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.