Wine Of Astonishment

Religion in

THE WINE OF ASTONISHMENT

Written by Rachana Sargeant

Novel

The wine of astonishment is a book that tells the story of the oppression in Trinidad and Tobago, of spiritual Baptiste when the United Kingdom was the Empire of the world. It shows the struggles they had to go through, throughout the story. This is one of the fourth books written by Earl Lovelace. Earl Lovelace is a Trinidadian novelist, journalist, playwright, and more. Religion plays a vital role throughout the novel. In the story, we see that not only skin colour determines your status in society but so does your religion. Anyone who was a Spiritual Baptist would not be respected or be able to grow in society. Many of their ritual practices were banned and the police kept tormenting and targeting them, this made them move to a different area and practice their rituals. Only Anglicans and Catholics were able to practice their rituals and gain respect. It was said that Ivan Morton, who is a character in the novel, was a very intelligent man but even though he was smart he was unable to progress before he transferred to the Catholic faith. In the novel being a Spiritual Baptist was so bad that Ivan Mortan could not even keep his promise. When the government placed the ban on Spiritual Baptist, Ivan Morton made a promise to get the ban lifted. However, when he became the leader he failed to keep his promise of assisting in the lifting of the ban, instead, he sided with the government and started to support the ban. Ivan began to treat his former churchmates horribly after switching cults of faith and getting himself into politics. Ivan Morton also ended things with his brown-skinned girlfriend to be with a lighter-skinned girl, so it would match his new prestige. Other things that were banned were the traditional rituals/celebrations, stick fighting, and their carnival. The ban on Spiritual Baptist had a negative impact on the people of Bonasse. This was all because of the American soldiers coming to stay on the Island. Many people who lived in Bonasse were Spiritual Baptist for many years, up until it was made illegal to worship the way they would normally worship.

Photo from CNC3

T R A V E L

I N B I M W H E R E Y O U R J O U R N E Y B E G I N S

PHOTO FROM VISIT BARBADOS

Photo from Immigrant Invest

Taken place: May 13th 2021

Did you have a specific designer/mas man who inspired you to do more designs further on in your life?

Atiba Borde: “Yes! That would be Peter Minshall, Brilliant Masman. What I loved most about his work is not that it is innovative and different from what everybody else is presenting, it is that he isn’t afraid to explore dark topics and I am not at the point in my career where I can do that just yet but if you were to leave it up to me we would be discussing some very very strange topics in carnival.

Trinidad being the most influential hub for Carnival. Would you say you being Trinidadian has greatly inspired your talent for design?

Atiba Borde: “yeah!! 100%, I grew up in a family that is very culturally awake, both my parents are mixed even though we don’t look it and because of that in our household we celebrate everything. Trinidad is one of the countries that have the most holidays in the world and in my household we celebrate every single thing.

With your creative mind, what would you add to your designs to leave a mark, appeal to, and stand out to your audience?

Atiba Borde: “That’s a really good question. Well, there is a particular story I think I am trying to tell throughout all my work, and hopefully, many years from now when I feel like the work is complete you will look back at it and realize there is one similar thread and one particular storyline that I have been telling. I am not ready to share that with the world as yet. So far u think what has resonated with people is my ability to create costumes that are wearable art, so it’s not just a one-time experience.

A T I B A B O R D E

A PASSION FOR DESIGN

A t i b a B o r d e w o r k s w i t h i n t h e T r i n i d a d a n d T o b a g o C a r n i v a l i n d u s t r y a s a M a s m a n . H e i s o r i g i n a l l y f r o m S a n d e G r a n d e T r i n i d a d b u t h a s b e e n l i v i n g i n A r o u c a , T r i n i d a d s i n c e 2 0 0 2 . Y A A D M a g a z i n e s a t d o w n t o i n t e r v i e w M r . A t i b a B o r d e . W e t a l k e d a b o u t h i s d e s i g n s , w h a t g o t h i m i n t o d e s i g n i n g , w h a t i n s p i r e s h i m , a n d m o r e .

In your live with Keonchow, Mr chow mentioned to have

innovative design stepping out of your comfort zone is necessary, what is your take on it in terms of embracing design now because of COVID?

Atiba Borde: “None of my costumes will be the same because of Covid. We had to become more and find easier ways or more creative ways of making costumes, we can’t travel, we can’t go and feel the fabrics we kinda have to use what we have. You know medium vicinity, and I think that has already informed what I am creating right now, and I found some joy in doing that. Even with the LAVWAY pieces, those costumes were all made from things that we had in the studio from the years of Trinidad Carnival. Going forward I think the costumes are just not going to look the same. They have the same presence but they will not be the same, there will be a new genius.

Would you say the business aspect of designing took you to a different level of thinking as a designer?

Atiba Borde: “Carnival Monday and Tuesday or whatever Carnival, I am on the road and I am observing the masqueraders, how they move, what they like, what they don’t like, what they complain about. That informs what I create in the coming years, so customer satisfaction is one of the pillars of my business, I always go above and beyond when it comes to my customers but at the same time as a business owner, designer, and one human being, you need to be aware of knowing when to cut off, knowing how to defend yourself.

As a person with a biology and biochemistry background. Was or is there a process to flipping the switch full time on becoming a full-time designer?

Atiba Borde: “Yeah switching from a science background to fulltime designing was a process. So like it was saying I don’t know how to sew, I didn’t know how to sew. I didn’t know the fundamentals of design. I just knew that I liked art and that was kinda what I wanted to do but all my training has been in the Lab.”

This passion for art, was it a spontaneous thing, or did you have a mixture of it in your childhood coming into art, design, and Carnival designing?

Atiba Borde: Yeah, it has always been apart of my journey I would say I have always been drawing, painting and creating. I got a U in art for CXC. So I did it for CXC. I got a U because my SBA’s got lost and I stopped creating after that but if you look at all my lab notes. I don’t have them here but doing bio-chemistry, next to all my lab notes I would have costume design. Characters that I create. So I guess in the lab I was still creating.

Do you too follow a specific story when dealing with characters, the Midnight Robber for instance do you follow a particular story in terms of looks and designs? Or have you ever encountered a problem where your designs start to become repetitive?

Atiba Borde: Yeah that is a real good question, so far thankfully no, and I do follow stories when it comes to my pieces, but I try not to create if there isn’t essence to the piece. So, there is always a story to be told in all the pieces I put together like the exhibition I’m putting together right now those are paintings and sculptures and they hopefully would be clear definitions of the stories I’m trying to tell. The photoshoot I’m putting together; the costumes I’m putting together for that, those are very specific stories that are specific to Trinidadian culture and by extension Caribbean culture, and funny enough to be on Twitter they were talking about a lot of folklore characters. When when you see the shoot you would see that those stories are being told in those pieces.

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Designed by Atiba Borde ÀGÙNFON - Giraffe Costume

This picture is owned by The Lost Tribe

We saw that you used the Midnight Robber as a costume, what else would you say really impacted the audience were you trying to show in terms of a folk character that was unexpected to use?

Atiba Borde: So in 2020, we did the story of Anansi;

Caribbean folklore but a very afro centric approach to it and the costume we did was a gun phone which was

Aruba language for giraffe and that one I remember going to New York and specifically choosing the fabric because it just gave a nod to Yoruba land, and it was literal. It didn’t literally say it was a Giraffe right. So that was choosing the fabric in New York and remember being in North Carolina, in the Mountains, that’s a next story and that’s when the costume came to me and as in, I wanted it to have boots on the females. I wanted the men to wear berets because it reminded me of the Black

Panther movement in the States also the rebellion in

South Africa during apartheid and that mixture of African culture and European military wear so I kinda blended those into what became the Anglophone costume.

This picture is owned by The Lost Tribe

ÀGÙNFON - GIRAFFE COSTUME

Designed by Atiba Borde

This picture is owned by The Lost Tribe

MIDNIGHT ROBBERS - BONNIE & CLYDE COSTUME

Designed by Atiba Borde

This picture is owned by The Lost Tribe

AAHSOO COSTUME