Rowley and Cazabon - Navigating Art-Design within the Social - An argument for the Tacarigua Sculptural Playspace Project and Social art-design

ROWLEY AND CAZABON

NAVIGATING ART-DESIGN WITHIN THE SOCIAL.
An argument for the Tacarigua Sculptural Playspace Project and Social Art-Design
https://www.facebook.com/artdesignplayspace/?ref=bookmarks

The Bubble Swing Set 

Recently in the print media there have been some articles which highlighted the absence of a social design language in communities’ conversations with development, below I have highlight some,

Which are -

·         Newsday article, Sean Douglas; titled – opposition to Bhagwansign’s office – Residents don’t want new building. Newsday, Wednesday 28 October 2015

·         Express article, Michelle Loubon, titled – Intense meeting with Bhagwansingh’s over proposed five-story building : Trincity residents: consultation a farce

·         Newsday, Sean Douglas - Rowley buys Paintings –Sunday 1 November, 2015

·         Express – Sunity Maharaj – FEEDING THE SPIRIT OF THE PLACE, Sunday 1 November, 2015

·         Harvard’s “Black in Design” Conference: Addressing Social Injustice with Design - 10/21/2015 by The Dirt Contributor

These 5 points are large exclamation marks as to why we need our artists and design community to ingrain an art-design dialectics into our communities, as verbs, nouns, adjectives, semi-colons... in the structural development of statements; when engaging in our particular aesthetics as it pertains to progressive development, in the absence of art-design vocabulary, our language have become bombastic and confrontational as we step towards modern development, there is this myth that development is a curse on life, rightly so, colonialism and post independence development policy have corrupted the planning processes, making our communities hotspots spaces for squatting of businesses, houses, parked cars, erosion, unsightliness, ugliness...uncivilizing living, developing animosities between neighbours; this can be witnessed from West Moorings to Laventille; Laventille to Lange Park, Lange Park to Moruga, our first response to development is to shut it down, take action, its the fear of elitisms and elitisms in development... this brings to mind the Children’s Court, which was proposed to be installed North of the Bhagwansign’s project, it was decried; as it will bring criminals, even thou the proposed court was a civil court dealing with children matters, with mediation rooms, playspaces etc. There was absoluteness in the community resistance.

Glaringly absent from these conversations is the community unwillingness or inability to grasp opportunity to negotiate GREEN SUSTAINABLE DESIGN, for their communities, to set trends of partnering with business or state creating a new paradigm in social development.

I will quote from the DOWNTOWN-Revitalization Inc.

                           Webpage - http://downtownrevitalizationinc.com   

 “We are residents, land owners and business owners in the Charlotte Amalie area working with the public and private sectors to create a shared, coherent vision aimed at a series of goals leading to a revitalized and energized town of Charlotte Amalie for the benefit of Virgin Islands residents & visitors alike.

 

 

THE BANGKOK TREE HOUSE
http://inhabitat.com/exotic-solar-and-wind-powered-bangkok-tree-house-resort-is-a-masterpiece-of-sustainable-design/

The Bangkok Tree House Project, proves how we can design green, blend in to the environment the memory of spaces, reclaim as we build. what it takes is a willingness to listen, learn, communicate. In these instances design sets a vanguard formula of how a community will like to see its self.

 

  

WHY?

As we navigate the Tacarigua Sculptural Playspace Project; through its development trajectory, the project has met with a certain amount of ambivalence among certain peoples, whose understanding of art-design working’s  in developing their spaces, protecting their spaces in the event of unwanted development seems limited, once again an absoluteness becomes the preferred reaction rather than dialog.

One resident posted on my wall this comment

 “Where is the Agreement of Trintoplan or any of the relevant Government Agencies that grants a permit for any Artist or Architect to design on the Open Space of the Orange Grove Savannah. If Trintoplan claims ownership or is a lessor please provide documentation. As a resident of this area and like Mr. Murray born in this environment, yet, I still live here. I have concerns of the physical use of any structural sculpture on this open space and the psychological impact of the theme and essence of the Art in relation to generations and their Heritage relative to the Tacarigua Orange Grove Savannah. Urban philosophical art and design language may have its place and rightly so but in this once rural agricultural village our Heritage needs to be preserved.”

 (Trintoplan allowed us to use their space as good corporate, community citizen...but was seen as authority and we must mistrust authority;

In the absence of understanding design or design projects; underestimating what is preservation, the village and heritage; we get confrontation...)

 Art-Design has embraced a theology of people and environment, working in congruence with both the social and the environment, in Trinidad and Tobago that vocabulary have not reached our architects or designers, they mention their clients; as a hindrance to sustainable, greening architecture, rather than guiding the client to this new vocabulary. I could remember Dr. Bhoendradatt Tewarie, the former Minister of Planning, lamenting how they had to cajole a developer to place of most things, trees!! Into their project.

 

 In the absence of this language of synergy and symmetry, we end up with a confrontational posture. I have always wondered where this comes from,

Professor Gerard Hucthinson – in Dr. Jean Antoine’s article, lends some insights  –
Trinis have trust issues – Newsday, Sunday March 29 2015 page 43

      “We have become so adept at surviving that we automatically assume a mask. In fact after generations of protecting ourselves through this shield, we no longer know what is the mask and what is the self. In effect what Professor Hutchinson is suggesting is that as a people we have had to deal with adapting ourselves to being first of all positions of subordination during periods of enslavement and indentureship. Subsequently we had to adjust to new power relations after independence.

The problem is that having lived for generations in scenarios where survival demanded that we hide who we truly are and mistrust those in authority, we are now not able to trust anyone.”

 This spells a death to innovation and possibilities, in communities where language is absent, engaging with development becomes controversial and myopic, groups who fight against authoritarianism development, in themselves create authoritarian development, knighting themselves authority, within the rubrics of groups dynamics, their development becomes idealized, their absoluteness resolved in the patriarchal order of defending honour.

 

 

   FEEDING THE SPIRIT OF THE PLACE

 

In Sunity Maharaj’s article – FEEDING THE SPIRIT OF THE PLACE – Sunday 1 November 2015 , Which looked at the state of the capital city, Port of Spain, I’ll quote –
     “But first, he will need to define the problem. It is not just parking that is killing business but the malnourished soul of the capital that is threatening to put business on life support.
We need a conversation about the capital that is driven not just by the immediacy of business interest but by the interest of all T&T as represented in our capital city”

 This points us towards a solutions position, where art-design can raise its head as a solution in defining the problem and developing the “malnourished soul” or creating the “business interest” or “community interest” or “individual interest” that is needed to support the redevelopment needs of a space, for all its peoples, not just a few but as Sunity claims;

 “the interest of all T&T as represented in our capital city”.

Or

“the interest of all T&T as represented in our Orange Grove Savannah”

Or

“the interest of all T&T as represented in our communities”

 

First we’re dealing with a savannah, for this argument I’ll call a space, and

space has rights!

Space also has a right to be of and for the peoples who make that village and the heritages of that village.

If we go back to the “malnourished soul” as referenced by Sunnity, I’ll say many of our spaces are “malnourished souls” never developed to the potential of the village or the heritages of the village...patriarchal development was and is still the signifying order of our development (patriarchy sits within the paradigm of authoritarianism) there was no conceptualization of babies, children, women, differently-able, the aged in our spacial conceptualization.

So we can say we have never nourished our spaces to its full potential, as implied in our constitution, “every creed and race has an equal place”.

So I’ll say in full confidence our spaces are undemocratic and unconstitutional, authoritarian, adult oriented, unappealing, therefore violating the rights of space and the humanity of living to our full potential.

 In this regards I’ll argue with the above statement, that art-design have the right to be part of space, as it is in the context of social anthropological art-design, we can achieve a social cohesion as expressed by DOWNTOWN-Revitalization Inc.: - “public and private sectors to create a shared, coherent vision aimed at a series of goals leading to a revitalized and energized town”    

 

Rowley and Cazabon.
In the article – Rowley buys paintings, by Sean Douglas, the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Dr. Keith Rowley, acquired a number of paintings by Michael Jean Cazabon, 1813-1888, which went up on auction at Christie’s, London. In the article we hear a Prime Minister, speaking openly about “the philistine nature”, “national heritage” and “cultural nature”,

Quote –

          “Trinidad and Tobago has brought back its heritage of those Cazabon paintings”. Saying that another auction of Cazabon paintings will be held next week in London, he signalled an intent to purchase by dexlaring that if a people cannot defend their cultural heritage, they are not worthy of nationhood.”

 -Unquote

In his first post election victory speech, the newly appointed Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago’s first major act was to acquire lost paintings of our historical landscape, our memory, which will be presented to the nation in a national exhibition for the 2016 independence celebration. This investment is alleged to be around $3 million TTD.
As I listened to the response on Power 102.1FM radio, the response to the investment was half and half; those who understood the importance of heritage and memory and others in absolute opposition.

 The “Harvard’s “Black in Design” Conference: Addressing Social Injustice with Design”

 

http://dirt.asla.org/2015/10/21/harvards-black-in-design-conference-addressing-social-injustice-with-design/

Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD)’s first Black in Design conference, which was sold out, is a particularly important as a “Black” and “Brown” country as it brings to the forefront this phenomenon of design in negritude or coolitude (as I learnt in the Indo Caribbean Symposium), as the students expressed.

       “Addressing social injustice through design starts with two steps: revealing “the histories of under-represented groups in design,” and acknowledging that designers have a responsibility to “repair our broken built environment.”

Also identified in the conference was and is, exploitation, absence, treatment of a minority peoples in the development of our spaces. This erasure is being addressed by a white and black consciousness within the design community, at least at Harvard’s; they’re innovating, recognizing and developing in marginalized spaces this consciousness, this consciousness is being received by communities, why? I’m of the feeling that these communities have recognized this absence, they have seen their malnourishment...what it has done to them and a people who recognizes their thirst, and they’re willing to drink from the pool...

            “Dümpelmann spoke of the need to revise landscape history to include African-Americans and women, and topics like segregation, emancipation, and multi-racial landscapes. “Survey classes,” she stated, “need to address race.” She cited just a few topics worthy of study, including Frederick Law Olmsted’s “Negro Parks” in Birmingham, Alabama; park as tools of racial segregation; and the spatial layout of plantations.”

It was stated, if we expanded the definition of the designer while revising history, we’ll be able to undo marginalization of the black and colored peoples

Conclusion

On a social and political level the protection of space and heritage is on the table...what is the disturbing is the relationship of the conversation, the constituents, communities are arrogant, ignorant, and angry at a political system which has created this atmosphere through corruption and undisciplined behaviour, architects, planners, designers and artists community are silent or not in synergetic relationship in creating language; how can we come to that special position of understanding how we can deconstruct this material consumption philosophy or the internal cynicism towards design development . I’m at a point in understanding, from a theoretical, philosophical and political consciousness, social art-design possibilities in modifying our behaviour, I see art-design in educating, elucidating our space, our modernity, while preserving the sugar cane plantation in us all.

         

“ Memory Design – is the recognition of the historical realities of space, people, architecture, and the objects’ new desirability in achieving harmony in communal spaces. To achieve this theoretical understanding, will mean exploring our communities past, eventually capturing it in iconographic symbolic meaning. These symbols or our past will be imprinted onto the object, at times directing how the object is defined, becoming the object themselves.

Designing from memory has the possibility of revolutionizing the desirability of the consumer-able design product. Challenging  how production, imperialism and capitalism can operate within a space, a community and nation. Designing within memory holds the possibility of evolving new paradigms for art, sculpture, architecture and design; which in turn can create greater opportunities in healing spaces with traumatic histories, spaces at risk, space looking to capitalize on its rich stories, people looking for a modern identity through branding and economy”

Pg-15 – The Tacarigua Sculptural Playground, Bringing Art and Education to Public Spaces, Catalog -   https://www.facebook.com/artdesignplayspace/?ref=bookmarks  

The Double Swing Set

 

The Prime Minister mentioned the protection of heritages, he didn’t mention the upgrading of the system which protects and develops heritages, why do I have to hear from the Prime Minister, that he! protected paintings; we should have ingrained independent working systems to preserve and develop heritages. What is happening is a parallel conversation, which needs to be synchronized within the political, the social and the theory of the social art-design proposition. Then we can feed the malnourished soul space, sustainably and consistently.

The art-design community which I belong, needs to be more proactive in this dialog, stop being separatist in our actions in development of theory, individualist in our organizations, classist in our conversations, fearful of power, fearless in our pursuit and be true to the political and philosophical mooring of art-design to our development of a national regionality innovative language.

Reviewing Art and Design towards finding Art-Design

Reviewing Art and Design towards finding Art-Design.

https://www.facebook.com/artdesignplayspace

 

The plastic arts and design have a contested relationship, in conversations with my design colleagues on new hybrid possibilities of art and design in our modern society; I have found resistance to the creation of a mix characterization of art and design, although our modernity have witnessed an emergence of an international design practice, where the psychoanalytical properties of art have merged with the logic driven design; creating a nebulous innovative environment for the practice. Artists and designers have emerged new operational modules, challenging language vibrations; operating more fluently into indigenous spaces, also challenging the philosophical rational of this new performance.

.

I make these observations as an art-designer, whose interdisciplinary practice; have seen projects developed through the merger of both the psychological nuances of art and design. First the craft of  jewelry at John Donaldson Technical Institute; were I confronted the industrial art of crafting metal and the wondrous properties of metal and fire – Industrialism, at the Language of Art Environment; I met artists Edward Bowen-painter, Chris Cozier-graphics/printer/writer, Steve Ouditt-designer, Irene Shaw-painter – in this period I found the confidence of the artist in developing the unconscious to conscious aesthetics, Confidence of the Unconscious and Conscious Practice, at University of West Indies- I was able to develop further my understanding of the politics aesthetics, through conversations with peers in the hallways and bars of UWI – Political Aesthetics and Activism as practice, at the Ontario College of  Art and Design University, Toronto, I was able to re-enforced the critical and analytical strength of the presentation, objectification, materiality and environment..Critical Thinking in Practice.

This rational of product making or aesthetics, is hard to quantify as it sits deep in the centre of development or psychology of design; where design is placed in this logical, processed form of thinking about materiality, objectivity and market; which can be both people and economic, the merging of these two forms bring a radical approach to materiality, marketing, economics etc.; at the same time deconstructing the sacredness of monolithic thinking, while embracing abstraction and free form making as a progression of logical design thought.  

           

            “Design history is the study of objects of design in their historical and stylistic contexts.

With a broad definition, the contexts of design history include the social, the cultural, the economic, the political, the technical and the aesthetic. Design history has as its objects of study all designed objects including those of Architecture, fashion, crafts, interiors, textiles, graphic design, industrial design and product design.

Design history has had to incorporate criticism of the 'heroic' structure of its discipline, in response to the establishment of material culture, much as art history has had to respond to visual culture, (although visual culture has been able to broaden the subject area of art history through the incorporation of the televisual, film and new media). Design history has done this by shifting its focus towards the acts of production and consumption.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_history

 

What has been done is pit design into consumption theology in the act of production and marketing, in a very technical language, which has become very separatist, this attraction to material culture, which designers have hinged this hierarchy or hegemony to, while disregarding that art has these same formulas is somewhat invalid and misleading. As we belong to a cultural ancestry of fluid dynamism, which was able to merge material thinking, the industrial and the abstraction of intellectual aesthetics... forming one thought of a spiritual, social, political and economic communal functionality; our Amerindian, African, Asian, Middle Eastern and East Indian ancestry (for now I’ll leave the European out, but if we also look into their history we’ll find this merging), all have these specific formulas of art and design built into their natural fabric, check the Barefoot College - . http://www.barefootcollege.org/barefoot-approach/

 

            A central belief was that the knowledge, skills and wisdom found in villages should be used for its development before getting skills from outside.”

 

Here is the performance of science in the space of living where the language includes everything,
children, food, husband, health, when we observe how women operate, including their world into their science,
naturally designing it into their environment, in an inclusive language, rather than how men have separated that language.

The Steel-Pan is an example of this hybridism of art and design; from memory; a sustainable culture of politics, economy, marketability and industry was developed, all playing out in backyards, suitcases and intellectual dynamism, through the act of art or the performativity of active social art-culture.

 

OK, let’s WIKI . Define art

           

Courtesy - musical-instruments.novica.com
Observation of the Djembe Drum we will see some of the same performance of a practice,
which in retrospect we will call art, form making, performance, spiritual, communal-
this was interwoven into the role of community, tribe...now village, town, city,
where language and meaning have been lost in the high rise of gangster capitalism
 

            “Art is often taught through drawing, an empirical activity which involves seeing, interpreting and discovering appropriate marks to reproduce an observed phenomenon.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_arts_education

    

I’ll like to add that art is the ephemeral, emotive act imprinted into a political symbolism of culture. This is the Steel-Pan., which are gestures of communalism, memory of performance,

emotions, space, liberty, finally finding symbolism, through an industrial process, to express their art, finally finding form, sculpture; all sculpted differently from village to village, yard to yard; pounded into a language of art, which we will can call industrial design, which it isn’t.

 

courtesy - www.caribben-steel-drums.com
when we look at the performance of the making the Steel Pan,
we see the same sculptural format in making the Djembe Drum

I understand this merger of form making, so I can’t comprehend, why? In Trinidad and Tobago with these considerations of the ancestral idiom of practice; there is this need to separate form making or marking. Design theory has fitted well into the neo-liberal aspiration of state; design theory is being placed at the feet of political jargon in the attempt of finding favour in development as a preferred syllabus in the innovation and diversification discourse.

 

courtesy - www.toucans.net
what has happened is the language is separated and people are told that you're an engineer, a designer,
hierarchy is developed and specifics are set eliminating the traditional inheritance of this knowledge,
so young men who may have inherited this scientific knowledge, feel they are not worthy.
The academism of knowledge can create elitist spaces, where we leave out other innovators 

This separatism is not in the interest of development as it falsifies the act of creation, innovation and intelligent design. Innovation comes from the emotional deliberation of line making/marking from the cerebral to the hand...to the line of objectivity, in this process art and design comes in and out in a seamless conversation or research between the maker and the objective, this conversation is had with a constituents of wife, paddner, lawyer, economist, in the private and public spaces; stoops, offices, blocks, malls etc. from books to the emotive naive act of creation. All playing a role in developing authentic creativity, marking, investing, critical thinking,

One isn’t art, one isn’t design...one is living.

When we understand that it all hinges on the critical thinking aspect of living, we’ll then support an innovative atmosphere, empowered towards national development, from doctor to garbage person and in the end the artist as a people, in this aspect – Innovative Education

 

Marlon Darbeau
http://marlondarbeau.blogspot.com/
Re-Development of the Peera Stool,
is a prime example of how a designer can assist in the development of art and craft.
The re-imaging of a normal object, which would have been crafted through skilled and unskilled hands
to work out a need, in a designers hands there're certain specifics that are taken into consideration to
bring the project to objectivity. Design has changed to engage social design, where the social designer
is more observant of people, behavior - thus the designer has become a anthropologist, psychologist, sociologist
 

 

 

THE HDC, HOUSING DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION DEBACLE IN CONSUMING AESTHETICS...

“ DEBE HDC residents protest...home renovations for our safety and comfort” – it seems that HDC sent letters to residents who added additions to their homes, that it was illegal and they had 28 days to remove all illegal addition. This has created a conversation about management, service, form and finally aesthetics...although not one word of beauty has been offered.

From the article there are –

            “Mohammed added: “There were a lot of people that did not get the approval to do these things but they are securing their place. You can’t wait till it gets in your house to go to put up something. Some people have little dogs outside as a form of protection, because they would not have gotten approval or they don’t have the finance even to fix their properties.”

 

HDC RESPONSE – Maurisa Findlay, HDC Manager of Corporate Communication –

            “She said, “We meet with communities all the time but the HDC apparatus for monitoring for maintaining order, improving security enduring that there is discipline, for ensuring that there are standards in our community will continue to work, that apparatus, we are not easing up on that.”

 

Maurisa went on to say.

            “Even if they believe that there are things we must do their unit and that is very subjective based whether or not, they are homeowners, they are tenants there is still that responsibility to uphold the rules and regulations of the organisation. Those rules and regulations of the organisation is not to be flouted. It is to endure that there is a standardisation in the way in which we want our communities to appear and we want people to live.”

 

This is also good to note –

            “She said renovations and defects were different issues and would be dealt with separately.”

SUNDAY EXPRESS-27 SEPTEMBER 2015, 11PG

 

Here is a prime example of having a serious conversation about art-design in the living; Art - as the people innovating, developing space from an emotional position, becoming an eye soar and aesthetic issue to the living quality of other like minded residents who share these spaces, due to poor craft skills, I’m sure contractors not aware or fully versed in the language of aesthetics. Design - is the implementation of the heart of peoples, “design” manages “art” through critical conversations specific to that space; its politics, social authority, economic.

In the article you witness the bureaucratic language of design, which keeps us in the brutish norms of colonialism...

·         “standardization”,

·         “rules”,

·         “regulations”

·         “organization”

Not one word of beauty, aesthetics...there are the words “Community to appear” and “live”...

 

What is interesting in this article; is how divorced authority is to the language of beauty, how authoritarian we have become from an education, which have created robots, built for industrial work, orders and commands. There is no softness in power, in understanding both the authority and the management of beauty - Art.

There is natural right of the proletariat; to an innovative education, encouraging the natural instinct toward intellectual thought of the mind, to the instinctive craft and skill of the hand; merging the academics of life, evolving child to man to woman as an all inclusive conscious aesthetic property.  It’s a clear attitude of socialist norms...but its more than that, it is the natural anthropological behaviour of all humans to behave in such a manner, it’s our inability to control the language of capitalism, which has created this ambivalence towards space and behaviour.   

 

What is needed is the designing of art into the living of these spaces, art-designing how people manage these spaces, it is not enough to say that there’re are resident associations leaving it like that, we must art-design how these association operate, the social implication of roll out is important in the social art-designing of living spaces. At this point HDC spaces are just designed, this is the issue.

POST-ELECTIONS DEMANDS - Ital Social, through Ital Art, Ital Design



The Tacarigua Sculptural Playspace Project -
is an attempt at looking at how we can design with memory in mind, reignite learning in away that communities can get the best out of  development. 

POST-ELECTIONS DEMANDS

ON THE CULTURAL SECTOR...
Ital social through ital art, ital design....

 

Dear Dr. Rowley

Office of the Prime Minister,
St. Clair.
Port of Spain

 

Cc, Mrs Kamla Persad-Bissessar- Leader of opposition

Ms. Nyan Gadsby Dolly – Minister of Community, Development, Culture and the Arts
Mr. Lincoln Douglas
Anthony Garcia – Minister of Education
Mr. Tim Gopeesingh
Ms. Camille Robinson-Regis – Minister of Planning
Dr. Bhoendradat Tewarie

 

 

Dear Prime Minister, Dr. Rowley,

As the dust settles the shock and de awe die down, Mr. Jack Warner, bow out of de politics, we go  now sit and look, with popcorn, at de extradition case...I hav ah request,

Dat! de understanding of social responsible development, becomes forms part of de discourse in de parliament, let it be in de mind...in de head...your heart. I feel dat de UNC, de PNM, de MSJ, understand dat de nation hav to diversify, hav to innovate.

Everybody talking, buh nobody  listening.

wha de scene with dat! ah feel...we like to tink big infrastructure! We like bling, shinny ting in we face. Me, dread tink, dat is ah idea, ah plan....buh de whey I seeing it...smal ting good too, small ting infrastructure can work jus as good an effective, like agriculture in communities, back yard farming, empty spaces can be utilized through community gardens, which can be developed through primary and secondary and dem NGO’s, which will need shaping and development as people don’t understand how these things operate, sharing, communalism, we doh no how to talk, how to cry, yuh see how Kamla behaving, dat is ah woman, dread in pain, we loss all we corporative skills, we hav to build back we social tapestry, Dread Rowley.

 

Environments goes a long way in setting the tone - I'm aware that there is the education facility unit which looks at education structures.

Invest in innovation, leh it come from de belly nah, of all we! cultural achievements, we communities...invest in de science! of communities, Dread Rowley. De intellectual nuances of cultural, not de base primitivism of culture... you no, when we like to get al emotional and ting, buss up we mout an ting on ting we ent hav no clue bout, buh we hav to say ting, because da is wha we do..U is ah PHD, Dread Rowley, bring into de politic, de science, logic, language, manners, conversation wid de people, Dread Rowley, de social revolution of business, of science of innovation, fix it dat ah man could get he idea installed in he communitee, dat we could see ah designer mak over ah shop....leh we make breadfruit bread, cassava bread...check de list...

 

 

1.      Schools – is where the innovative language can originate; it’s the incubator, where analysis and upgrade is the natural form of the system; from primary to secondary, here art opens up the student to discussion, with teachers properly trained in the vocabulary of understanding; psychology, sexuality, gender,  history (Trinidad and Tobago history), critical thinking (research, presentation, vocabulary, development),  etc. To naturally nurture and guide their students in understanding of the academics which surrounds the things, which attracts us.

2.      Students – a well balanced student, is a confident student, willing to developed their thoughts, their innovation, art/design, allows ideas to be developed, using their academics, the math, the English, the science, the agriculture, wood-working, welding...etc.

3.      Environment –  we have to interrogate the learning environment; we need class rooms without walls, room of conversations (we need a circular form, where we can see all), rooms of innovation and development, where intergeneration can happen, where children can speak to peers and develop concepts in inter-generational development, these spaces have less bullying and more corporation, leadership, caring and empathy.

4.      Environment 2 – this innovative environment must be supported with tools, workshops – woodworking, metal shop, fabric, music – of all instruments, a student must be versed in the idea of conceptualization, from the brain-psychology, the proposal (english), plan drawings development (technical, critical thinking) development-2 – science, business, marketing, physics, workshops (woodworking, metal shop etc). Each step links the brain to the hand, the hand to the world...

5.      Environment-3 - Home Education – innovation can happen where a student have the support of family and community, we have to reconnect education into the living environment, teachers have to be trained to believe and speak properly to the dreams of children and their parents, parents have to understand the language of learning in the children, through the PTA, immersion of school activities and community activities.

6.      Environment-4 - Community- Here we must install prototypes of innovation, a bench, a vendors cart, a communal space, projects which epitomize the excellence in the language of design, the science of materials, the cutting edge of modular living, corporative businesses who. Let’s invest in social art-design in our communities, let’s build and install them, allow us to see, and touch, to live and be part of them, lets critic them. What this does is open the door to understanding design in living, art as life and the investments needed to create innovation.

 

This rethinking of our primitive concept of education; where results are the primary origins, Dat! Gone through Dread Rowley, as my colleagues in education, will state, Dem! scholarship winners does burn-out when dey enter academic world, where critical tinking an innovation is de ting. Innovative people are the ones who most likely have a well balanced education, home, play, culture, sport, academics and sprituality.

 

All children should have the ability to conceptualize and build, no matter what. This implies an amount of confidence and understanding of their environment.

So Boss! and you is de boss!.... For now! All I saying –

·          Make schools smaller more integrated into community (architecture, not dem ball head architects-we want Ital design),

·          Allow de child to be confident, when dey confident dey willing to learn,

·         Invest in dey ideas. So yuh put rooms where dey can make dey ideas,

·         Encourage discussion on their ideas.

·         Make de family ah part of idea making, community part of dat! Making, so when something come good we might be able to support de idea, venture capitalism, being developed.

·         Put idea in community, so we could touch it, live it, talk it, change it, evolve it

 

This is the new concept of innovation education, where art and design can play an integral part in reprioritizing our education.

 

Constructivism is a political understanding of the natural harmony of the world and to treat to that, its the woodman knowing that the forest needs protection, the metal smith to understand how toxic his craft can be to him and his environment.

 

Thanks