows a carnival band with dancers leading the procession of caskets. The musicians and dancers are dressed in the colors of the Jamaican flag, which signals their location, but the image can be reminiscent of the brass band parades in New Orleans.

The exhibition at CAC also conferred a special recognition to New Orleans as a ‘satellite city’ of the Caribbean. Cauleen Smith, a New Orleans-based artist, brings the focus on film. Smith’s series of music performances HE-L-L-O, like Patterson’s, reflect an engagement with individual and collective acts of mourning in public spaces. H-E-L-L-O is a video recording of nine musicians who perform different solo interpretations of the same theme in several spots across New Orleans. This audio-visual document marks the loss, impact and legacy of hurricane Katrina. Also through video format, Christophe Chasol’s Big Sun offers a novel perspective on the experiences that surround Carnival, focusing on the everyday.

The performances in EN MAS’ reflect a personal take on Carnival's plasticity in creating opportunities of social critique, offering an alternative response to more commercial celebrations of Carnival at times promoted through government sponsorship and tourism marketing.

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Boy: Fractal Engagement; Campbell’s performance encouraged the participatory reversal of two distinct areas of Kingston during carnival: Upside and Downtown Kingston.

Performances represent the creation of a liminal space where both areas coexist. In C-Room, Nicolás Dumit Estévez presents a carnivalesque space, demarcated by bright golden-plastic curtains, that displays photographs and an interactive video still documenting his performance. He offered viewers of the Dominican Museo Folklórico Don Tomás the possibility to dress with props and design their own performance. The sense of ‘play’ as creation and participation in cultural production is also televised and therefore ‘contained’ despite its creative license.

John Beadle’s Inside-out, Outside-in and Lorraine O’Grady’s Searching for a Headdress question notions of authenticity in regards to cultural and individual identity, respectively. Issues of authenticity and belonging equally run through Hew Locke’s performance Give and Take, at the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall. Locke’s performance was part of Up Hill Down Hall: An indoor carnival, curated by Claire Tancons, that invites reflections on who is included and excluded throughout the history of the Notting Hill neighborhood and its carnival, contextualizing and demystifying the multicultural quality of one of London’s cultural landmarks. With an architectural design also by Gia Wolff, Locke’s Give and Take transformed the space of the Turbine Hall into the more conflicting issues that surround carnival, and that often remain invisible through the colorful display of the celebrations: these include gentrification, police surveillance and brutality. The performances, which also included a new performance by Marlon Griffith, No Black in the Union Jack, were accompanied by Sonar, a live musical remix by London-

based sound artists Dubmorphology (Gary Stewart and Trevor Mathison).

Collaborative and interactive artistic practice defines Up Hill Down Hall: An indoor carnival and guides the playful participatory nature that it offers viewers. In the Turbine Hall, viewers hold robes and move across the space interacting with the performers, whilst listening to the beats that shape the rhythm of their movement. In the museum space at CAC, audiences could view the powerful performance through a TV screen and headphones whilst standing next to a wall decorated with gigantic photographic cardboard images of the participants. Pinned on the wall were the carnival masks and shields displaying large photographs of wealthy Victorian terraces that were used in the performance. The distance of the subtle room lighting and the grey museum walls at CAC could further envelop spectators in an opportunity to reflect on the transcendence of the moment captured on camera.

Additionally, artistic collaboration in EN MAS’ aids the transition of the performative into the viewing space of the gallery and the museum. Through the mediums of photography, video and architectural design, a series of collaborating artists document the performances for their display and reproduction at the museum. The following artists authored the documentation of performances: Marvin Bartley, Arnaldo James, Marlon James, Raymond Marrero, Oneika Russell, Nile Saulter, Storm Saulter, and Michelle Serieux to name a few.

One of the most enticing aspects about Tancons and Thompson’s exhibition is the sheer variety of styles and sensibilities that also act as a powerful underlying thread connecting them. As stated in the official website

Figure 1: General View – Carnival image on screen and Campbell installation at the far end En Mas’, CAC New Orleans general view, 2015. Exhibition design Gia Wolff. Photo: Sarrah Danziger

of the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans: EN MAS´ considers the connections between Carnival and performance, masquerade and social criticism, diaspora and transnationalism. Taking its title from a pun on “Mas” (short for masquerade and synonymous with carnival in the English-speaking Caribbean, EN MAS’ considers a history of performance that does not take place on the stage or in the gallery but rather in the streets, addressing not the few but the many.

Finally, a truly exciting element about EN MAS´ lies in its curatorial approach.

Both curators have demonstrated through their work a deep knowledge and understanding of the historical and cultural context of the Caribbean, its visual arts scene and carnival. Tancons’ scholarship complements the historical framing and analysis of carnival with an instrumental insight into the interaction between carnival and visual arts in the Caribbean. Equally, Thompson’s theorization on the Caribbean picturesque and its impact on photographic and visual representation, with her scholarship together on Junkanoo, has influenced visual studies.

What truly shakes the Caribbean arts scene and what projects EN MAS´ into new directions is the vision conveyed in the exhibition.

EN MAS´: Carnival and Performance Art of the Caribbean offers viewers the possibility to appreciate the temporary, yet permanent mark of art performance and carnival mas.

The objects, sculptures, photography and installation video in the gallery are mediums that transport viewers to a place that is ‘out there’ and yet evoked in the ‘present time’ of the gallery space, but they are also reminders of another time and place, now gone and

perhaps impossible to fully manifest in the museum.

EN MAS´ signifies a new moment in curatorial work i n the Caribbean, where collaboration and commissioned work can travel, adapt and be re-fashioned in order to become part of even larger projects. In this sense, the ambitious scope in EN MAS´ encompasses something of the sensibility that Trinidadian artist and curator Christopher Cozier identifies in Peter Minshall’s Man Crab]: “Through his work, Minshall often proposes an alternative critical understanding of the ‘monumental’ in opposition to what is asserted in conventional art history books. He prods us to rethink the vernacular and the ephemeral; to consider the way actions or ‘a moment’ can also live through memory and discourse.” (Cozier qtd. in Tancons). In a similar vein, EN MAS´ offers an avenue for continuity and growth; the type of scholarship and approach to contemporary performance art embodied in this ongoing exhibition will have a productive impact on Caribbean art studies.

The catalog publication that accompanies the exhibition, also titled En Mas´: Carnival and Performance Art of the Caribbean and edited by Claire Tancons and Krista Thompson, makes a significant contribution to the field, opening a new, exciting line of inquiry in art and performance studies. Tancons and Thompson have created a publication that critically frames the commissioned works included in the exhibition but also provide an important reference for Caribbean studies and contemporary performance art.

It is an art catalog that extends its critical contribution to that of an art book or survey. Tancon´s article “Farewell, Farewell: Carnival, Performance and Exhibition in the Circum-Atlantic Economy of the Flesh” opens

Figure 2: General View of Patterson and Griffith’s installations 8- Ebony G. Patterson, Invisible Presence: Bling Memories (2014) and Marlon Griffith, POSITIONS + POWER (2014) in En Mas’at CAC, 2015.

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Figure 3: Artist, Nicolás Dumit Estévez, C Room, 2014 at Museo Folklórico Don Tomás Morel, Santiago de los Treinta Caballeros, Dominican Republic. Photo: Raymond Marrero.

Figure 4: Artist, John Beadle.

“Inside- Out, Outside- In” (2015) in En Mas’at CAC, 2015.

Photo: Sarrah Danziger 104 CARIBBEAN INTRANSIT

Figure 5: Artist, Nicolás Dumit Estévez, C Room, 2014 at Museo Folklórico Don Tomás Morel, Santiago de los Treinta Caballeros, Dominican Republic.

Photo: Raymond Marrero.

Figure 6: General View of Patterson and Griffith’s installations Ebony G. Patterson, Invisible Presence: Bling Memories (2014) and Marlon Griffith, POSITIONS + POWER (2014) in En Mas’at CAC, 2015.

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Figure 8: Artist, Hew Locke Give and Take”” performance, August 23, 2014, Tate Modern, London.

Photo: Varala Maraj

Figure 9: Artist, Marlon Griffith, “Positions + Power”, Port of Spain, Trinidad, 2014.

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Figure 10,11: Artist,Ebony G. Patterson, “Invisible Presence: Bling Memories”, performance, April 27, 2014, Kingston, Jamaica. Courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago.

Photo: Monique Gilpin and Philip Rhoden

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Figure12, 13, 14: Artist, Charles Campbell “Actor Boy: Fractal Engagement”, performance, April 21, 2014, Kingston, Jamaica. Photo: Marvin Bartley

Figure 15: Artist, Charles Campbell “Actor Boy Fractal” Photo: Sarah Danziger

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Figure 16: Artist, Christophe Chassol, BIG SUN, in En Mas’at CAC, 2015.

Photo: Sarrah Danziger

the catalog with an illuminating theoretical framework that links the origins and role of Caribbean artists in shaping carnival both aesthetically and politically, and vice versa.

Through an etymological and mythological analysis of the term “carnival” Tancons underscores productively “carrus navalis” (chariot of the sea as a linguistic term that best integrates the diasporic history of carnival from the Middle Passage to the postcolonial moment, as an alternative to “carne levare” (farewell to the flesh which resonates with the European heritage of this cultural expression but does not account adequately on its own for the politics of human flesh and body in Caribbean history. “As circumAtlantic Carnival activated anew the meaning of flesh consumption as sweat meat and slave body, we cannot carry on conceptualizing Carnival as a celebration of the flesh within a circum-Atlantic economy of human flesh.” (Tancons En Mas´ 16. “Farewell, Farewell” provides an insight into each performance that communicates truthfully the sensibility and motivation behind each performance and project.

In her article “Our Good Democracy”: The Social and Political Practice of Carnival and Junkanoo Aesthetics”, Krista Thompson first discusses how carnival figures in the work of the artists included in EN MAS´ to then show how their heterogeneous engagements with carnival provide an aesthetic and political alternative to national productions and promotions of carnival celebrations. Thompson illustrates how the practice of making “invisible” citizens visible and present in the public sphere on their own terms features in the performances of artists like Campbell, Patterson, Griffith, Locke, O´Grady and others, as interventions that capture the democratic potential of carnival.

EN MAS´ catalog offers insightful contributions by a distinguished group of art historians, scholars and intellectuals. It features articles by Shannon Jackson, Kobena Mercer, Alanna Lockward, Yolande-Salomé Toumson, Nicholas Laughlin, Annie Paul, Petrina

Dacres, D. Eric Bookhardt, Paul Goodwin, Thomas J. Lax and Erica Moiah James. **I would like to extend my gratitude to Claire Tancons and Krista Thompson for their assistance in the visual and written documentation of this feature article. Also, my special thanks to Alaina Feldman (Director of Exhibitions and Virgil Taylor (Exhibitions Coordinator, from Independent Curators International (ICI, for their provision of images.

References Tancons, Claire, and Krista Thompson. En Mas´: Carnival and Performance Art of the Caribbean. Independent Curators International and Contemporary Arts Center. New York & New Orleans: 2016. Print.

Curating Carnival: Performance in Contemporary Caribbean Art, Curating in the Caribbean. Eds. David A. Bailey, Alissandra Cummins, Axel Lapp and Allison Thompson. Berlin: Editions Green Box, 2012. 37-62. Print.

Thompson, Krista A. Shine: The Visual Economy of Light in African Diasporic Aesthetic Practice. Durham: Duke UP, 2015. Print.

An Eye for the Tropics: Tourism, Photography, and Framing the Caribbean Picturesque.

Durham: Duke UP, 2006. Print.

1EN

MAS’: Carnival and Performance Art of the Caribbean, Independent Curators International, https://curatorsintl.org/ special-projects/en-mas/about.

Biography: Marta Fernandez Campa is Special Projects Editor at Caribbean InTransit. Her main research focuses on collective counter-memory in Caribbean literature and visual culture.

Architectural Translations in Bahamian Fine Art Keywords: Bahamian Art, Fine Art, History

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Nastassia S. Pratt

The late Jackson Burnside III, noted Bahamian architect and artist, instructed us to “look back into our history for its commonsense” (1949 – 2011). Perhaps now more than ever, The Bahamas, and by extension the Caribbean region, finds itself at the precipice of gaining either great knowledge or historical ignorance. With the increased saturation of the region by Western and European practices, popular culture and art movements, we hold on to the cultural heritage of many Caribbean countries by a thread. In light of this, the role of the artist as historian is more critical than ever. Much more important than pleasing a viewer visually and aesthetically, the artist is also tasked with creating a window for looking into the past and as a result, the future.

One of the clearest ways that this [historical vision can be exercised] is through visual stills of architectural buildings throughout Bahamian fine art. A people are a reflection of the space they create for themselves and inhabit. The 1970s and 1980s were an interesting time for self-reflection through architecture. Several artists and art works offer commentary on four areas of the discussion of Bahamian architecture in fine art: i) the simple yet historically complex self-image of The Bahamas by Bahamians, ii) the tourist-driven depiction of “island living” in the Caribbean clapboard house, iii) the depiction of a nation racing to keep up with modernity while balancing poverty, and lastly, iv) post-colonialist projections in a modern and culturally-evolving Bahamas.

One of the most historically significant neighborhoods in New Providence sits on the cusp of the bustling downtown centre of Nassau. Before the days of Emancipation in 1834, a residential area for enslaved and free Africans was laid out by the planners of that time. This neighborhood was formerly called Bain and Grants Town, but it would come to be known as “Over the Hill” as it was literally on the other side of a hill that marked the separation of this poorer black community from the more tourist-friendly downtown. This physical expression of racial segregation at that time was undoubtedly seen [by the colonial authorities] as beneficial to all parties concerned but what, if any, sociological benefits were generated as a result of establishing such a community? I propose that there were few.

“Over the Hill” became synonymous with clapboard houses, roaming chickens, the yard dog (affectionately known as the “Potcake” to Bahamians) and wild, tropical landscaping.

Dorman Stubbs represented this very neighborhood in his painting Bain Town (1). Stubbs undoubtedly took artistic license with his visual interpretation of the subject matter as the painting possesses an ethereal, dreamlike feeling. Light hues and vivid greens offer glimpses into what paradise must look and feel like, but was this a paradise for the occupant of said clapboard house, or for the visiting buyer of such representations? Does the dreamlike vision of the clapboard house with louvered windows remain the answer for Bahamian suburbia today? Was it ever the answer? It can be argued that the ongoing existence of many of these houses postemancipation speaks to the persistent acceptance of a colonial socio-economic ethos: an ethos that makes stability

Figure 1: Dorman Stubbs, Bain Town, 1984oil on canvas, (30.5 x 40 in.)

consistent with not moving forward - lending itself to [myths of ] security.

The English Georgian style of architecture, found especially in the Nassau town centre, is also present in a less prevalent way in the surrounding middle class to poorer residential neighborhoods. Some features of note are wooden embellishments, lattice-enclosed verandahs, peaked roofs, dormer windows and quoins along the sides of buildings.

Commercial or tourist art created a version of these features that was [non-threatening] to art buyers. Through the eyes of the visitor “island living” became the scenes of black children playing in the yard, the washerwoman hanging clothes on the line and brightly-painted clapboard houses lifted up on concrete blocks in the dusty yard as depicted in Eddie Minnis’ Hay Street Yard (2). Interestingly, Chan Pratt, whose painting Cambridge Street (3) was produced in the same year as Minnis’ Hay Street Yard, frames his scenes in a similar way. Pratt’s portrayal of a near-perfect street and freshly-painted houses are undoubtedly for the pleasure of the [outside] viewer. The painting speaks to a tension that has always existed between the tourist-driven depiction of “island life” and the reality of said life. Yet, such imposed definitions of the Bahamian home need not be adopted as the status quo. We are more than the learnt foundations of the Loyalists who settled these lands in 1776 and certainly more than the colonial urban plan for this country.

At times, it is a challenge for The Bahamas to speak of its history. She is a nation at war with her past and like many Caribbean nations, by luck of the draw or location, became a port for all manner of piracy and illegal activity.

Nassau in particular became notorious in the late 1850s and early 1860s for rum-running. The end of the American War of Independence was the dawn of rum-running through Bahamian ports and great wealth followed. Tourism increased and as a result, The Royal Victoria Hotel was built in 1861 to house these international visitors. Built with an English-Georgian colonial style of architecture, its visitors would have appreciated and felt comforted by its design. However, like all things, the rum-running and prosperity came to an end nd the hotel fell into decline. In 1971, a fire damaged the derelict VOL 3 | ISSUE 6 | FALL 2021

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work Kill and Kill Again (4) combines ideas of consumerism, poverty and symbols of cultural identity (Glinton et al. 34) that [reflect conflicts and connections between traditional and contemporary experiences in poorer communities in the Bahamas.]

2. Eddie Minnis, Hay Street Yard, 1984 oil on canvas, (20 x 25 in.)

hotel and in 1978 Buster Hall produced the painting Royal Victoria (5). There are no perfectly-paved driveways in this painting. Instead the viewer meets a once larger than life mecca of prosperity fallen from grace. This work marks the end of an era and is perhaps one of the more [visually honest] representations of architecture in The Bahamas at the time.

The historical significance of the Royal Victoria painting is grounded in Bahamian culture and exists as a paragraph in the story of Bahamian society. This history, though indicative of a darker and wilder time, has grounded this nation and one can hope it prompts wiser decisions in the future.

5. Buster Hall, Royal Victoria, 1978oil on canvas, (32 x 40 in.)

As much as these British colonial roots, the influence of North American architecture [and cultural movements] is especially striking in The Bahamas. Nowhere else in the Caribbean is there such a melting pot of imported American practices and construction styles (Gravette 33). In one example, the juxtaposition of African-American influenced hip-hop and urban culture with the deeply rooted, ‘rake-an’-scrape’ culture* in The Bahamas presents a rare opportunity for cross-generational debate and discussion. With questions arising daily about the “Bahamian-ness” of rap songs created by Bahamians, similar discussions about the appropriation and adaptation of other aspects of western culture began to be represented in Bahamian art in the early 1980’s.

Dave Smith is an artist known for his stylized realism and juxtaposition of contradictory ideas and subject matter. His

4. Dave Smith, To Kill and Kill Again, 1980 acrylic on canvas, (32 x 50 in.)

The Bahamas is a nation ripe with contradictions: the latest car models can be found parked in the yards of the oldest-looking homes in Bain and Grants Town and a satellite dish can be found perched atop a roof that in all appearances is being held together by a prayer. How far will we go as a nation to keep up with the Joneses, or in this case, our neighbors to the north? Is this a regional obsession with extreme consumerism, or is this particular to The Bahamas? I would argue that it is a regional obsession. Yet within this consumerism [and in discussion with it], Bahamian artists can offer a glimpse into the lives of the occupants of the island clapboard house, beyond tourist visions. Dave Smith’s representations of Bahamian spaces and lives raise the challenge of selfactualization by posing the questions: ‘Where are we now? And where are we going?’

Architectural depictions in fine art act as revealing and at times poignant references for historical and ongoing commentary on societal issues. They also serve as barometers for cultural identity and whether this identity is seen through the eyes of a resident or visitor. Artists such as Dorman Stubbs, Eddie Minnis, and Dave Smith are a small sample of individuals who took on the role of architectural translators through painting. Hidegarde Hamilton, Brent Malone and Sterling Miller were also artists who, whether consciously or subconsciously, realized the importance of creating still shots of Bahamian history.

These paintings, like all creative works, have become a way for a nation to track [and reflect on] its cultural heritage and identity. It rests on the shoulders of artists across disciplines to do the same.

References Baumgart, Fritz. A History of Architectural Styles. London: Verlac M. Mumunt Schauberg. 1970. Print.

Glinton, Patricia, et al. Bahamian Art: 1492-1992, The Bahamas: Finance Corporation of Bahamas Limited, 1992.

Print.

Gravette, Andrew. Architectural Heritage of The Caribbean: An A – Z of Historic Buildings. Jamaica: Randle Publishers, New Jersey: Markus Wiener Publishers Inc. and United Kingdom: Signal Books Ltd., 2000. Print.

reviews Chan Pratt, Cambridge Street, 1984oil on canvas, (30 x 24 in.)

Biography: Born in 1985 in (Nassau, Bahamas) Nastassia is an artist and is presently pursuing studies in architecture at Ryerson University (Toronto, Canada). Recent exhibitions include Beyond These Doors (Doongalik Studios, June 2015), Dwell I (Lyford Cay Club, January 2015) and Nassau Facades (National Art Gallery of The Bahamas, July 2014).

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Laurence Hegarty

Moira Williams: Let them eat bread!

Keywords: Trespassing, Al-Mutanabbi Street, relatedness, beekeeping, ephemeral, languages, marginless, fractures

In recent years, in New York City, Moira Williams has developed a body of work that engages rituals of social ecology, perambulations long and short, the entanglements of artists and non-artists in Brooklyn Neighborhoods, beekeeping in Bogotá Columbia, the many wars the United States wages, and extremely locavore agriculture. All of this has been pursued with a canny, below the radar political acuity. We have not even mentioned her role as demi-restaurateur (we’ll get to that later).

Among other things, Williams is part of “The Walk Exchange”, a Brooklyn collective that conducts “educational and creative walks.” Not exactly a dérive, or simply running errands, these are walks that take one on a passage through time, space and relatedness. They range from Brooklyn-bound neighborhood investigations, to a planned walk from New York to Detroit. Sometimes Williams’ walks are part of this collective and sometimes she just wanders off by herself. In such endeavors, everything, the work, the audience, the site, the context is taken to be a malleable, plastic component of the artist’s practice.

It comes as no surprise then that Williams’ work itself is fugitive in nature. To begin with, it is ephemeral because [it is] performed. Often [her work] feels like it is on the run – perhaps because of all those walks. And it is not uncommon for her to restage an event, some interaction perhaps, that occurred elsewhere in time and place. Her work is often performed and re-performed collaboratively with different participants, at different sites and with a different, so to speak, script. Thus, the work is never quite the same thing twice. Often Williams is there herself at the center of the work performing, organizing or helping to organize others as they perform. At the same time, it often does not feel as though she is the sole proprietor of the voice we are hearing.

Instead, voices seem to trespass upon one another.

Something we might call “territory” is part of Williams’ overall struggle: who belongs here, what flora belongs where, what voice or language belongs to whom.

Recently, Williams was a participant in a poetry slam for the Al-Mutanabbi Street project. Mutanabbi Street is a thoroughfare in Baghdad, Iraq. It is the historic centre of Baghdad literary and intellectual culture - a street lined with bookstores and book stalls. On March 5th, 2007, a car bomb exploded on Mutanabbi Street. Thirty people died and at least 100 were wounded. In the day-to-day calculus of violence in Iraq, post the U.S. invasion, the numbers themselves were not remarkable. The target, however, resonated with intellectuals and artists far afield.

In far away San Francisco, Beau Beausoleil, a poet and bookstore proprietor, inaugurated the “Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here” project in solidarity with Iraq’s bloodied intellectual community. The project started with a first wave of letterpress-printed broadsides responding to the attack and has evolved over the years to include an anthology of writing, published in 2012, plus some 260 unique artists’ books and an eruption of performances and readings, of which Moira Williams was a part.

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As might be clear by now, for Williams, voices, sources and authorship are dispersed, multi-parented or collectivelyowned. The Al-Mutanabbi Project [echoed that view] and ratcheted up the volume of the many-voiced art work.

Performed at The Center for Book Arts in New York and restaged at several other New York sites, with new and repeat performers – the slam evolved into a multi-linguistic Poetry Sculpture. Readers cum performers read in Arabic, English, Finnish, French, Hebrew, Lenape, Spanish, and Turkish.

Their simultaneous and margin-less voices interwove many languages, while their Dervish and Shaker-like dances wove together the bodies and book-like artifacts from which they read.

It was a mess. A heteroglossial trainwreck of cultures and contexts poaching and infringing across boundaries.

Williams read her poem in Lenape, the language of the Algonquin First Nations from which the artist identifies her own heritage. The poem read by each performer in each language was ‘today I do such simple things’ by Jim Saliba.

The poem memorializes Muhammed al-Dura, the 12-year-old Palestinian boy who was photographed crouching beside his father, moments before the boy was [allegedly] shot dead by Israeli soldiers, at the Netzarim junction in Gaza. The ‘books’ from which the participants read were made from sliced adobe bricks and Persian silk ribbons. The brick and ribbon tablets were smashed as part of the performance. The debris was to be cut up and made into newspaper-style broadsides.

The broadsides would be printed with recipes from and in the language of each of the countries that the United States is currently invading.

So here, Williams the artist is a kind of loaned-out voice: the artist as library book we could say. To be sure, she was the one who organized the specific event. She brought together the performers, created the ‘books’ from which they read and she selected the Saliba poem. Then this event would become folded into the pages of the Al-Mutanabbi project and once there, it all folded deeper into the contested territory of the Middle East. In walking down Al-Mutanabbi Street, Williams’ project sidles up alongside questions about who belongs where, about how people and places come to be named and unnamed. The work straddles political voids in language, and it steps fully into the trespassing of one culture upon another.

Holes in language seem to attract Williams. An earlier performance of hers, bore the unsayable title . Here the fracture in language resounds differently.

Williams was asked to explain the “hat” she wears in this performance piece. Her explanation [came in the form of a] parable about beekeeping. This was a hat, Williams assured listeners, made from bleached newspapers; newspapers from Bogotá Columbia. They were newspapers that Williams had, while working on her beekeeping apprenticeship in Colombia, either slept on by night or worn stuffed into her shoes by day.

Williams’ hope, she said, was that the words of the newspapers would enter her dreams and that, having entered her dreams, she would acquire the ability to speak Spanish, through a sort of linguistic osmosis.

The words and voice we hear through the megaphone are those of Alejandro David Osorio Pérez, her beekeeping mentor. The performance is of Williams walking, gesturing and pantomiming the actions of beekeeping. This is how Williams learned beekeeping; not through words. In this pantomime, language is dismissed from the game to which Williams and Osorio Perez retreated. [Instead, they entered] a strange, penumbral region of communication –they gestured. Semaphore without the flags, they offered each other intuitions and vagaries. Over time, they assembled passages and sequences of actions that filled in local color around the ambiguity of their gesticulations.

“Repetition is remembering,” it is said. To learn the necessary actions of her new skill, Williams would wander the evening streets of Bogotá repeating the gestures she had seen and learned in the preceding daytime hours. This perambulation itself, though not essential to beekeeping, as far as we know, is at the heart of Williams’ practice as an artist.

Walking delivers the world in transitive, in-between or halfcomplete gestures and moments. That these moments and gestures may be more true to the heart of experience than the alleged denotations of words, is interesting but not fully the point. The point, foregrounded by Williams’ performance, is that, whether with words or gestures, we are acting in a social field. Words may be embodied, that is, put into service through a body in social action. And gestures may be the actual body [in motion]. But it is the relatedness that has the sting.

In her performance, the pedagogical gestures Williams and Osorio Pérez exchange with one another, inform the actions that Williams directs toward us; her invisible (since she is blinded by the hat) audience. What we witness is a deaf and blind, but not dumb, hat swallowing a vulnerable body from above. A pained series of gestures emanate from this figure and a painfully hard to hear voice resounds from on top of its head. Should we mirror back her actions – as she did with Osorio Pérez? “Not sure,” is the answer. At the end of watching her performance, will we all be qualified beekeepers? It is possible.

Though perhaps a more reasonable ambition lies in an observation Williams herself made, “Wearing a specific garment and walking a specific way is a gesture, a way to transform. Think John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever.”

Transforming whom or what, one might ask? Well, one another perhaps. Think Saturday Night Fever, dancing, mimicking and mirroring,aping and parroting. Mimicking and mirroring, as Williams and Osorio Pérez rehearsed it, as Travolta and Karen Gorney performed it, is a foundation of relatedness, a way of being with and for one another. By referencing Saturday Night Fever, Williams implies that the garments we wear and the way we walk, stage the person we are for others.

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We can try to understand this schematically as the bees absorbing pollen and making honey, while Williams’ body absorbs words. Pollen thus becomes honey, while words become knowledge. Words burrow their way –from one’s dreams and feet– into one’s brain: a theory of knowledge that can be dreamed into a being through bodily contact.

Williams shared that she got wind of the flaws in her system of language-learning when, one night, she dreamed the words apicultores casco (Spanish for beekeeper’s helmet) The next morning she discovered that those words appeared nowhere in the newspapers that she had been wearing. She then changed pedagogical horses and voided language as a medium for knowledge. She bleached the newspapers. Cleansed of words, they became the material for a hat that encased –and visually obliterated and blinded– her head, while supporting a megaphone. Williams crafted, from these elements, the unpronounceable name of her performance.

In an ongoing series of works titled Exchange and Dirt Shirt, Williams revisits the concerns of territory, trespass and relatedness. The work in question is multipart and multi-genre. It shifts axis from agriculture to social practice with the wave of an arm. For the piece, Williams uses her armpit as the agricultural node where she germinates wheat seeds. That is to say, woven into the hair of her armpit, moistened by the perspiration from her body, the artist actually germinates seeds of wheat that will go on to become the material for baking bread that she, Williams, will serve to her audience. (Here she is the demi-restaurateur of the opening paragraph.)

Let’s clarify. Once the seeds have germinated, they are transplanted from this original site and nursed along to the next state of cultivation in a shirt worn by the artist. The shirt is something of an exquisite corpse: a man’s white dress-shirt or business shirt that has been changed to contain compartments filled with soil in which the seeds are nourished by water taken from public water-sources. Next, the seedlings are transplanted to public land where they are brought to maturity by the artist. The plants are finally harvested and used in the gallery performance by Williams, to bake the aforementioned bread that she serves to her audience.

A spirit of relatedness shapes the work and, relatedly, the work is also a useful cipher for a collapse of narcissism. Aesthetically, narcissism can be identified through its codes of expression. The opening shot in the video portion of Exchange encodes an expectation of feminine seduction and/or narcissism. Williams’ hand is raised as she looks toward the viewer, or a mirror, to her run hand through her hair. Suddenly, shatteringly, the gesture shifts to reveal, on her armpit, an unrecognizable stain. It is truly difficult at first to figure out what we are seeing under Williams’ arm. Codes are broken here (in the sense of “trashed” not “deciphered.”) Cinematic codes to be sure, but also, throughout the entire work of Exchange and Dirt Shirt, codes of production and consumption, codes of dependence and hierarchy.

In a sense, throughout the body of Williams’ work, she re-makes codes of how individuals and groups might relate to one another–how they, we really, might exchange a glance, a word, a gesture or a language; how we might negotiate something we could call our ethical responsibility towards one another and the world.

Biography: Laurence Hegarty is an artist and psychoanalyst base din New York City. His work can be viewed at Laurencehegarty.com

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Caitlyn Kamminga

Jab Molassie: A Caribbean Adaptation of Igor Stravinksy’s L’Histoire du Soldat What originally drew me to Igor Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat as the starting point for an adaptation, is its universal story. Underlying it is the Biblical text, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” Like Shakespeare’s plays, which have been set in every country, language and age, this story is relevant in every society.

Jab Molassie is a re-working of Stravinsky’s enduring morality masterpiece. Based on an old Russian folktale and set in Europe during World War I, Charles Ramuz’ original libretto, written in 1918, is the tale of a deserting soldier who happens upon the devil and winds up selling his soul in exchange for untold wealth. Later the avaricious fighter falls in love with a beautiful princess and must suddenly deal with the consequences of his bargain.

For my Caribbean adaptation, I chose to set the work in the hills of Laventille, overlooking Trinidad’s capital city of Port of Spain. Rather than a world war, [in Laventille] we have a turf war. The main characters are the soldier aka ‘Starboy’, a young musician on the fringes of a gang; a security guard at Starboy’s school, who becomes the Midnight Robber and narrates the story; the princess, a silent dance part, a Carnival queen; and the devil who is a Jab Molassie. Unable to predict the price he will pay for the exchange of his beloved violin for Jab’s magic book, the question remains: can Starboy find his way through, or will he be lost to Jab forever?

I began my research for this project by taking a walking tour of Laventille.

Perched high above the blue Caribbean Sea and looking down on the Savannah where the National Academy for the Performing Arts had recently been planted like an alien spaceship, [I felt like Laventille] might be one of the most beautiful places on the planet.

Dotted with charming pink and green and fading yellow houses, people relaxed on their galleries and limed on the corner.

Yet there is a darker side to Laventille. Ravaged by poverty and unemployment, in recent years harrowing stories of young men’s lives cut short are regularly splashed across the newspapers. Known in the 1940’s as the ‘Dead End Kids’, Desperados, the oldest steel band in Trinidad, are housed in a large youth facility at the top of Laventille Road. However, during the carnival season they now move down to Cadiz Road on the Savannah, as visitors are advised not to venture into Laventille after dark.

It was therefore important in setting the work in Laventille to get beyond the perception of its use as a convenient backdrop in this Faustian tale. Our task then, as Dominique Le Gendre so eloquently stated, was “to capture with just the right and concentrated combination of words, sounds and images what the world of Laventille means, but also to show that Laventille was actually everywhere, not just Trinidad.”

Indeed, that Jab Molassie was a universal human story and that Starboy was Everyman.

Researching the language of Trinidad started with a conversation over a cup of coffee and later a dram of rum with the security guard at my son’s school. We would sit on the steps of the church across the street, where ‘Corporal’ had a clear view of any bacchanal that might take place. He wasn’t shirking his duties, just politely taking time out of his day to chastise me on my choice of words. “They might say that in New Orleans, Miss Caitlyn, he he…but not in Trinidad!” He had a mighty grin that wrapped around his face, his skin taught against his cheekbones. He ripped me to shreds, but always with kindness and I repaid him with doubles and pelau and the occasional bottle of rum.

I had planned to perform the work with Stravinsky’s original score. Written for violin, double bass, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, trombone and percussion, the piece was heavily influenced by the in-vogue African rhythms prevalent in Europe at the time, [when] Europe was in love with Primitivism and that new form of music, jazz! With a similar line-up to an old-time calypso band--bassoon not withstanding: Stravinsky hated the sound of the saxophone and so chose the bassoon instead-- I felt the work was relevant to Trinidad. However, I had come across another adaptation by Wynton Marsallis entitled, A Fiddler’s Tale.

His clarinetist, Stanley Crouch, wrote the libretto, in which a musician sells her soul to her record producer. I began thinking that my piece might be that much more powerful if it had an original score written by a Trinidadian composer.

By chance, my neighbor was related to the carnival historian Peta Bain who lived at the end of our road.

One afternoon I knocked on her door and about four hours later I left with a stack of books and CDs, a notebook filled with carnival characters, which included Jab-Jab- the pretty devil, versus Jab Molassie- the terrifying molasses devil and pages of names of Trinidadian musicians living abroad that Peta felt it was important I should know about. On that list was composer Dominique Le Gendre, an Associate Artist at the Royal Opera House in London, [the city from which] I had just moved.

Dominique and I became fast friends and the decision to ask her if she would be interested in collaborating on this project was an easy one. A classically trained, successful composer living and working in London, Dominique grew up in a Trinidad that did not offer a tertiary education in the arts at the time. The combination of her roots in Trinidad, my roots in New Orleans, our exposure to African rhythms, jazz and Carnival, as well as our classical training, combined to make the perfect partnership for creating a relevant piece of musical theatre.

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reviews During a visit to Trinidad in early 2011, Dom and I were having a bite to eat with another good friend, photographer Maria Nunes, whose exquisite portraits of ole mas characters appear on magazine fronts and galleries in Trinidad and abroad. We had just met with Charlotte Elias to discuss the possibilities of her helping with a production of Jab Molassie. A goddaughter of the late Pat Bishop, a cultural icon beloved by Trinidadians for her commitment to the arts, Charlotte had been very encouraging. Sadly, she was tied up with another project and would not have time to even look at our project until much later in the year. At that point Maria rather boldly stated, “Let me see what I can do.”

Not long after that, Calabash Foundation for the Arts was born. With a mission to provide funding and support systems to promote the development of the arts in Trinidad and Tobago, Calabash, with Maria Nunes at the helm, would take on Jab Molassie as its first project. Those seven little words, “Let me see what I can do,” set the project in action.

Thanks to First Citizen’s Bank, who completely underwrote the commission of Jab Molassie by Calabash, and to Neal and Massy Foundation, who underwrote the first workshop, Act 1 was presented to an audience of speciallyinvited guests on January 18, 2011 at the University of Trinidad and Tobago’s Academy for the Performing Arts.

In the audience that day were representatives from our two sponsors, members of the corporate and diplomatic corps who had supported the venture, as well as members of the artistic community. Described by members of the audience as a “fabulous combination of something familiar and something fresh,” the Director of the Tallman Foundation, Michele Ayoung-Chee, went a step further and called it “the first calypso opera!”

Bolstered by the response, we entered the second series of workshops, which are so important to the creation of a new work for the stage. Included in this second workshop were apprenticeships for students studying at the APA, all of whom received a stipend for their intensive training in a professional setting. Over the full duration of rehearsals and performances, the skills and responsibilities inherent to any professional stage production were passed on, through work experience, to five understudies, as well as to the director’s apprentices, the music director, stage producer and choreographer.

We were extremely pleased to have Trinidadian singers/ actors Wendell Manwarren and Roger Roberts of 3 Canal joining us on stage, as well as soprano Natalia Dopwell, the creative director of the Classical Music Development Foundation of Trinidad and Tobago, and Martina Laird, who is well known for her roles on London stages and in the BBC series ‘Casualty’. Playing Starboy was singer-poet, Muhammad Muwakil. In addition to my colleagues at the Academy for the Performing Arts, we were joined by Etienne Charles on trumpet and Mia Gormandy on double tenor steel pan.

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A final presentation of the work took place at the end of the second set of workshops on June 8, 2013 at the Little Carib Theatre. A full production of the work was planned for 2014, which we hoped would include a tour around Trinidad and eventually, abroad.

Biography: Kamminga currently holds the position of Assistant Professor Double Bass at the University of Trinidad and Tobago, where she specialises in interdisciplinary studies and service learning. A regular contributor to the Teaching Artist Journal, her written works include Jab Molassie and Basses Are Loaded. Her most recent work, River of Freedom, will be featured in the 2016 Bocas Lit Fest.

reviews Citizens for Conservation is a non-governmental organisation which is concerned about protecting the natural and built heritage of Trinidad and Tobago. Formally established in Port of Spain in 1985, the group has done much work since its inception to ensure that the nation’s patrimony is safeguarded. Its greatest accomplishment to date is spearheading the drafting of the ‘National Trust Act’ which was enacted in Parliament in 1999. 2016 projects include an Artisan training programme using the Stations of the Cross at Calvary Hill, Laventille, celebrations for the International Day of Monuments and Sites and planning a meeting with the International National Trusts Organisation (INTO) with the view of assisting the local National Trust to become a vibrant force in the protection of Cultural Heritage.

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visual essays:

introduction

visual essays

John Beadle

Inside-out, Outside-in

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Inside-out, Outside-in, John Beadle (2015) 122 CARIBBEAN INTRANSIT

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visual essays

Janice Cheddie

Annalee Davis: Public Beach, Access, Calypso and Resistance Keywords: Annalee Davis, Barbados, Calypso

Annalee Davis is a Barbadian artist, who works in a variety of media –photography, video, installation and has recently began the successful artist platform, residency, workshop and seminar space in Barbados, Fresh Milk. Her work has covered a wide range of social and cultural issues that are impacting on the Caribbean region, these include the migration within the Caribbean and the treatment of non-documented workers within Caribbean – “Show Me Your Status’ (2009) and Caution 2009/2011. A thread that runs through Annalee Davis’s work is the construction of Caribbean identity within the shifting terrains of colonialism, globalization, and how Caribbean identity can be constructed without a recall to the certainties of race, ethnicity or religion within a region where the inhabitants are mostly migrants – either forced through indenture, slavery, colonialism or migration. Thus, central to the formation of Caribbean identity, for Davis has been the flows and currents of the C aribbean S ea and the Atlantic Ocean. Thus Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean are important aspects of the cultural and physical heritage of the Caribbean – figured in the works of notable scholars and theorists such Robert Farris Thompson and his development of the idea of the ‘Black Atlantic’, further developed by Paul Gilroy and the Caribbean Sea as a backdrop to literary imaginations of the St. Lucian poet Derek Walcott. Thus, for Davis access to the landscape and the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea forms an important part of the cultural heritage of the region.

Some of Davis’s recent work has explored how Tourism as an economic, cultural and social force has impacted on residents of the Caribbean. Focusing on how Barbados has been increasingly marketed to the rich Tourists as playground for leisure, entertainment and pleasure in her works Public Access (2009), a video installation and Just Beyond My Imagination (2006-7) and installation, Davis explores tourism social and economic impact on Caribbean peoples. Specifically on how tourism- as cultural and economic force has sought to create a visual image of the Caribbean, as empty landscape populated by passive and domesticated individuals. A cultural image, which in order to be sustained needs to restrict local access to the beach and its verdant landscape and the sea.

In Public Access an 8-minute video, (http:// annaleedavis.com/work/media.html) Annalee Davis travels from her home in St.George, Barbados to the West Coast of Barbados. Barbados is one of the small islands in the Eastern Caribbean that does not have a volcano. Volcanic

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rock produces ‘black’ or grey sand- and therefore most of Barbados’s beaches have beautiful white loved by tourist brochures and fashion magazines.

The West Coast of Barbados resides on the calmer Caribbean Sea edge of the island and has both white sandy beaches and a more tranquil turquoise blue sea. This coast is known locally as the ‘gold coast’ and has within the last 40 years has become home to the luxury hotels, apartments and holiday homes of the hyper-mobile global wealthy.

Currently, the Barbados tourist board states that Barbados is “ A place where refined luxury and exceptional culinary delights dance and mingle among lush tropical greenery, limpid blue waters and warm golden sunlight”.

In Public Access, Davis highlights the disparity that exists between the unfettered access to the landscape and coast of Barbados being offered, and the reality of access for those resident on the island. Highlighting the underlying narrative of Barbados as an empty landscape waiting to be subject to the tourist imagination. Exploring the disparity between the publicly, marketed image and the restricted access for local people, Public Access, documents Davis, measuring the public access to the beach. Within the video Davis appears not dressed not in the tourist attire of beachwear, but in a casual wear and sandals carrying a surveyor’s instrument.

The video documents her traveling to various public access points along the West Coast and films her repeatedly measuring ten Public Beach Access points. The video visually documents the increasingly limited access points to the beach seven miles of the most lucrative stretch of the West Coast on the island of Barbados, highlighting the physical arrangements that discourage local people accessing the beach. This limitation of access has increasing become manifest as physical infrastructure and local security guards that reinforces the tourist’s board desire to marginalize the local cultural presence.

Public Access presents to the viewer a counter-narrative that seeks to disrupt this marginalization. Davis’s disruption is a sound interruption, to the marketed tourist narrative, achieved by inserting into landscape the sound of a Calypso song. Calypso, like many Caribbean forms is a creative art form that is formed from the experience of migration, with its roots in West African Kiaso, mingled with the European, Asian influences of the Eastern Caribbean.

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Calypso, within Public Access– reflects its earlier cultural manifestations both as popular song and social commentary. The use of the Calypso song allows Davis to insert into this landscape a small act of resistance and reclamation of the Barbadian landscape. This narrative of reclamation and resistance is played out within Public Access through Davis’s performance of a popular Calypso song ‘”Jack! This Beach is Mine”, a song composed and originally performed by local musician, “Gabby”. “Gabby” composed ‘”Jack! This Beach is Mine”, as a response to the Barbados Board of Tourism’s legal counsel advising hotel owners that they had the right to extend their property down to the waterfront. Furthermore, Gabby’s Calypso highlights that the production of the Caribbean as an empty landscape for tourist relaxation is only achieved through physical force and barricades.

I grow up bathin, in sea water But nowadays , that is bare horror If i only venture , from my seashore Police Telling me, i cyan bade no more Cause “JACK” doan want me to bade on my beach “JACK” tell dem to keep me outta reach “Jack” tell dem , i would never make de grade dey STRENGTHEN SECURITY and build barricade Dat cyan happen here in this country I want Jack to know that the beach belong to we dah cyan happen here, OVER MY DEAD BODY Tell big guts JACK “GABBY” say dat de beach belong to we chorus Dat beach is mine, i can bade anytime Despite what they say i gine bade anyway Davis’s Public Access (2010) seeks to reclaim the beach, its landscape and the cultural heritage that it has produced from song, to literature to craft as part of the national heritage of Barbados. A national heritage that is also visually signified within one of the colours of the post independence Barbadian national flag – aquamarine, a cultural heritage that continues to inform the making and imagining of the contemporary Caribbean.

Biography: Janice Cheddie is a UK-based writer on contemporary visual culture, difference, cultural translation and issues of cultural democracy, currently she is Visiting Lecturer at the University of Greenwich

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Pedurand Bruno Entre invisibilité et anonymat

S’interroger sur les concepts d’invisibilité et d’anonymat, nécessite un prisme particulier au regard de la complexité des champs qu’ils recouvrent. J’ai opté pour une analyse à l’aune de problématiques artistiques inspirées du paradigme esthétique proposé par le psychanalyste et philosophe français Félix Guattari.

En effet sa définition de la subjectivité comme une production se situant entre la psyché et le socius, libère le sujet et par la même l’artiste, de sa tour d’ivoire pour qu’il devienne un opérateur social actif. L’artiste peut désormais participer pleinement au jeu social en inscrivant sa pratique au cœur du réel.

La question de l’anonymat se pose depuis toujours en art et force est de reconnaitre que le xxème siècle à contribué largement à la mise à mal de la figure de l’auteur notamment avec les fameux ready made de Marcel Duchamp qui invalide les notions de facture et de style.

A l’heure de la sur exposition médiatique qui offre à monsieur tout le monde la possibilité de devenir une star instantanée, les désillusions sont nombreuses et la diminution sans cesse croissante de la sphère privée incite à un réflexe d’auto protection et de dissimulation.

La mise en péril de l’identité individuelle incite à la protection et dans ce climat d’inquiétude, l’invisibilité et l’anonymat peuvent représenter des valeurs refuge.

La pratique de l’anonymat et de l’invisibilité ne relèvent pas des mêmes enjeux dans le champ des pratiques artistiques. Paradoxalement la dissimulation peut exacerber la curiosité et provoquer un intérêt démesuré, je peux citer en exemple deux artistes : le street artiste Banksy et le plasticien Maurizio Cattelan.

Pour les artistes issus des régions dites émergentes, la donne n’est pas la même. Les artistes de la Caraïbe doivent composer avec le poids de l’histoire, le devoir de mémoire et le dogmatisme du discours identitaire. La localisation géographique est souvent la condition sine qua non pour accéder aux instances de visibilité. Pour les artistes en exil la problématique n’est pas très différente, le lieu d’origine se doit d’être mis à distance mais cette mise à distance n’est qu’une modalité de la relation.

Dans tous les cas le lieu agit comme un déterminant incontournable qu’il faudrait envisager comme une véritable altérité.

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Franklin Roosevelt Sinanan Life’s Journey Altar

This is an altar which is both an installation piece and a sculpture which will never be finished, as it is “ My Life’s Journey” and will continue to grow and change as I do. I am an artist born in Trinidad, who at the age of three was uprooted from the extended family and the warm, lush, vibrant, colorfilled life of Separia to the coldness of a small steel-working town in Canada. The majority of Hamilton was white, with my family being part of a handful of people from the West Indies with East Indian backgrounds. My mother changed her name to “Rose” as “Rasheeda,” her Muslim name was too exotic for the likes of the Hamiltonians.

My uniqueness led to taunts of “Paki” as I navigated my way through the messiness of growing up, scarring me a little along the way. As a young adult I had chances to return to my tropical ancestral home, and live the lifestyle that could have been mine. There I learned of the incredible diversity of food, people, customs, religions and rituals that blossomed so naturally and easily in my small island home.

The confusing mix of lifestyles and feelings swirling within me demanded release, and thus the very nature of my art was born. My eventual move to Miami and the sun, sea, flowers and endless mix of Caribbean peoples triggered an awakened sense of who I truly was and am. The AfroCaribbean vibe that inundates my work is my personal diaspora, and is represented in each piece of my altar. As I have wandered through life I have added items to the altar: gifts, offerings, things I made based upon 144 CARIBBEAN INTRANSIT

religious oddities, and simply trinkets collected along the way.

The funny thing is . . . that I never intended this to be an altar, as it was just an art form. People came in and out of my studio, often commenting about the religious connotation that they assigned to the piece . . . “Oh, that’s Voodoo.” “Is that from Haiti? Or is it Chango? ” even watching Latin mothers steer their children away from it calling it “Santa Ria.” The confusion grew as a local paper penned an article called, “Witch-Doctor Painted What?” and people even sought me out seeking “cures” or “guidance.” The mythology of the piece grew, and I began to search out the relics of the many religions that the Caribbean embraces. Christian, Hindi, Muslim, Voodoo, and more . . . . they’re all there . . . coexisting peacefully in my studio. It’s my Callaloo of sorts.

A friend of mine once helped me put to words something that nicely sums up the essence of this altar . . . and it goes like this . . .

“Everything I have produced and everything I have done, and everything I have experienced are all part of my life. They are all part of my journey. I look forward to sharing that journey with you through my art. At the same time, I know that whether or not we meet along the way, we will meet some day at the end of the road that all of us travel.”

Take a closer look at the altar, and “my life’s journey” in the process.

Victor Anciet

J’ai donné un nom à chacune d’elles écrit Christophe COLOMB dans son journal de bord, parlant des Antilles.

Peut-on à l’instar de COLOMB, renommer les choses, les classer selon notre propre vision du monde ? Peut-on parler d’Art Amérindien, de création artistique amérindienne ?

Quelle est la part de l’artiste contemporain vivant dans nos sociétés où volontairement des pans de notre histoire ont été occultés, tronqués ?

Rappelons nous cette citation d’Eduardo GALEANO Pour que quelque chose n’existe pas, il suffit de décréter sa non-existence Il me semble que l’on ne saurait parler, abordant la culture amérindienne, d’art de la Caraïbe plurielle ; mais que de talent, d’habilité manuelle, si nous considérons comme KANT, que le beau doit être distingué de l’utile, que l’œuvre d’art est une beauté libre, celle qui n’est astreinte à aucune fonction qu’au beau lui même.

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Restitution

Sur nos terres traquées, nous sommes des déportés - le peuple d’AVANT (Amérindien, Caraïbe, Taïnos, Caribe … comme il vous plaira de le nommer) - est lui aussi, sans aucun doute, un peuple de déportés.

Depuis la forêt amazonienne, verticale d’ombres, ils ont déplacé leur horizon au niveau de l’eau, à l’horizontale donc, et ont franchi à bord de gommiers, l’océan pour essaimer nos îles.

Il n’y eut plus alors les grands bois, les oiseaux et La terre ne bougeait plus de la même façon. Leurs portent les traces de cette nouvelle dimension. Nos sans doute constitué de nouveaux espaces-temps peuple de l’AVANT.

le vent. poteries îles ont pour ce

Quelles odeurs, quelles épices ont-ils emportés dans leurs gommiers qui butaient sur le fracas des montagnes d’eau, Quelles images ont-ils gardé du silence de leurs grands bois, de leur paysage ?

En effet, ce que nous reconnaissons comme œuvres d’art de la culture amérindienne, n’ont pas été produites en tant que telles. Elles sont la coïncidence du beau et de l’utile, ce que l’auteur précité appelle la beauté adhérente ; c’est à dire la beauté d’un objet soumis à d’autres critères que le jugement esthétique.

Et moi un adorno à la main , je voudrais reconnaître – connaître et appréhender. Avoir la clé ; mais ma quête est vaine et dérisoire. Moi, l’artiste, le producteur d’images, je suis au seuil des mondes et je voudrais être le témoin du passage : un passeur. Restituer, non pas reconstituer. Restituer au plus grand nombre de Martiniquais les traces que j’ai cru avoir décelées.

Les intentions qui étaient à l’origine des objets furent très diverses : fonctions utilitaires, religieuse ou mythique, intention didactique, support de la mémoire collective, besoin de conjurer les forces extérieures ; car ces peuples en modelant, façonnant des objets utilitaires étaient-ils à la recherche d’une esthétique ? Ne disaient-ils pas plutôt leur manière d’être au monde ?

Il y a des lignes à relier, des points à marquer, il y a tant de mondes à explorer dans nos îles. L’artiste doit redistribuer, en de nouvelles donnes, cet héritage d’ombres et de fracas que beaucoup ne connaissent, sauf ceux qui fréquentent les musées. Amener une prise de conscience des jeunes, les inciter à retourner aux sources, rechercher ce qu’il y a de valorisant dans les civilisations des peuples de l’AVANT.

Ils ont laissé derrière eux un champ de ruines turbulentes – turbulentes parce qu’elles ne cessent de nous troubler, nous interpeller, nous dé-caler, je parle ici, bien sûr, de la notion de temps.

Connaître tous les éléments ( ou composants ) du métissage de ce peuple créole : caraïbe, africain, indien, chinois, européen et leur interpénétration dans notre vécu actuel.

Ces ruines nous décalent par rapport à notre présent. Chaque adorno que nous voyons est une manière de cri. C’est une fenêtre, un passage dans d’autres mondes.

Il faut reconstituer la voile brisée. Tâche gigantesque mais empreinte d’humilité.Leurs dieux ne sont pas morts, les signes peuvent être rechargés de nos propres espérances, de notre propre tragique.

Et c’est au profane, à l’artiste de se métamorphoser, non pas en chaman, mais de se faire quêteur d’ombres, quêteur de sens.

C’est à l’artiste contemporain de pratiquer les rites de passages .La chaîne tragique a été rompue, la fonction de l’artiste est le dévoilement de cet inaperçu ; car l’île est un réservoir de secrets.

Nos barques sont ouvertes pour tousNous les naviguons. Edouard. GLISSANT Empruntons à notre tour les gommiers, hissons la voile mosaïque et allons à la découverte de nos mondes.

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Steve Bauras A l’ombre du mur

Le travail s’érige, trouve son tempo et essaye de faire face.

Faire face à des constantes, des frayeurs, des névroses en essayant de les restituer parcimonieusement.

Il s’ancre bloc après bloc, trouvant peu à peu leur liant.

Le travail se met en branle grâce aux différents déplacements effectués, il se nourrit inévitablement d’un background, de « mon background ».

La volonté est de poser des réflexions, provoquer le débat au regard de ce qui est soumis. Il met en exergue différents traumas, sensations latentes d’un « corps » face au réel.

Explorer, roder, dans des villes, bâtiments laissés là, las d’absurdités, relève surement de points d’ombres de ce fond (background) qui en devient involontairement une matrice du travail.

La photographie qui en résulte, à le souhait peut être vain, de rester proche du sujet incisé. L’œuvre est chancelante à certains moments, mais résiste.

Elle déambule, glane quand elle le peut ses formes dans des univers fictionnels tout en s’adossant au réel qu’elle explore. Aucun enjeu moral n’est à mettre à son crédit, elle se dresse de façon effrontée, sans certitudes ni limites.

Elle ne m’est pas étrangère, mais la garde à distance, me mets à distance, à l’ombre, à l’ombre de ce mur que je semble élaborer. L’ombre proposée, permettant des temps de pauses, d’accalmies, de préserver un certain anonymat.

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Valérie John Mon Atelier

Mon atelier est aménagé dans un vaste garage attenant à la maison de mon enfance. La géométrie prédomine, le rectangle plutôt, celui de la pièce, celui de la table et des panneaux suspendus déployés, odoriférants, mats ou brillants. Tout est apparemment de l’ordre de l’écran, du rectangle, de la mesure.

L’essence même de l’œuvre, c’est le rapiècement. Je recompose et répare.

Atelier Photo Dino Feigespan Pourquoi rapiécer…

Pour recouvrir une cassure, une blessure. Je tente de faire quelque chose de neuf. Un corps neuf avec des bouts de rien du tout, ce qu’évoquait le poète Aimé Césaire dans Maillon de la cadène et qui conditionne cette esthétique de l’hybride : « avec des bouts de ficelle avec des rognures de bois avec de tous les morceaux bas avec les coups bas avec les feuilles mortes ramassées à la pelle avec des restants de draps avec des lassos lacérés avec des mailles forcées de cadène avec des ossements de murènes avec des fouets arrachés avec des conques marines avec des drapeaux et des tombes dépareillées par rhombes et trombes te bâtir » (aimé Césaire, Maillon de la cadène, in Moi, Laminaire) Je confectionne mon support en juxtaposant, superposant, amalgament plusieurs couches de papiers récupérés, des feuilles de carbone de photocopieur conservant ainsi les traces résiduelles de tout ce qui est photocopié auparavant.

En fin de compte l’ensemble devient rigide, résistant, dur et épais; la surface paraît bosselée, accidentée, boursouflée.

La couleur naît de la matière, même si elle est rehaussée, ravivée quelquefois par des pigments. C’est l’arrachage du carbone, hasard et maîtrise, qui crée ces éclats de «blancheur opaline », diaphane tels des surgissements dans la densité des noirs. Un noir que je ne fabrique pas. Un noir qui s’élabore curieusement, par la réunion de l’alchimie et la technologie, différentes étapes et strates, un noir qui n’est pas sombre.

Paradoxalement éruption de lumière, provoquée par la multitude de couleurs-lumières réfugiées en lui. Surgissement de brillances. Éruptions lumineuses dues à la couleur qui réagit, qui traverse ce noir dense parcimonieusement. La lumière est au-dessus du noir ou des noirs, elle est en dessous du noir ou des noirs. Elle dévore le noir. La couleur pratique la traversée aussi. Traversée qui interroge l’artiste. Un noir inquiétant pour l’artiste, car il fait prendre des risques.

Artiste-amarreuse…

Je suis artiste-amarreuse en référence au travail des femmes créoles dans les champs. Ces femmes attachent chaque brassée

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de tiges de cannes en les ficelant solidement. Mon travail qui s’apparente au tissage, au tressage et à l’assemblage à ici une résonance avec les activités sur les «carreaux de cannes». Je vous invite à explorer mon champ: la géographie m’importe, j’aime construire dans l’étendue, à plat. Je tourne autour de la table que je rêverais «voir d’en haut»: les carrée, les pavements, les champs rectilignes, les couleurs assemblées.

En sorcier, j’instaure une pratique qui se nourrit de ce passif chargé. Cette métamorphose me met en posture de dépassement ; je souhaite l’errance. Je peux ainsi traverser des lieux interdits. Je suis dans le lieu du rituel; Le lieu de la pratique; Le lieu refuge où le passé et le présent fusionnent pour laisser émerger une œuvre... toujours inachevée. Le lieu du labeur quotidien basé sur le principe du détour, de l’hétérogène. Le détour devient un concept clé, il désigne un changement de direction. Je peux alors agir, me permettre de provoquer et d’éprouver les signes les plus divers ; dans ce lieu se conquièrent les petites déviances qui font avancer. J’use d’artifice. J’emprunte au quotidien ses rites et ses instruments.

Là se perpétue des gestes immémoriaux ; des gestes géniteurs capables de créer une relation entre la matière et sa métamorphose, déplacement surprenant, une terre où l’on rencontre l’imprévisible, l’incertain, qui ouvre le champ des possibles. Seul domine le geste, geste complexe, réseau de pratiques sociales et culturelles. «Vaste héritage assumé puis redonné». (Paul Faucher, De nature) Je, «artiste- passeur-de-matière- amarreuse», multiplie les gestes, comme si j’avais le pouvoir de rendre visible tous les désirs qui m’assaillent. «Mon lieu devient le lieu du rassemblement. Non pas lieu d’ensemble unifié et de totalité structurante, mais espace d’association et de générosité où prennent place l’émotion et le doute... Les lignes grimpent, se croisent, se superposent, s’annulent, resurgissent, coagulent en million de gestes répétés qui rythment et évoquent des significations possibles. Il s’agit de dire à la fois l’individualité et l’isolement, l’unicité et l’ouverture… Le lieu de l’œuvre est l’espace de l’événement, résultat imprévisible d’un amalgame pourtant souhaité, préparé et imaginé…Il faut assurer les conditions propices pour que le phénomène arrive, intervienne et bouleverse. L’œuvre est ainsi le lieu du don, l’occasion d’un abandon, de l’oubli. Les fils qui la retiennent au métier se détachent de la matrice, l’œuvre en qui tout est investi, est livrée…» (Laurier Lacroix, La signature du signe).

Mes supports peuvent avoir dix couches de papiers. Chercher mon support, le créer, c’est la base de mon travail. C’est de là que tout part. La superposition est toujours là, en épaisseur, ce qui est premier arrive en dernier et certaines choses vont être recouvertes, d’autres apparaître. Il est certain que le rapport direct et prolongé avec des Africain de l’ouest et leurs arts m’a permis de m’approprier de manière critique les éléments que je souhaitais développer.

Je veux recréer une complicité avec l’assemblage des pagnes, les nœuds et le tissage. Je ne souhaite pas « réifier » des « signes africains » pour illustrer ou revendiquer une position idéologique, je prends une posture de recherche que j’inscris

Je continu à interroger à décrypter le lieu qui a fait de cette femme une amarreuse L’habitation …

Les esclaves, eux, ne sont que des africains déportés, ceux-là doivent réinventer la vie. Ce sont ceux qu’Edouard Glissant appelle « les migrants nus ». Ceux dont le bagage se résume à des traces nébuleuses dans le repli de la mémoire. Nous sommes face à une mémoire fuyante, à conserver, une histoire éclatée à retenir, à restaurer, à inventer. Qui dans cet espace particulier de la plantation va permettre cela ? Peutêtre celui qui est l’héritier du cri, celui qui sera capable de passer du cri à la parole, capable de se transformer en « artiste du cri » . Le « paroleur », notre conteur créole. C’est celui qui, en plein cœur des champs et sucreries, reprendra à son compte la contestation de l’ordre colonial, utilisant son art comme masque et didactique. Arrêtons-nous sur cet espace, cette habitation où officie le conteur, cette unité autonome qui vit d’elle-même sur elle-même. Elle occupe d’abord des terres plates en bordure de mer ou à l’embouchure des rivières, puis grimpe les mornes, s’étage à mesure que les colons défrichent. Seulement, l’habitation n’est pas seule. Autour d’elle se tisse la présence métropolitaine (église, port). L’habitation a donc des relais administratifs et religieux. Ce sont les bourgs. L’habitation a aussi des ouvertures sur le monde. Ce sont les villes.. Mais la ville c’est aussi une zone d’acculturation.

Et le conteur …

Peut-être est-il celui qui se souvient du griot africain. Il sera dans le contexte de l’habitation obligé pour survivre de déployer sa résistance, de trouver son langage ; de mettre en œuvre les manières du détour. Langage qu’il nourrira de vestiges caraïbes car il trouve déjà fonctionnelle la lecture de cette terre nouvelle. Langage aussi qu’il prendra aux colons, il faut admettre la nécessité d’utiliser ce langage, témoin de « la fascination-répulsion » qu’exerce sur le vaincu les valeurs culturelles du vainqueur. Même s’il cherche au départ à mobiliser en lui uniquement l’Afrique mère, il est créole. « Il est multiple, déjà mosaïque, déjà imprévisible » . Ce qui caractérise l’ensemble culturel de l’habitation est c’ une ambiguïté qui ne disparaîtra jamais de notre être créole.

Nous sommes en situation d’ambivalence, est c’ l’acceptation et le refus, c’est la pulsion mimétique et c’est le besoin farouche de différence. Cette ambivalence se retrouve chez tous les habitants du lieu élargi de l’habitation, du centre s à périphérie. L’exiguïté du lieu, la non-possibilité de fuir car la mer autour, sans arrière-pays géographique, sans arrièrepays culturel sinon le lancinement d’une mémoire en voie d’effacement, les habitants se voient obligés de prendre en compte ce nouvel ordre de l’existence.

Force est de constater que ces différents groupes ethniques vivront sans le percevoir « leur processus commun de créolisation » . Non seulement ils ne le perçoivent pas mais ils le mésestiment ; et quand ils le soupçonnent, ils le mépriseront. L’habitation avait développé l’inattendu. C’est dans cet espace complexe qu’officie ce personnage, le conteur à la tombée de la nuit dans cette liberté nocturne.

Cette pratique semble être celle du choc de nos consciences.

Cette esthétique va s’affronter aux valeurs du système colonial et répandre subrepticement de multiples contre-valeurs, une contre-culture.

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dans un processus plastique.

Cette langue du conteur né au sein de l’habitation réfléchit dans ses phrases la diversité du monde. « Etre langue écho monde »…Ne devrions-nous pas être les héritiers de tout cela ? De qui devrions-nous être les descendants ? Il semble que l’esprit se forme historiquement à coup de mémoires accumulées au cours des temps. Il y a la mémoire personnelle, et ce que nous partageons avec d’autres. C’est cette marge de connaissances historiques qui se glisse dans notre mémoire personnelle et qui vient de la culture que nous avons reçue, de l’enseignement que nous avons reçu.

Comment passer de cette mémoire collective qui fait de nous ce que nous sommes, à cette mémoire plastique ? Comment ce patrimoine habite-t-il notre identité de peintre ? Chaque artiste a conscience de ce quelque chose qui le distingue de ses ancêtres. Pour certains, le cercle est grand et pour d’autres il est petit. Il existe de fait pour tous. « Peut-être l’art n’est que l’univers vu à travers toute l’étendue d’un homme » . Cette « étendue » nous donne la limite de notre étendue. L’identité artistique est dans ce que l’on peut expulser de son propre corps. Comment sortir de l’habitation antillaise, qui préfigure au plan de l’imaginaire, la matrice d’une société plurielle ?

Comment être en phase avec ce lieu chargé ? Etre antillais… créole. Quelle pratique construire ? Quel positionnement ?

Etre dans l’inattendu, dans l’errance, être dans la ruse, le détour, l’appropriation, toujours en mouvement, dynamique.

Comment trouver un lien de parenté entre les ?œuvres et le lieu ? Quel est donc le fil poïétique qui accompli cette mémoire du lieu et cette mémoire plastique présente d’œuvre en œuvre Faire œuvre ou plutôt se faire œuvre.

Comment arriver à révéler ce que je suis dans ce que je fais ?

L’instauration de l’œuvre doit se comprendre non pas sous l’angle du projet mais plutôt dans la dynamique du trajet.

Ce dernier concept mis en avant par Etienne Souriau dès les années 1950, illustre mieux les détournements des desseins et des dessins originels provoqués au cours du travail par l’influence des images et des matériaux, rejetant les idées de finalité et de projet qui supprime l’expérience du faire, ce dernier insiste sur l’avancement progressif de l’œuvre vers sa existence concrète au cours du trajet qui y conduit, trajet où cet avancement est sans cesse mis en péril et sans cesse conquis par chaque proposition concrète de l’agent instaurateur. Devant une telle hétérogénéité l’artiste se donne pour tâche de séparer pour mieux joindre, de réunir pour mieux dissocier. En fait, il est impossible d’isoler un élément sans considérer le tout, il est aussi utopique de clore l’unité en faisant fi des différences qui la composent. Il faut tisser ainsi à la croisée de la matière et de ses errances, des liens ambivalents qui se forment par l’empiètement, la superposition des parties, fragments de l’œuvre à faire. C’est l’aventure de la création. C’est l’édification d’une trame qui permet de construire le corps de œuvre. l’ VOL 3 | ISSUE 6 | FALL 2021

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visual essays

Hope Brooks Goat Island

Goat Island Preservation or Profit. Year: 2015, Mixed Media

The first of a series of four mixed media paintings each comprising four panels looking at the Development of the Goat Islands situated on the South East coast of Kinston Jamaica. The Goat Islands are protected by the Portland Bight Agreement made by the Government of Jamaica to preserve

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the Goat Islands as an ecological site. Recent developments have proposed to build a transshipment port on the Goat Islands to coincide with the widening of the Panama Canal.

The Goat Island Suite is in support of maintaining the Goat Islands as an ecological site.

visual essays

William Cummins

Living Photography - Art through the lens

William Cummins is a multi-disciplinary artist residing in Barbados. Besides Fine Art, he is a graphic design and photography professional. His first solo photography exhibit was held in February 2015 and titled “To Look, Perchance

To See”. Publications include Peripatetikos (2012), “To Look, Perchance To See” (2 Volumes) (2015) and Space/No Space (2015).

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introduction

Njelle Hamilton

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Gyal

From Anti Rissa runway go Foreign she don't turn the black o’ her y’eye Dung-a-Yaad, even the last time she come Jamaica couple years after Uncle Grey big funeral, when she did get Poor Antonio Marina (now Rissa Rosini Marina) and Market Square (now Rissa Rosini Square) named in her honor, and the Custos give her the keys to the city. True, that year she did apparently give Mama money to fix up this side of the house to her heart’s content so you could have your own room and Mama could have big kitchen and veranda with rocking chair overlooking the sea and a whole section for her plants. Mama pleased so till and declare, loud enough for her voice to carry in the lane: Is not mean Rissa mean, you know? Is just that she don’t like give out cash just so; you have to tell her exactly what you want and why.

fiction

Well, apparently Pa-D and Daddy figure out the system, because that time Anti Rissa did give them money to build a proper studio—that is when they move Chariot from out-a-road and build it beside the house, over to the mangrove side, for Anti Rissa and Mama did always prefer to have the studio closer to the house and more private, far away from the rest of the neighborhood and Grey Wolf groupie and foreign journalist looking for where the early magic happened. But even so, is just since the other day that she finally deign to send money to add on a guest wing. And she send container-load of fancy things plus commission this old man from Black Hill name Maas Roy to make hand-made Jamaican mahogany furniture. And you and Mama spend Easter holiday and Labor Day furnishing and decorating not just guest wing but the whole house, because Anti Rissa have to extra and is long time Mama want her house to look boasty. Mama don’t joke to take out the expensive painting-dem in the middle of the yard so dem odder one can see them and call out loud to PaD and the delivery man-dem so the whole lane can hear: Oy, please be careful with that vase—and she pronounce it to rhyme with days. It’s a genuine Nippon antique and worth more than you could ever work in your life.

But for all the refurbishing and guest-wing-building, and even when Anti Rissa call from Boston couple months ago talking ‘bout how she can’t wait to see unu, you did sure she not going turn up, especially since the date she say she coming is normally when she go on summer tour in Europe and all ‘bout. Like how she always promising Mama to send for her for holiday or she coming for holiday and still can’t reach, so till Mama start make up excuse why she, Mama, don’t want to travel in the winter because her joints, her joints!—young-young Mama, you know, who just barely pass fifty—and how she can’t travel in summer because she have to do teacher-training workshop and horse dead and cow fat. So that when Anti Rissa end up saying, Oh, sorry Mama, we’re gonna be in Turin;

or: You know Mama, the kids really wanna be in Paris for the holiday, Mama just say, No man, I couldn’t travel right now anyway; Not going work this year, Rissa: embassy have big backlog of visa appointments.

And you would just spin the globe Daddy give you for your sixth birthday when he was going off on the last world tour with Grey-dem, spin the globe and stick a push pin in all the fancy place-name Anti Rissa would call, a different color every year, so that Anti Rissa red and yellow and blue and orange and magenta and ecru push pins, in color-names you did have to look up in dictionary, crowd out the sea-green push pins that mark the Jah Chariot tour and all the places your father trod.

Well, imagine your surprise a couple weeks ago when Anti Rissa call asking if the guest wing ready for she and her husband and pickneys coming down for the whole summer to play Sumfest and look investment property to buy and all manner of things.

OK. Fun and joke aside.

Anti Rissa kinda infuriating still, you know. After all this time, after all the letters you write begging her to file for you, even take you for a summer or sponsor you to go college and live with them, is now she coming Jamaica, now when you about to leave with your own money and on your own merit. Is now she really coming, when you almost kinda don’t need anything from her. Well, ok. Except maybe money, and maybe her industry contacts from that movie she did a few years back. But now you ‘fraid to ask make she shame you again like all the times before. If she think it so hard to help her own mother, her own twin sister, her owner brother, you think is you she going help?

Yet still, the moment you hear that them actually coming, you jump in the jeep before Daddy could say fé.

—But wait, is where you come from? And him laugh and start the engine. OK, ma’am. Buckle up.

You start to imagine that you in a road movie instead of you and Daddy driving round Junction narrow road and tight corner where the road bendup like them put one S in a trash compactor and you press in between hill and gully, and when big truck coming round one corner the whole line of vehicle on your side have to stop, maybe even reverse, or inch up into the mountain armpit so big truck can squeeze past you without toppling over into the Wag Water river.

But this landscape keep yanking you out of road-movie dreams.

North coast would probably be more suitable, although that still don’t count as highway. Maybe Jamaica too small and bend-up

Daddy alone was going be there when Anti Rissa and her family and entourage land, so that when JBC camera video her arrival to broadcast on TV that night, your UWI classmates would realize that is true you were talking that your Anti is probably the most famous singer in the world.

—What you need to do is to unthink the tropes, Max always say.

Is the road movie about the road or freedom? Is it about the car or travel? Is it about change through movement, or change through monotony? If freedom, where would a Jamaican go to experience freedom and what mode of transportation would she take? Or, if about the road, how would the essence of the storytelling change with the reality of Jamaican roads, of how Jamaicans experience the road?

Well maybe is a good thing Anti Mari coming airport with unu. For, except at the funeral—which you don’t really remember apart from the clips that show on TV or come in Grey Wolf documentary or the grainy photos in newspape —you never see Anti Mari and Anti Rissa side by side yet, and all your life you dying out to see if they really look so different for true.

—I don’t know; I mean… maybe the road move trope is just not right for here because most people don’t own their own cars like in America—you know how in every show once they turn sixteen they take driver’s ed and their parents buy them a car? So maybe the road movie is all about the American notion of ownership and cars as freedom that we don’t have here. Everybody I know is a walk-foot or ride bicycle or have to take bus go everywhere.

—You’ve struck upon something important: how place informs story. Use that in your own film-making.

But you couldn’t bother. You did more interested in thinking about the idea with Max, watching him think and watching him watch you think, than in the idea itself.

You didn’t want to film no barefoot-trodding-through-theBlue-mountains movie, you want to experience the world at the scale that would make a road movie—or whatever movie you imagine—possible. You wanted road movies and elevator movies and upstairs-downstairs movies and snow-and-skiing movies and roasting-chestnuts-andtoasting-marshmallows movies and subway movies and yacht movies and Northern lights movies and desert movies.

Maybe that’s why you jump in Daddy jeep—because even though you want to vex with Anti Rissa for not giving you access to the world and all it have to offer, she still coming, she and your cousins who live in Foreign and travel the world every year on tour and who get to live and dream in a world that big and wide and full of possibilities. If Daddy stories about Foreign from the couple times him tour with Grey Wolf and Chariot of Flames so full of wonder, imagine all you can learn from Anti Rissa and your boasty cousins— much more than you already know from watching every single interview she give on MTV and Profile and 60 Minutes and Oprah and Barbra Walters and red carpet; and from watching and memorizing and acting out all her music videos and the one movie she feature in; from plugging her albums into your ears and trying to imagine the life behind them, imagining you living the life behind them. You jump in Daddy jeep because you have to be close to that again—the evidence of making it, that one of you, one of Mama generations, can make it in Foreign and make Mama and the whole of Jamaica proud. Plus if you eggs-up you can finally get access to stooch Jamaica to put in your films.

But instead of driving to airport, Daddy turn off to go Anti Mari house. Your heart drop. You were hoping is you and

fiction

bend-up and hilly-hilly to make proper road movie. Nowhere to go in this place; jumping in a car with love interest or a group of friends and driving just to feel free is not something that you can imagine here-so, no matter how much Max keep encouraging you to.

It hard to remember sometime that you only ever see Anti Rissa once or twice in real life: when she’d come down for the funeral and when she’d get the keys to Portie, and both times you never really spend much time with her because she never really spend much time with unu. And not to mention say when she finally did in front you in the flesh, you did suddenly overcome with shyness. For you really only know your Anti Rissa from her voice on the phone, from behind the TV screen or magazine glossy cover, or the foldout liner notes of a CD booklet. Kinda the same way you only know Uncle Grey from the sound of him voice filtered through radio static or LP needle trackings. It different with Anti Mari and Daddy, because there is one version of them out there in the world of musical fame and Jamaican history, and another version, the ordinary Anti Mari and Daddy you live with and know all them tics and annoyances, the ordinary Anti Mari and Daddy who you wouldn’t look twice on if you pass them on West Street or in Market. Well, you would probably look twice on Anti Mari, still. Because when you see her your brain would start to perk up and say, Wait, this lady here look like somebody me know... But as she get closer you'd think, No sah, just look like any other poor soul, like some woman who just one more heartbreak from going to Ward 21 to lie down and rest her brain.

People use the twin-sisters past like is their last name, their destinies: “Rissa Runway,” “Mari Mashdown.” So, for all your life is that you know them as. Rissa Runway: Anti Rissa in Foreign doing fabulous things, flitting from one magical place to the next. Mari Mashdown: Anti Mari lying prone on Mama and Pa-D bed like she dead, her hair knot-up and wild; baby Brown crawling all over the house looking for him twin brother; six-year old Likkle screaming into the night; Mama getting up to go and slap the louver windows shut, shut out the noise of the waves and when that don’t calm down the pickney-dem, making them chocolate tea pounding the cocoa lump soft and strong in the mortar, the rich smell of mother love saturating the air. And Daddy, footfall soft like a whisper, taking time to go si’ down on the stairs outside the bedroom they staying and play him guitar. Always the same song, the same chords, the same verse, over and over till everybody calm down, pickney-dem drink the chocolate tea and fall asleep: Brown curl up in Mari side, Baby sprawl over Mari back, and Likkle with her forefinger and ring finger in her mouth, drooling on Daddy leg and him have to scoop her up carefully like you scooping out jelly meat, tiptoe carry her and tuck her in whatever warm spot left near Mari body, draw the sheet over them and tiptoe back to where you hiding under the stairs pretending to sleep. Scoop you up too. Hold you near him heart where him normally cradle him guitar, and deposit you unwillingly in your bed.

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fiction

That’s all you remember of Brown and the girl-twins from that time. Red, you only remember as a tiny coffin going into a tiny hole in the ground; as the name on Mama and Pa-D tongue when Anti Mari would come and go from up hospital all hours of night and day and collapse on the bed like dead somebody, reeking of death, or what you sure is the smell of death, for she used to smell of Dettol and Carbolic soap just like the man that drown up Rio Grande the summer before that, the first dead somebody you ever see in your life. And the stench of the bloated man, bloated and ashy gray, latch itself in your nose and even in your dreams you could still smell him and you did sure that him in the bathroom Dung-aYaad in the dark because you could smell him in there. Is not long after the man drown that Uncle Grey dead too and in your mind you tangle up the bloated gray man with Uncle Grey dead and although you know from Daddy when him finally come home from hospital in Merca where Uncle Grey was deading that Uncle Grey mawga down from the cancer (although come to find out much later that it was AIDS), all now when you think of Uncle Grey deading you see the drowned man and smell the dead smell. And Mama say to PaD, Wonder who next, death and trouble always come in threes. And you not sure if she was counting the drowned man or if Uncle Grey was number one of three. So when Uncle Grey dead and unu wake up one night to a loud sound like attaclapse and Pa-D draw for the machete under himand-Mama bed and shift away the curtain and look out to see is Mari that on the doorstep, eyes wild and staring and the three pickney-dem henging on to her frocktail, something wrapped in a white blanket in one arm and dragging a raggedy suitcase behind her, and Mama bawl out Jesus-Savior-Pilot-Me and Mari collapse in Pa-D arm and them carry her lay her in their bed, you sure is Anti Mari was going dead next. Mari Mashdown: lie down on her mother bed and couldn’t get up.

Death come in threes.

But Mari don’t dead. Is Red dead left her, left him twin as a singleton. Left him death stench on him mother like kusskuss perfume, like him mark her with the smell to say, You next, Mumi.

But Mari don’t dead. Although dem odder one would tame they usual jeers to a whisper now when she pass like a ghost: All the same, if my husband did dead of penis cancer from all the woman him cheat ‘pon me wid, and same woman throw me out me own house, and me nurse me own pickney to him grave, me woulda just lie down and dead.

But Mari don’t dead. Nor Brown, nor the girl-twins, though for the few months she and them lived Dung-a-Yaad until they go back to Town to live in one cotch-up rent house after the next, every time Anti Mari would walk by her pickney-dem she would sniff them, as if her nose can tell if they alright or about to slip away from her make she have to watch as pall bearer lower them in a tiny hole while all she can do is stand up there on the bank of dirt staring down and swaying like she about to jump in there behind them.

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Must be from that your spirit don't take her. And you did always feel she don't like you neither, even though you lived at her yard for three whole years when you were at university. You sure she know something about your origins—she was probably on the same tour with Daddy when him get your mother pregnant; the same tour probably when she get pregnant with Likkle and Baby, for they just a couple months older than you. Maybe she know who is your mother and your mother somebody shameful, I mean, what other reason could it be why Daddy carry you come to Mama after you born and all now don’t say fé ‘bout her?

But you never feel comfortable asking Anti Mari about it because whoever she was before, whatever she did see and feel and know, is like she lock it tight like when water lock off and all you pull and twist the pipe nothing not going come out. Lock away everything to do with Grey and Chariot and reggae and touring and Foreign. Is not just Daddy who stop touring. At least Daddy still play and produce for all them reggae singers trying to reach Grey level of artistry and fame and who come Chariot just to gaze in awe at Grey favorite guitar, him flame-bedecked custom Gibson that Daddy take heng up on a wall inside the studio, heng it up like how him heng up him owna international career. But is like all of Anti Mari life before Grey and Red dead just disappear into the sea of forgetfulness. She don’t call Grey name, she don’t sing reggae—don’t sing at all, as a matter of fact, just hum. Some kinda humming where she drag every note to see-me-no-more so till you can’t even recognize is which song she humming.

Wasn't till last year when you were looking about to go NYU that final time and pestering Anti Rissa to file for you that it occur to you that is maybe jealous she jealous, or hurt that you, like everybody else, worship Anti Rissa.

Hear her in her soft, sneaking voice: Irie, you can’t believe anything that Rissa say. She will mean it when she say it— though plenty time she will just be saying things on the spur of the moment—but there will be no follow through. Rissa don’t have it in her to be thinking about other people or thinking to help people. People think Rissa is a star but she more like star-apple: would rather stay up in the treetop and rotten rather than drop a-ground so people can enjoy it. By the time she hang up the phone you and your concerns fly out her mind.

That just get you vex, even if by then you done already suspect that is true. Anti Mari only encourage you and pray for you when you want something boring or ordinary, but anytime you let slip your real dreams she always have some scripture or some warning.

Hear her: Sometimes I wish Rissa would write you back for true, but write you back and tell you the truth about foreign and superstardom. Is not all that glitters is gold, you hear?

You would have to bite your tongue not to spit back: Is not my fault or Anti Rissa fault why you here mash down. But is

Oh: maybe that’s what ‘Anti’ mean after all.

You sure is that Anti Mari see in your heart why she don’t like you. And you see that and don’t like her neither. For is like Anti Mari is a threat to your very survival and if you let her get close to you or influence you, you will end up stuck here and beaten down too, despite all your dreams and talent and brightness. Is why even when she praying for you, even for something you desperately need, you just start panic and start squirm out from under the laying on of hands until Anti Mari eyes fly open and she stop praying out loud and turn away and continue praying under her breath so you can slink out the room.

If it wasn’t sake of Max you wouldn’t even did try cozy up to Mari to see if one day you could get her to tell you what happened. And not even what happened to Grey, for as she always say, there is no shortage of stories about Missa-Man. Every walk you walk you buck-up in one next memoir, one next article, one next documentary about Grey’s life and music. Your own father have enough stories to tell if you want hear about Grey Wolf and back in the day.

But last semester when you working as Max’s research assistant, him send you to Gleaner head office to scour them archives for newspaper articles about the early days of reggae, and is so you buck up a grainy photo of Anti Mari.

Is the caption you read make you know is her and not Anti Rissa. Unlike the other photos of Chariot of Flames back in the day—whether studio shot or stage shot—this one had Grey off to the side, not center. And it didn’t take the Soul Sisters at an angle where the profiles of Rissa and Mari and Sidonie blur into a vague three-in-one anonymity— Sidonie face against the backdrop of the indistinguishable twins. And this photo is not like the typical shot of Grey with him guitar, or Grey singing and Daddy on bass. Here the photographer centered Mari—a young Anti Mari, lush and fleshy like how Anti Rissa look now. Mari, not with a microphone but with a guitar: face aglow, eyelids half-aflutter as she strum, and you can feel the sweetness of the tune through the grainy photo. And you know is really sweetness she playing because in the right edge of the photo Grey sitting on a chair facing her, him eyes closed in ecstasy like those iconic photos of him on stage when music sweet him. And in the background Daddy and some of the other musicians all twisting their heads to look at Mari, faces frozen in surprise and delight.

And the caption: Reggae superstar Grey Wolf takes five while recording ‘Love is Fire’ at Studio 54, London, October 1977. L-R: Marielle Maragh, Dani Maragh, Carlton Briggs, Phonso Wright, and Grey Wolf.

Nothing about Mari playing guitar. Your Anti Mari. Playing.

Guitar!

Is so you started to wonder ‘bout Mari’s story and dig up every mention of her. Not the story about Grey and his philandering. Not the version in everybody’s story about Grey that celebrate or excuse his womanizing by saying but he was on a mission for Jah. Or how he was so sexy that all manner of women was beating down him door. And how Mari understood his mission and so gave him permission to have affairs right in front her face.

Some versions have it that Mari would even carry some groupie to him. If him say, I like that dawta, eno, or if some girl come backstage saying, Please I just have to meet Grey, people really have it to say that Mari would mediate Grey’s hook-ups and go sleep in the next room with Rissa or Sidonie. And when Grey and the Milhado chick was in one intense love affair for years and years right up to him death—all deh him bedside when him dead—how Mari would cook dinner for them and wash Grey’s sheets that him and Megan Milhado sleep on and have sex on, in her own marital abode to backside!

fiction

like she could read your heart—maybe that spirit of discernment or word of knowledge you hear she and her church friends talking about—that she could tell that is Rissa who you want be like, not Mari who just remind you of what your life would be like if you stay in Jamaica. Is not even fame and success so much. Rissa look like the picture of health and happiness—all that you associate with Foreign.

While Anti Mari look like a withered, beaten down, suck out, version of Rissa. A picture, a warning of your own future.

The way those people talk about your Anti, your Anti that you don’t even like that much, make you so mad you’d have to get up and leave the archives room and find a bathroom to just bust out a-bawling. You couldn’t even bring home any of the material you photocopy, because the thought of Likkle and Baby reading them make you sick to your stomach. How them walk around in the world with all those stories about their father, about their mother, out there? Is like in other people’s mouths your Anti become this other person, worse than the shell-version of Anti Rissa that you know her as all your life.

And is not that you believed their versions—you couldn’t; their Imaginary Mari just don’t sound real. Is like you hearing their stories but seeing a faint outline of your Anti underneath. Like a caul covering her true face and if you could just peel it off you would see, not even the Anti you live with, but another Anti Mari, a Mari that nobody don’t see for decades now, maybe even a Mari she never show anybody, n’even Rissa, n’even Grey.

It take a long time to write that to Max, to make him know that’s your family, and then to write about your rage when you hear those stories. But even when him say—him don't write it; him say—I need to see you, and when you go him office him say, Not here. And him make up some reason to invite you and Kiva and two guy from class to him lecturer flat for dinner, and him cook for unu, cook him vegan tofu meatless concoction that you couldn’t believe taste sweet so, and ply unu with questions and regale unu with stories, and then just before unu left to walk back to campus, after unu out on him veranda under the porch light giving more joke and you never know is so Max funny, after Kiva and Neville and Lenworth start walk down the porch steps to go home saying, Bye sir, in sing-song unison like they know something up, Max take your hand. Yes. Prof. Marsden 'Max' Dunning himself. Hold your hand as you walking away.

And you look back on him with your heart like it going jump out your chest.

And him say: It’s you. You need to tell this story. Tell her story.

This is what will make your film-making, your art authentic.

Write from that rage, that compassion. Write your own version. You know what you told me once, that your family’s gift is various forms of storytelling? Irie, this is you.

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fiction I see YOU! And you frighten so till. Frighten at what him telling you, maybe, but more frighten by him face, glorious in the porch light, the intensity in him eyes locked with yours, the feel of him hand holding yours, and you thinking, Oh my God, Max love me and Max is touching me, right here on the porch of him house where he just cooked me dinner, and right in front of Kiva and Neville and Lenworth and my God how to let go him hand before he pull me to him and kiss me? Before me pull him to me and suck out him soul-case?

So, you pull away your hand, fast-fast, and run down the steps to your classmates.

__ Excerpted from a novel, Everything Irie.

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short stories

And him say: It’s you. You need to tell this story. Tell her story. This is what will make your film-making, your art authentic. Write from that rage, that compassion. Write your own version.

Njelle Hamilton

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Patricia Mohammed

fiction

Mi Dawta, Mi Dawta

Gwen standing quiet quiet in de front porch as Jessica come in from work. Blood red hibiscus petals and butchered purple bougainvillea making a rough mat on the tiled floor. Gwen have the kitchen knife in she hand, the sharp sharp one she use to cut up goat meat and clean the kingfish that Jessica buy from Papine market.

“What happen here, Gwen? Someone come in? Somebody try to attack you?” Jessica standing there, looking around her house now in shreds, curtains hanging like loose bandages on twisted rails. Lime green pools of Squeezy splashed about on the cedar floor, a trail of broken glass from room to room.

Gwen like she not even there. Her eyes empty like burnt out coals. Her mouth like a Salvador Dali clock rim.

She had come to the house as a helper two years ago. Jessica used to leave notes for Gwen to do the chores and realize one evening, when she find half the meal unprepared, and a scrawl, Mis Jes de bean am bad, that Gwen coulda barely read or write. But Gwen was honest and kind and hardworking, a woman of forty-two who look fifty-nine. Jessica like how Gwen would make her cocoa tea with fresh mint from the garden. She massage Jessica head with olive oil and vetivier for an hour one morning and the headache just gone away.

Gwen like working for people who appreciate her, not the kind that shovel work on she back like she still some slave in a canefield. She prefer people from away who had manners and brought-upsy. Jessica was from foreign, not from Jamaica. Mis Jess treat her good.

For two years now, Monday to Friday, Gwen cross a bumpy track from her galvanize hut to the nearest bus stop on Irish Town hill. Then she take the maxi-van down to Halfway Tree, standing room only this hour of the morning, the pusher shouting “smaal up yuhself, smaal up yuhself” as he shove another body into the back, then a next overcrowded ‘smaal up yuhself’ bus up to Harringdale Crescent. The bus don’t even stop in front of Jessica house, she have to get out at Liguanea and then a five minute walk in the morning sun before she get to the front door. She raise three children this way, working in people house since she turn thirteen. The children dem father never last. The first two stay around long enough to see them pickney born: two boys Jojo and Tobias. She glad to see the 160 CARIBBEAN INTRANSIT

back of number one. He use to ‘buse her. The second child father had religion but that never stop him from leaving. She manage to get the two son away from trouble early by sending them to live with a relation in de Bronx that she never visit sheself. She eh hear from them lately, but as far as she know they living and she feel she do her duty by them. Babylon bullets na get time to gun them down in Tivoli Gardens.

The last child father, before she tie she belly, was Bobsieboy.

He stay longer than the rest. Maybe that is why Mavis come out so good. She make Mavis go to school and stay far away from boys. Mavis Petersfield, primary school pupil teacher now, boarding by respectable Missis Kent in Newtown, wearing white blouse and bright blue pleated skirt and black closeup shoes everyday, not like Gwen who still wearing washout ganzi and slippers. Gwen would talk to sheself proudly as she scrub another pot to cook the rice and peas for Jessica and Cyrus dinner. She would think proudly, while the turning the pot - Mavis Petersfield: a school mistress one day in Campion college. Mavis, her dawta, who would keep her company in old age. Mavis visit her every other Sunday with cake and sometimes chicken and chips from KFC. Gwen had manage to get Mavis away from the Don in the village two years ago the day after he cut up Mavis hand with a switchblade because she wouldn’t go with him. Gwen send Mavis to live uptown so her dawta could be safe.

The two policeman come early that morning. Gwen still asleep in her house, dreaming of reading the Bible one day when Mavis find the time to teach her. She didn’t cry when they show her Mavis blouse and skirt and ask if she could recognise it. She take it from them quiet quiet. “Like somebody crack a bottle of Red Label wine all over the chile clothes”, she say as if talking to herself. Gwen looking over the clothes like Mavis inside it, the white blouse dirty red and the blue skirt turn mauve in some place. “Mavis uniform need washing” she said. She tell them they must leave it with her. She push the wet clothes into the bag she take to work and rouse sheself up after the policemen gone. She had to get to Jessica house to finish the scrubbing she left yesterday. She took the two bus as usual and find her way to the house in Harringdale Crescent. She walk into the kitchen. Then she pick up the knife and went to work.

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Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw

fiction

Time

In the empty car park, protected by a fortress of hills from the Paramin valley, the parked flatbed truck is full of neat mounds of mangoes, oranges, pawpaw, portugals, watermelon, pommes de cytheres, and avocados. Her lanky fruit man stands in front of the scales in his usual black tee shirt and faded Levis, a machete in his belt, and the usual wry smile. He doesn’t turn to look at her when she says “good morning”, he seldom responds, focuses on weighing slightly bruised bananas for his customer, a thin old man with stark white hair that looks like a shimmering halo around his dark brown face. The old man smiles at her, pays, takes his bananas, wishes them both a good day in that old-time way, and walks towards the Paramin hills. The old man disappears as he turns the corner, fading like a shadow or a ghost.

The fruit man turns to her; it’s her turn now and for the first time she notices that his index finger is missing from his left hand. It’s strange that she’s never noticed that brown nodule before now; perhaps she had always imagined a finger. The fruit man looks at her without saying a word, she has already selected a heap of Julie mangoes and two avocadoes. He takes them from her, slightly brushing her fingers, puts them in a bag and tells her how much she owes.

The transaction is never filled with wasted words or small talk, it is never unpleasant. Her fruit man has the look of someone who knows things about this world that she may never know, he has all the answers, all the secret codes, powers she will never possess in this life or the next. As she puts her wallet back into her handbag she has to stop herself from staring at the missing finger. **********

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doesn’t bother to move from where she is sitting. But no help needed, she knows these shelves well, knows all the spines, all the images on the covers, she can spot a new edition right away. Browsing the international authors shelves she can’t find one title that she hasn’t seen before, but the foreign authors are always few and far between; the book store specializes in Caribbean books. On these shelves there is only one new poetry title, Words from the Heart, the siropy title makes her move immediately to the novels, two new ones from Jamaica and then the usual suspects: Kincaid, Lovelace, Naipaul,etc...

The book idea is beginning to fade fast. “Okay thank you” she says to Ms Foreign Lady who mumbles something, barely looking up from her book. ********** August vacation, no traffic around the Queen’s Park Savannah even at lunch time, - terrific- she thinks, a word her father liked to say. But as if on cue the clouds burst terrifically and the terrific rain begins to pelt down on the windshield, mixed with the heat, the roads have a layer of steam- like fire and water. Thank goodness the apartment bedroom is air-conditioned; when she gets home she plans to eat her mangoes on the floor in the cool room but not before she makes a vinaigrette for the avocadoes. After the meal she’ll drink some drowsy cough medicine (she finished all of the wine the night before) and hopefully pass out for a few hours. There are a few boys in uniform braving the rain as she passes her favourite coconut cart opposite the Queen’s Royal College. Her cell phone starts to ring. It’s somewhere in her bag, she doesn’t try to find it to ID the number and it doesn’t ring a second time but she hears the blip of a text. He must be suffering, good, let him suffer, he’s a dog, a frigging cur. She is getting stronger and stronger every day, every hour. And it has been three weeks since she last saw him. If only it wasn’t raining she would stop for a coconut water, just to kill time, these days she has too much time to kill and her TV died in the move.

Best lunch in the world, her father used to say, Julie mangoes, and avocadoes. All she needs now is something to read because she finished a book last night, it was at the top of the heap, the author, a Jamaican novelist. A critic had described the prose as “athletic” and she liked that. Lean, athletic, sounded kind of sexy. She can’t think of one other book in that box in her new apartment that she wants to read, Her brother left for New York last Sunday; she feels as though so she decides to pass by the book shop after the fruit stand. he has taken a good chunk of her courage in that new fancy four wheel suitcase of his. He made her promise at the ********** airport not to go back. “Never liked that jackass,” her brother always referred to him as that “jackass.” “Never trusted him, The hotel car park is empty, so she parks next to the main we see things, we can spot a jackass.” She knows he’s right entrance; the clouds are heavy, grey and angry, - angry clouds but she wants to believe he is just being a big brother, – that might work in her poem, so she makes a mental note. protecting her, trying to control her life and her lovers even She has been working on two poems for her three week from his posh Soho apartment in New York. She wishes now creative writing course; “Rain” is the working title of the first that she never confided in him, but the last week had been poem, but she still isn’t sure about the other one. so horrible, so humiliating she had broken down right in front of him.

Walking into the tiny bookshop, the smell of tobacco, a nice, “Come and stay with me for a while.” Her brother had sweet pipe smell- it made her think of her father again, he said, as she was crying across the table from him in a new smoked pipes. But “nice” is not a good word, she should try to fancy New York like Italian bistro in the middle of Port-offind better words, less common words, “musty” or “woodsy”, Spain. She couldn’t stop the tears even when the waiter much better words. The foreign lady is there, with her leathery brought the meal but her brother didn’t look even slightly puffy skin, her smoker’s yellow hands, hunched over some embarrassed, he poured her some water and said it again book hidden below the counter. This foreign lady is often “come up and let me take care of you for a while”. in the book shop but she is not the owner, the foreign lady is helpful but not as friendly as the owner. Ms Foreign Lady She reminded him about her writing course, he said that he CARIBBEAN INTRANSIT was sorry, he didn’t remember she was doing this. She was irritated because he never remembered her writing, had

********** Now that she’s finally in her apartment with the mangoes and the avocadoes the zest is gone. She isn’t hungry anymore, just wants to crawl into bed. The call wasn’t his; the text was from the telephone company offering her more deals. Why won’t she give this up? The jackass is fine without her, absolutely fine and not alone, probably with that little bitch from the office. And this depression thing, this frigging crying all the time is so tiring, so boring. It’s been three weeks and nothing. She has not heard from him, will not hear from him, he has moved on.

Last week she thought she spotted him once with that skinny office bitch around the Savannah stopping for coconut water, but it wasn’t him or the skinny bitch and this frigging August vacation is torture. ************* Nights are bad enough but the day, the day is worse. She hates when she has to face everyone and say something to them, something that does not give away how awful she feels and looks. Up until last Saturday, she used to work for a lady who sells soap in a stall at a place called The Green Market. She got this job a month ago after chatting with a friend in a yoga class. The friend told her that this lady needed someone to work in a stall selling mainly soaps and other toiletries; artisan kind of stuff. So for the past three Saturdays she’s found herself next to organic people selling organic this and that, she usually spends most of the morning ( because she is supposed to be there from 7am to noon)talking to an Italian- Trinidadian couple who make pesto from everything besides basil. But then last Saturday everything changed, she arrived late, too much to drink the night before, and because of her stale drunken state, or because the owner looked a little irritated at her for being forty minutes late, she decided to quit. She simply told the owner that she didn’t want to work for her anymore, and furthermore the soap business was a waste of time. “Who the hell is going to pay sixty frigging dollars for a bar of soap? No offense I mean I get the local, organic, artisan thing but it’s just soap in the end, just frigging soap that you can buy for ten dollars in the grocery.” Then she went on to confront the owner about the pittance she was being paid, barely enough to buy a chicken roti and a Coke for lunch. The owner reminded her that she was working on commission and that she had only sold three bars of soap in three weeks. But that was basically the end of that. A dead end if there ever was one. The owner had to be one of the calmest people she had ever met, and it had nothing to do with the owner being Rastafarian. The woman was just zen. So Ms Zen calmly handed her a blue hundred dollar bill and told her thank you. No more pushing soap on a Saturday morning, even though she really wasn’t pushing it on anyone. But it just meant

another empty day to get through. It wasn’t the money, she had money, sometimes she pretended to her friends who really didn’t have any money that she was as broke as they were, but she wasn’t broke she just lived like she was; a kind of brokewriter image. In the last few years she had inherited money from the sale of two properties in Tobago that belonged to a great aunt. Her brother immediately asked her if she wanted to invest in stocks, he could tell her which ones, even the local stock market would be better than just putting the money under her bed which was not a metaphor, if she had a safe big enough that is exactly where she would have put all of it.

But even though the interest rates at the bank were a joke she still put it in the account to add to the money she had gotten from their parents who had passed away within three years of each other.

fiction

never really taken her writing seriously. There were no writers, no artists in the family, the family business was business. Her father was the only one who encouraged her, told her to do what made her happy.

“Yes, but you can write anywhere can’t you?”

“It’s a course, face to face, live …”

“I never understand how you teach writing.”

“You don’t teach it’s more like a … never mind.”

End of conversation. Her higher self knew he meant well but right then and there he was upsetting her. He called later that night, after his flight to New York: “Remember what we spoke about don’t go back. That jackass is no good.”

When they were children she had made a pact with her brother that they would never sell their family home, they had loved it so much but the in last few years, caring for ailing parents had cleared out much of the good childhood memories and so when their father followed their mother they decided to sell. Her brother the businessman lost to the son who couldn’t walk into a house that now only reminded him of what was no longer there. Time, all this talk about how precious it was, time was a frigging curse, time on her hands and nothing to do before the end of August, when she would go back to the private school where she taught art to five year olds. These children that had imaginations beyond the borders of the page, beyond what she could ever offer them. ********** 1:00, 1:20, 2:23, 3:15, 5:30, 6 and so it goes, darkness to dawn. Close eyes, open eyes, see red eyes of clock, monster clock, with the numbers looking back, get up, walk around, go to bathroom, back to bed, lie down, close eyes and try to remember when was the last sleeping pill? 11? 12? Or was it when she turned off the television at 10:45 hoping, even praying for one night, just one frigging night of unbroken sleep. Insomnia, insomniac, restlessness, wakefulness, sleeplessness, all of that but she was suffering from loss, “lostfulness,” that should be a word, she’d coin it, “lostfulness”, meaning those suffering from loss, a loss of any kind, that was why she couldn’t sleep and she was sure that there were many others who suffered from the same malady. One night, or two or even three would have been fine; she had never slept well even when he was next to her, even when he massaged her naked body from head to toe. He had cursed her with his frigging obeah; put a curse on her so she would never find another peaceful night of sweet sleep. The pills sometimes gave her a couple of hours, never more, but it was never a good sleep and she would always get up groggy, foggy. The nightmares had stopped, for now at least. The worst night was not first, or the second but the third night after he left her. That night alone in the new apartment and without her girlfriends for comfort, she tried to fall asleep after a few glasses of wine then finally on the recommendation via text of her best friend she had two shots of Grey Goose. Blame it on the vodka that led her into a nightmare about her brother. They were in their old family home, she was on her parent’s huge bed when she heard her brother’s voice calling for her to come and help him.

She got up quickly and went to the door to find her brother stooping on the landing at the top of the stairs, he looked stunned and scared and kept saying he didn’t know what had happened, when she looked closer and tried to reach out to help him to get up she realized that his arms were missing and where there were supposed to be arms there were just stumps and part of his legs were missing as well, cut off at the knees, VOL 3 | ISSUE 6 | FALL 2021

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fiction

then she saw all the severed parts, arms and legs at his side.

And he looked so scared as though he could not believe what had happened to his body. ********** In her creative writing class there is king; he is the only published writer in the class, print published, not some obscure internet poetry site. He has written one novel with another on the way, he is the frigging genius who really feels as though he should be leading the workshop not taking it.

He is always trying to impress their creative writing teacher, a North-American -African-American prize winning novelist who has long braids and skin that smells of coco butter. She was once on the Oprah Winfrey show when the Oprah book club thing was hot, she is not easily impressed but praises the king constantly nonetheless.

The king makes fun of anyone he considers inferior and that’s the entire class, today it is her turn. She makes a comment about his story that is not completely gushing with praise and he attacks her: “Hah, hah, hah,” they all laugh at her expense. Fuck you all! She wants to say but instead she just smiles, pretending she is not wounded, when in fact she is shattered.

At lunch time some of the class sit on a bench near to the house, one or two others on the beach chairs facing the sea.

There is a low white picket fence and coconut trees along the ridge before the sudden drop down to the water. On one side of the large garden steps take you to a private bay. Usually she sits on the bench with some of the others but today she walks down the steps to the bay. No one is there. Before she gets to the last step she stops and sits, the step feels damp.

The workshop includes lunch but she usually buys her own, either two doubles from her favourite vendor in Port-of Spain or she stops at one of the food huts at Maracas Bay for a shark and bake or a bake and cheese. Most of the students sleep at the house where the workshop is being held but she prefers to drive in everyday even though it takes her an hour from her new apartment in town. Alone in her apartment again, she hears the king’s comment and the students’ laughter and decides the workshop is a waste of time. She cannot face that class again, it is time to stop, the workshop, the writing, she should have stopped a long time ago. ********* Another bad night but the next day, Sunday, she decides to go to cemetery where her parents are buried. She wants to put flowers on the two graves. No flowers shops are open on Sundays so she stops at the neighbour’s house with the bougainvillea fence and quickly breaks off a branch. Her brother visited the family plot when he was at home only a few weeks ago. She promised to go with him but at the last minute she chickened out. She has only been to the cemetery twice, once for her mother and three years later to bury her father.

At the cemetery entrance there is a thin old man in an old shirt and faded shorts sitting on the ground next to the gate, his head is bowed and she cannot see his face. After she passes him she looks in the rear view mirror; the old man has disappeared, another ghost. As she gets closer to the street in the cemetery where her parents are buried she turns around and carries the withering bougainvillea back home.

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********** Two months have passed since the workshop, she never went back after that awful day. She knows now that this is where she belongs, teaching primary school art, in front of a class of smiling faces, non-judging faces, here she can be queen, here she can reign and there is Bella in the front row. Bella is her favourite student. Bella is not beautiful; her parents should never have set her up in that way, with that name. Bella could even be considered freakish by some: thin red hair, brown skin, light purple-blue eyes and a nose that disappears into her face leaving two small holes. But she adores Bella for her freakishness and the way she looks at her in class, always seeking guidance, Bella believes in her. Bella stand, Bella sit, Bella put red here, blue there, paint a sunflower, a nd B ella does it, never gives trouble, and does as she is told. She was never like Bella, her parents could always count on her brother, not always on her. They tried their best not to show their disappointment but she knew she had let them down so many times. Her parents, a united force, a being with four hands, four eyes, two heads, speaking with one voice. They had never seen another side to her and she knew they had died worrying about her. ********** Her father had asked her if she wanted anything from him, he did not mean money or land, those things had been taken care of when her mother died. No, her father meant more personal things, her brother had asked for a family photograph of them on their first trip to New York, they were all standing outside a hotel, her brother was only nine, she, barely seven. She asked her father for his watch it wasn’t really what she wanted, she only asked for the watch to remember his hands, the hands that had told so many stories, had made her laugh with tickles, had sent her to her room, had slapped her for being rude, had hugged her, her mother and her brother, the hands that had carried the weight of the house. Synecdoche, is that what they call it? She wasn’t sure. A part for the whole, the sail for the ship, the hand for the father? ********** “How you holding up?”

“Really good.”

“So when you coming up?”

“The term started. I’ll see when I can run away.”

“My treat.”

“I have the money, it’s the time.”

“Okay, I’ll call again soon, sure you’re fine?”

“Yes, stop nagging I’m good. I’m over the bad part okay, not to worry I’m not about to hang myself from the ceiling.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll talk to you soon, take care of yourself.”

“Stop worrying. Love you too, bye.” ************* Coconut water and dark rum, his favourite drink, a strapless black thing, his favourite dress, she clears the sofa, makes the bed, cleans the bathroom, sprays on perfume, drinks a glass of white wine after a shot of tequila, she’s waiting, he should be here soon, thank God he finally called.

Elizabeth Walcott- Hackshaw

short stories

VISUAL ESSAYS JOHN BEADLE Biography: John Beadle, son of a Jamaican-man and a Bahamianwoman, lives and works in The Bahamas, on the Island of New Providence. He is a multi-discipline artist whose work draws from his involvement in his community’s cultural practices and the intimate observation of his space. Beadle says, “I want my art to communicate with the same poetry and patois as my tongue.”

HOPE BROOKS Biography: Born Jamaica 1944, studied at the Edinburgh College of Art 1963 - 1967, Maryland Institute College of Art 1981 - 1982.

Has exhibited in umerous group shows, and held person shows in North and South America, UK, Europe, the Caribbean and Jamaica.

She is the recipient of the Silver Musgrave Medal, Rotary Foundation Fellowship and other awards. She is retired Vice Principal, Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts. She lives and works in Jamaica.

Website: www.absolutearts.com/hopeb WILLIAM CUMMINS Biography: William Cummins is a multi-disciplinary artist residing in Barbados. Besides Fine Art, he is a graphic design and photography professional. His first solo photography exhibit was held in February 2015 and titled “To Look, Perchance To See”. Publications include Peripatetikos (2012), “To Look, Perchance To See” (2 Volumes) (2015) and Space/No Space (2015).

FICTION NJELLE HAMILTON Biography: Njelle Hamilton is a Jamaican singer, songwriter, story teller and scholar. As an associate professor at the University of Virginia, she specializes in post-millennial Caribbean narrative theory and is the author of Phonographic Memories: Popular Music and the Contemporary Caribbean Novel. Her essays on sound studies, trauma theory and the physics of time have appeared in Anthurium, the Journal of West Indian Literature, and sx salon, and her short fiction has appeared in Centripetal and Pree: Caribbean Writing.

She is currently working on a book about Caribbean time travel narratives, as well as a novel, Everything Irie.

PATRICIA MOHAMMED Biography: Patricia Mohammed (born February 28, 1954) is a Trinidadian scholar, writer, and filmmaker. She is Emerita Professor, Gender and Cultural Studies, University of the West Indies. Her primary research interests are in gender, development and the role of art in the Caribbean imagination.

ELIZABETH WALCOTT-HACKSHAW Biography: Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw is the author of a collection of short stories Four Taxis Facing North and Mrs. B, her first novel, published in 2014. Her short stories have been anthologized and translated. She has also coedited Methods in Caribbean Research: Literature- Discourse- Culture and Border Crossings: A Trilingual Anthology of Caribbean Women Writers.

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introduction

Leah Gordon

Kanaval: The Animated Archive

Keywords: Carnival, Haiti, Performance While in most countries, history has been replaced by consumerism, media or the terrorist spectacle, it is still a potent force in Haiti. Haitian culture is a potent vessel for this history, continually transmitting, telling, retelling and reinterpreting Haitian history. School fees are excessive for the majority of the Haitian people, and educational standards are poor, but you would be hard pressed to find a Haitian person who does not know the vast and intimate details of their country’s history.

Aesthetics, creativity and performance have a social value in the daily life of Haitian people. If you walk along any street in Haiti with a Haitian artist, you would quickly notice a phenomenon that is rare in most other countries. People will greet the artist using the term ‘Atis’ as a professional title before their name. In Haiti, ‘Artist’ is a term of respect, equal to ‘Doctor’ or ‘Agronomist’. These are titles that address professions that are both honourable and important for the life of the nation. While the Agronomist tends to the land and the Doctor to the body, the Artist feeds the soul. ‘Pep La’ do not consider Haitian art as another cheap local export to a foreign land that holds no internal significance, but as something far more necessary and pregnant with possibilities.

When discussing Rara bands in Haiti, Liza McAlister notes how your ability to ‘play’ [Carnival/Kanaval] can be an important marker of your social status. “Play is associated with the crossroads or the street…and with establishing one’s reputation through performance…In a country with low “professional” employment and a low literacy rate, this sort of reputation is a major form of social capital.”

films:

Haiti, as a nation, uses every cultural tool in its possession to transmit its history, from the drumming, singing, dancing and possessive ritual of the Vodou religion, the songs of Twobadou groups and the collective melodies and rhythms of Rara bands. Haitian history also uses the words, theatre and poems of its great literary tradition and the unique visions of its painters, sculptors and flag makers. Haitian history, and not only that of the Revolution, is also replayed through the masks, costumes and narratives of the carnival in Jacmel, a coastal town in southern Haiti.

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Each year, Jacmel holds pre-Lenten Mardi Gras festivities.

Troupes of performers act out mythological and political tales in a theatre of the absurd that traverses the streets; rarely shackled by traditional procession. Mardi Gras in Jacmel is lightyears away from the sanitized corporate-sponsored tourist-driven carnivals around the world. There appears to be no set time, route or parade. One can wander a seemingly deserted street; turn a corner to find a group of cardboard-masked solicitors and judges with chairs and a table

seated in the middle of the road performing a play based on a French 19th century novel. Around another corner you might find a painted boy riding a donkey, wearing sneakers, trousers and speaking on a mobile phone. It is of carnival of flaneurs and meanderers, rather than marchers and processors.

Some extravagant, many-peopled troupes can totally overtake the streets, such as the Zel Maturin, satin-clad devils in papier maché masks with four-foot hinged wooden wings which they smack together dangerously and the Lanset Kòd, hordes of horned, shirtless men, skin shining with an oily patina of cane spirit, syrup and charcoal, who rage through the streets, ropes in hand, before diving communally into the ocean at the end of the day. But there are also lone, idiosyncratic performers, for whom the character and costume represent their own intensely personal spiritual visions, such as Bounda pa Bounda, who enacts a Vodou vision given to him by a spirit sitting high in a tree. For many of the participants, the carnival isn’t just the highlight of their year, it’s also the source of their social status.

Jacmel carnival is intense, but also so [inexpensive, not dependent on structures of consumerism]. While Hollywood squanders millions on CGI and 3D effects to frighten the world, Jacmel carnival does it far more eloquently with papier maché, pot black, cardboard and nylon stockings.

Kanaval has become a potent vessel for a people’s telling of Haiti’s history. Henry Ford once said, “History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition.” What we find on the streets of Jacmel at carnival time unravels this statement with acerbity, threat, imagination, grace, and a wild surrealism. The whole event is swirling around in a miasma of warped historical retelling. This is the kind of history that would make Henry Ford’s palms sweat. And so it should. This is people taking history into their own hands and molding it into whatever they decide. Within this historical retelling we find mask after mask, but rather than concealing, the masks are revealing, story after story, through disguise and roadside pantomime.

I first witnessed and documented Jacmel carnival in 1995. The first time I saw it, I realised it was unique. What also became increasingly apparent is that the carnival itself is quite nebulous, as I said earlier: the different troupes setting out at different times in small neighborhoods. There is no set time, route or parade. This lack of traditional parade feels very important. It is what, in my mind, creates space in the carnival for [multiple] narratives, and consequently [historical retellings]. To lose this fluidity within [a single] procession would be to reduce the complex poetry of mask, gesture, theatre and costume, to pure spectacle.

I began this project in 1995 and kept returning for seven or so years. It became rapidly apparent to me that there were many underlying narratives to Kanaval. I realized that by making photographic images I too was acting like the [narrow principle of] parade, stripping away the history and narrative-making present in the carnival. As a photographer, I have always been keenly aware of the difficulties and responsibilities in representing Haiti. Since the enslaved people’s revolt, Haiti has been a mythological epicentre for racist and colonial anxieties. And many of these encoded mythologies are reproduced and replicated through the visual representation of Haiti. Looking at my increasingly iconic photograph of the Lanceurs de Corde, the two men with the bulls’ horns, one of the first images I took of carnival, I was aware of how easily the wildly exotic image could reinforce stereotype. The issues of “who can represent whom, and how” are significant issues of power, race and class. While I could not eradicate all of the power imbalance inherent in me representing people in Haiti, or overturn the 200 year cultural demonization - I could at least find strategies for “damage limitation”.

So after seven years of photographic documentation, I realised that the images were not enough, I needed something to contextualise the work. I returned three times to Jacmel in calmer, more tranquil, non-carnival periods and collected the oral histories of the people making and wearing the masks. The stories behind the masquerade. I tracked down the leaders of the carnival groups and asked them to tell me their stories, in order to restore narrative to the photographs and try to reduce the level of spectacle.

I would also like to highlight a few technical details as further explanation of how the form, technique and aesthetic of the work relates to the project of history and narrative.

I use a 50 year old Roleiicord medium format twin lens reflex camera and a Lunasix lightmeter. I shoot onto black and white negative film. The camera is totally mechanical and once the film of only 12 exposures is loaded, the shutter has to be cocked before you can actually take a picture. All exposure changes are manual and winding onto the next frame is quite laborious as well. I wander the streets searching for characters that will agree to be photographed, I always ask their permission beforehand and pay people for the chance to photograph them. If they agree, and many do not, they always seem to be very patient with the long process, during which I have to take a light reading, change the speed and aperture and focus. There is always stasis in my images as the process takes time. Yet within the slow process, a space is created between myself and the sitter which seems to enter the territory of the old-fashioned portrait studio. The sitters strike poses reflecting their masked characters. One of the essayists in the book referred to this as “performed ethnography”.

The time and space created seems to allow for some of the historical narrative to seep through the sitter’s performance, in a way that rapid cameras which need no interaction between photographer and sitter cannot.

It is also important to say that my attraction to Haiti is also a part of a trajectory: a culmination of my love of folk traditions and people’s histories. [This trajectory spans] the feminist folk punk band I sang in and wrote lyrics for in the mid-eighties, my enduring love of British folk traditions from the Burry Man to the Hooden Horses of Kent, my photographs of fairground ghost trains and street-hawking children in Guy Fawkes, to my love of the photographic project of August Sander and the political oral historian, Studs Terkel. I celebrate the times when people hold on to their own traditions, their own histories, their own creativity and their own worth for their own class, without blanket consumerism and broadcast entertainment to dilute history. What I feel we have nearly lost in the U.K., I still find in Haiti—a nation tirelessly binding their history into sculptures, paintings, novels, poems, song, ritual and costume.

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To lose this fluidity within [a single] procession would be to reduce the complex poetry of mask, gesture, theatre and costume, to pure spectacle.

Chaloska (Charles Oscar) Eugene Lamour a.k.a. Boss Cota 61 years The Chief Charles Oscar was a military commandant in charge of the police in Jacmel. He died here in 1912. He was tall and strong with big feet and teeth and feared by all. At a time when there was political instability in Port-au-Prince, when President Sam had just been assassinated, Charles Oscar took his chance to take 500 prisoners from the local jail and kill them all. There was so much blood it made a river of death.

The population was so angry that it revolted and tore the police chief to pieces in the street and burned him down. He was killed in the same violent way that he had treated the people.

This story has always been very striking to me, and in 1962, I decided to create the character of Chaloska for Carnival. I designed the military uniform and made the big false teeth with bull’s teeth bought from the market. Each year I change the costume a little by designing a different hat for the group to wear.

When I created Chaloska, I also wanted to create some other characters to go along with him. I created Master Richard and Doctor Calypso. Master Richard is a rich man with a big bag full of money and a huge fat stomach. He walks with the group of Chaloska buying justice and paying the judges. He represents the impunity and corruption that hides behind Chaloska and is the real chief of the city.

Doctor Calypso is an old hunchback with a black suit and a stick in his hand. He works for Chaloska and checks on the health of the prisoners, always reporting that they are healthy when they are dying.

These characters are still here in Haitian society, so it is good to parade them on the street. It is a message to all future Oscars that you will end up this way. The group goes to different places in town threatening the people.

The boss Chaloska always finally dies, and the others call for mercy as they are cowards, but then another Chaloska immediately replaces him. This is to show the infinite replication of Chaloska which continues to produce the same system. There will be Chaloska until the end of the world. They started with the beginning and will not end until the end.

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Lanse Kòd Salnave Raphael a.k.a. Nabot Power 32 years When I was a child the Lanceurs de Corde were always my favourite group. But I wanted to do it on a much larger scale. I have a gym here in my yard and all my friends from the gym wanted to join. We have one hundred guys, all strong and fit. We are making a statement about slavery and being freed from slavery. This is a celebration of our independence in 1804. The cords we carry are the cords that were used to bind us. We are always sullen and menacing and we never smile. The blackness of our skin is made with crushed charcoal, pot black, kleren (cane spirit) and cane syrup mixed with a little water in a bucket.

Although we know that slaves never wore horns, this is about the revolt of the slaves, and we wear the horns to give us more power and to look even more frightening.

When we take to the streets, we stop at the first crossroads and at the blow of my whistle we all start doing push-ups.

This is to show that even though the slaves suffered they are still very strong. Some of the slaves are so strong that they must wear chains to hold back their massive strength.

I chose to do Lanceurs de Corde because I know and like the story, and in Carnival people like to be scared. We are the scariest. The Zel Mathurin are supposed to be frightening but they are scared of us because they think that they will dirty their fancy satin costumes if they touch us. Also our costumes are much cheaper to make than many other costumes. No materials, no papier-maché, just the charcoal and syrup mixture.There are three other groups of Lanceurs de Corde: Chaneur Gym, Protection Gym and Couvre-Feu. The last group were our true competitors in strength and size but their chief, Lafaille Hans, died a week ago. He spent the night dancing, ate a little mango and dropped dead. All the Lanceurs de Corde from the town, hundreds of us, went to the funeral and did a performance as an homage to a great master. We then went to his house and wrote our regrets on his wall. The leader of Chaneur Gym, Frisson Belleve, died just last year, of electrocution. I am worried that these are bad omens, but I will continue.

Bounda Pa Bounda (Arse by Arse) Dieuli Laurent 50 years I was born on this mountain here where we speak, but I went to Port-au-Prince to find work. It was there I did a famous number for Carnival, a little puppet in a cardboard box that I called La Mayotte. A few years later I moved to the Artibonite, to work in the rice fields. There I devised another kind of Mardi Gras. I started to wear a dress, a long black and purple dress. I had two musicians on two different drums. I also carried the makout (straw satchel) of Kouzin Zaka, the spirit of agriculture. I was a drag Zaka. Then, to find a means for life, I had to move to the Dominican Republic to work on the sugar cane plantations. It was there that I had my first r evelation. I saw myself in a long red dress and I saw a small chap, very high up, picking leaves off the trees and putting them into a basket. But in all my dreams I did not know who it was.

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I left the Dominican Republic and finally returned to the mountains above Jacmel where I was born. I decided to form a group to follow my revelation. It was then that I realised that the character in the trees was Gran Bwa, the Vodou spirit of the forest. I wore a long red dress, wig, mascara and carried a basket of leaves and flowers on my head. I brought together musicians and dancers and called the group Bounda Pa Bounda. One day, back in Port-au-Prince, I experienced a musical revelation and this song came to me.

‘Bounda’m tro piti, ou ap taye’m compa’ ‘My arse is too small, you are going to put me on the kompa rhythm’ All my songs come to me in my sleep, but this song came as I was walking past a Vodou temple in the capital and [it] is the emblem of my group. I added the sunglasses to my costume just three years ago. Gran Bwa is an invisible [being] and he dwells in the trees, but when you need him you will call him and he will tell you the secrets of the leaves. You must understand that this band is a roots phenomenon, it is a mystical group. We are all Vodou believers and born into it and want to continue it. When we go out at Carnival we carry a basket of leaves so if we meet an oungan (Vodou priest) or mambo (priestess) they can buy the healing plants from us.

The leaves are used for teas or baths, to heal people or [guard] against bad spirits. We are the women bringing the leaves of the forest from Gran Bwa. Biography: Leah Gordon is an artist, writer and curator. Her work explores the intervolved and intersectional histories of the Caribbean plantation system, the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, the Enclosure Acts and the creation of the British working-class. Leah is the co-director of the Ghetto Biennale in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, was a co-curator of Kafou: Haiti, History & Art, at the Nottingham Contemporary and was the co-curator of 'PÒTOPRENS: The Urban Artists of Portau-Prince' at Pioneer Works, NYC in 2018. In 2022 she will be exhibiting and curating at documenta fifteen, Kassel. A new revised and redesigned version of her book 'KANAVAL' was published by Here Press in Nov 2021 and Gordon is directing a feature-length documentary on Jacmel Carnival for BBC’s Arena.

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