By Errol Brewster
Errol Ross Brewster is a Caribbean artist from Guyana, who has lived in Barbados, and is currently living in the United States. He was educated at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto, Canada, and served as Director of Studies at the E. R. Burrowes School of Art in Guyana. With more than four decades of a Caribbean-wide, multimedia imaging practice, he has participated in multiple CARIFESTAs; the EU’s Centro Cultural Cariforo, “Between the Lines”, travelling exhibition, 2000; the First International Triennial of Caribbean Art, 2010; and the Inter-American Development Bank’s “Sidewalks of the Americas” installation, 2018. His most recent exhibition was Evolution of the Arc, at the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas, 2021
CARIFESTA is fun for participating artists, and for the attendees too. Despite the many organizational snafus, it always is a great time. There are, however, profoundly serious concerns surrounding the festival that need some consideration. But who is taking this seriously? Not the artist, not the public, definitely not CARICOM, and not the governments – there was once an eleven-year gap between the editions of this supposedly bi-annual festival.
Our great fear was that the rain would come and wash the proceedings away. Instead, the halls were full to overflowing – standing room only, and repeat performances the order of the day. It did not rain, but at all subsequent editions, confusion reigned.
At the 1st CARIFESTA, for the first time, we saw each other’s artistic expressions in comprehensive fashion. The need that we in the region had then seems not to be the need we have now. The objectives hammered out at the Regional Conference of Artists and Writers in Georgetown in 1970 need addressing. These are discussed in Andrew Salkey’s ‘Georgetown Journal.’ In a nutshell, they’re the empowering and actualizing of the creative potential of the Caribbean people and promoting excellence in the Region’s pursuit of its dream of self-determined nationhood, as is aptly symbolized in the first logo, which should be reinstated.
Benefits aplenty could proceed from the staging of CARIFESTA over time, but there are associated costs. Though many millions of dollars have already been expended, and some historical legacy has been evident in hosting countries, much waste and corruption have also attended the festival, and at the expense of its developmental thrust. Planning for workshops that lead to collaborations between creatives during off years could result in income generating opportunities, but these are non-existent. The prevailing attitudes surrounding the administration of culture, regionally, have resulted in the festival taking on a construct of mediocrity. The source of this mediocrity lies in the lethargic administration of culture that is making a mockery of the Region’s Independence.
The following revealing words are from key players: –
Then Secretary General of CARICOM, Edwin Carrington, in his speech at the closing ceremony of CARIFESTA IX, T&T, 2006 said: – “From here on, we will see a new CARIFESTA, a new model at the next scheduled CARIFESTA 2008 in the Bahamas.”
Projected as news, it wasn’t. This new model had in fact been proposed, discussed, approved, and announced at the preceding CARIFESTA in 2003 in Suriname, but, again, this announcement did not materialize. The Bahamas reneged!
On the occasion of Carrington’s announcement, Ismene Krishnadath, the team leader for Suriname, asked the Caricom Programme Manager for Culture this question:
“A CARIFESTA was held in Suriname, and we had the discussion, and the new model was presented and I don’t really feel anything has been realized of what was proposed over there. Maybe the CARICOM people could explain why there is no progress. What happened?
“The main point of CARIFESTA is that you should have your programme ready on time. It should be set one year in advance. Instead, we come here and the programme is changing all the time. We are here with five artists. Their capabilities are so and so, can you schedule them? It’s so hard to get them scheduled. Our artists perform and there’s no audience. At the poetry reading, only the poets are there.”
And this was Petamber Persaud of Guyana, speaking of his experience at the scaled down 9th edition of the festival: “Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, all these days went to waste. Not until midday Sunday was I shown where I was to be exhibiting. Big publishers are here but we had only a handful of visitors.”
In 1972, it was artists of great stature who were at the helm of the organizing, and one of the recommendations of the 1970 conference was that an Arts Secretariat be established. That idea devolved into a desk job at CARICOM – “Programme Manager for Culture”. The person occupying that pedestal at this time had the audacity to say the following:
“No artists were involved in the planning of CARIFESTA (giggling). We were to decide, (more giggling) to figure out who (yet more giggling) who to involve. We are always at a loss whenever we want the artists to be involved in anything, in committees and so on.”
Trinidadian artist LeRoy Clarke offered this perspective, during a recorded interview at CARIFESTA VIII 2003 in Suriname: “I sit in front of my work and cry and ask why – why am I crying? I’m crying because there is something within me that is being ignored, denied.”
This new model CARIFESTA, devised presumably without artist involvement, reportedly provided for the appointment of a permanent Artistic Director, and for the organizational aspects of the festival to be farmed out to business interests. Then Secretary-General Carrington’s aspiration, though, was for CARIFESTA to no longer to be a drain on governments’ finances but be able to “Fill the national purse rather than drain it!” Really?
Profits are expected to accrue to government with a bureaucrat permanently dominating the thrust of all editions of the festival in whichever territory it is being held, and with neither that director nor Caricom itself directly engaged with the farmed out organizational work? This has always struck me as harbouring of expectations which bear no relationship to any serious input. It exhibits a seeming lack of awareness of the original objectives of CARIFESTA, and of the role of culture. This is where the construct of mediocrity that has stifled the life out of the festival really lies.
It is prevalent at high levels of the administration of culture throughout the Region.
Sydney Bartlett, Director of Culture, Jamaica, said unabashedly in a symposium at CARIFESTA IX in Trinidad &Tobago: “I’m not one of those people who could glorify and tell you anything about the events of the 1st CARIFESTA in 1972. I could vaguely remember 1976 in Jamaica.”
It is this level of disconnect that led a delegate to the 1970 conference, who thirty-six years later was the Artistic Director for the Trinidad & Tobago, IX edition of the festival, to ask: -“Are we still playing the dolly house business? “…all these CARIFESTAs, how many grants have been given to anybody to produce a film, write a book, to do things that are even necessary within the Region?”” …what have we been demanding of culture departments?” At the CARIFESTA IX symposium, Trinidadian writer Earl Lovelace noted that“…it’s not a question of governments wanting or not wanting to. The people of the Region have to begin to demand of their governments what they want. What has business done for the arts?” “…and why are we not asking them, and demanding and requiring of them, and showing them why they must invest in the Region? The Region has been too comfortable with its privileged sector which has emerged not even relating to the culture of the Caribbean. “…[W]hat have we been demanding of the institutions we have here.” “…the arts is valuable, the arts is valuable…people have to get support, bram…bram…bram!”
That Bramly stated assertion of Dr. Lovelace was in essence, what the 1970 conference he attended in Georgetown called for!
On the other hand, Mr. Sydney Bartlet asked, “How much of what we take to CARIFESTA in fact reflects a manifestation, or standards of excellence, that in any way, probably, if you look back, you would have seen?”
This sounds to me like Bartlet setting to lay that blame at the feet of the attending artists. But is that where it belongs? The bind in which artists in the region are caught is defined by the kinds of attitudes reflected in the loud lauding from the Secretary General of regional staff for doing a sterling job, giggling and all, in his assertion that “Many regions in this world would envy the position the Caribbean is in now!”
Favouritism, nepotism, and every other ism except exceptionalism are the determinants for CARIFESTA participation now. That, alongside the normalization of last minute, duh guh do arrangements haven’t been the way to accomplish CARIFESTA objectives, much less for expecting to fill the national purse. Effective consultations with stakeholders, developing infrastructure, and good planning izzz. Can we now recognize that a desk job at Caricom can’t substitute for the proposed arts secretariat?
Local entrepreneur Mr. Bunny Fernandes said this in the press about the effort that was made in 1972: “We did it with mud and blood in our eyes, but we made it…If we knew then what we know now, we might not have jumped blithely into the understanding of the staggering task of hosting a festival despite the weather which contrived to frustrate all our plans. We don’t have to be vultures searching for culture, consciously searching for a Caribbean identity. It was there all along. What we needed is an awareness—and from that awareness will come the pride and the dignity and the unity. History will prove that CARIFESTA was the first step towards real unity in the Caribbean. And we will take pride in the fact that it started right here.”
Tragically, so far it seems that the region’s governments are set to ignore the 50th anniversary of Carifesta, including Guyana which was home to the inaugural edition, supported at the time by both ruling and opposition parties. It’s never too late though, as the great sage Reggae songster says, to “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery” and embrace the great strength our diversity affords us, and which is the as yet unfulfilled promise of CARIFESTA.
For a narrated slide show on CARIFESTA’s 1st edition, see ERB GIHR CARIFESTA 1 Slide Show
