LETS TALK CATALYST&THE TACARIGUA SCULPTURAL PLAYSPACE PROJECT & OTHER

conceptual drawings for seating - connected to the Tacarigua Sculptural PlaySpace Project. this is sculpture, it is art...but what makes the work more meaningful, is the social process that must be invested in its making. This is ancestral, it is art genetics to be part of the living. 

LETS TALK CATALYST&THE TACARIGUA SCULPTURAL PLAYSPACE PROJECT&OTHERS
The other day at UWI, there was a Three Day Session on art and culture by stake holders from around the Caribbean, There was a write up on the session by Holly Bynoe. From the article there were some issues, which was highlighted

•  developing a Creative Tourism model
• consider the colonial structure of funding but don’t pressure or agitate bodies to think about how this keeps us within an exploitative structure, binding us to repeating systems and the monstrous challenge of being engaged in conversations and or projects that do not occur naturally and organically.
• With healthy ecologies being the buzzword,
•  highlighting the human element
• It  
• These include the development of a grant writing support system to build a cadre of writers in the Caribbean with a focus on procuring grants for cultural programmes, initiatives and projects, and making this system less opaque to the people who would benefit from these resources;

The below letter was sent to Annalee Davis, through Facebook, Sun 1 June, 2018

"read the article...it is always nice to see these efforts. I understand all that was mentioned....you mentioned there will be a deeper report coming out.....Allow me to share some thoughts, in going further art must understand what is necessary for its fulfillment in Trinidad and Tobago (I can speak very confidently about T&T art culture, from the art society to the private spaces, for this conversation I'll limit myself to Trinidad and Tobago), as in the Caribbean, just our size and limited resources, art must be willing to change it methodology. Many artists, like Hall, Laird, Ramesar, Rubadiri and dear I say Arlen...have challenged the paradigm of cultural making, through the economy of scale and activism....where at a policy level, we theoretically have on the fringes the making of an arts council....which can radically alter how art moves through the national circle....art connection to class! is as important to it being deconstructed, as is racism, to American cultural economy. I noticed there were noticeable absence of speakers, (understanding not everyone can be invited to the table), Studio-66, ACTT......I have been working with my collaborators, in placing art in that context of development, sustainability, value added, social justice, vernacular. In October, we hope to have the first talk, with PENNU, on developing a systematic, immersed, investigation in art's potential to creating that space. What will it take, from who? where? and how much? how long? the idea is to invest in a space/spaces, over a period of time...Also, the Tacarigua Sculptural PlaySpace Project, all place art in the development conversation, the diversification discourse, the planning conversation....rather than the hobbyist backdrop, art has been relegated to for all these years. Art adopting other principles of urban planning, (as one urban planner mentioned, that they have never considered art a part of their language, they're willing to), we need to define that formula that art has. Which can only happen through, practicing communities, through a social art methodology. That is without all the issues, that Molly mentioned in her article. I found this to be absent. As it is important, to what should be funded, do we fund art organizations that're already operating, in the module of art, for art sake, or art for artists sake, caught in what class and other depredations of post colonialism, or do we fund, what is necessarily needed; proper well focused activism, that seeks to challenge policy, economy...one example of this, how do we shift the economy of art, to one of subjective economy to one, where the art object can be seen as an asset, to insurance companies and bankers. There're interesting articles on how this was done....it takes another type of investment in activism...As a practicing artist, the shift will not come by more and more funding, until there is a willingness to understand the ecosystem of survival and the reality of survival, for the working poor artist. I have been able to get a Chair at the Tunapuna/Piarco Regional Corporation, in a public statement, declare, that they have embraced an artist (not a designer) to help them solve their development issues. A small step, but a step it is....if we can coalesce voices towards this happening through community, corporate, part politics and state, think how it'll challenge the artist economy! Then think how the education of artist will have to be changed, both a secondary and at tertiary, UWI, level...Thanks, for sharing, will keep you posted as projects happen, check the link...."


As a practicing artist, working in the urban and gallery system. As mentioned above, what is the future of art, the future of art sits in social transformative projects such as the

1. The Fondes Amandes Community Reforestation Project
2. Studio66 Art Support Community
3. Artists Coalition of Trinidad and Tobago - through the activism of Rubadiri Victor
4. Lord Street Theater - through Tony Hall
5. Banyan Studio which have some connection to Gayelle
6. The Tacarigua Sculptural PlaySpace Projct
7. Yao.Ramesar

All seven projects, have challenged economy and scale. They're rethinking how the aesthetic product can be made, through the social, the political, the economic, party politics, community . This bring up all sort of altering in the cultural fabric....it will first challenge 

1. Education - from Tex-Vox, to the Department of Creative and Festival Art, DCFA, UWI, the artist will have to be given the tools to walk and talk with urban planners. The new artist will have to be versed in anthropology and sociology, to navigate the social art, the social economy, that is being developed at this time
2. The New Value Economy - there is need to rethink, how work is moved through the space, in doing this we have to rethink value systems. At this moment we make work in a very subjective value. There has been no building of that understanding of art, from a community level, banking, insurance level. To develop this, we will have to create a sustained activism based in dialog with the nation, both state and private.
3. Community - we have to show people what art is, in driving my projects, I have been told
1. "that I have a hobby"
2. "I don't have a real job"
3. "Art does not belong in community"   

WHAT NEEDS TO BE FUNDED
When we understand these issues, we can then understand what needs to be funded, do we still need to fund what is already happening, and what is happening is happening as mentioned,

"becomes a place where we build walls up to keep people out and we reinforce elitist spaces and privilege. In these silos, we harbor an infestation of incestuous behavior and turn our backs on self-critique."

Art has become this, so we have to rethink, where funding should be applied, which should transform the space into sustained communities, with value added....these projects, must be steeped in the social, sharing economy

SOCIALIST ART WILL CHALLENGE ECONOMY AND TIME!

THE TACARIGUA SCULPTURAL PLAYSPACE PROJECT -Fence,Green Fence-Memory Fence - Is a fence just a fence– The art of memorializing memory into design

The Tacarigua Sculptural PlaySpace Project

FENCE,GREEN FENCE-MEMORY FENCE

Is a fence just a fence.

The art of memorializing memory into design

Even with good design, a fence will remain a fence,
with memory, a fence begins to build,
deconstruct old and modern notions of
"fencing in"

Fencing,

installing/erecting barriers is a symbol of structural political performance, it symbolizes a power dynamic, set in feudal relationships to land ownership, rights, access, privilege. The act of placing a fence, playing a fence, designing a fence; falls into one or more aspects of political performativity, establishing making political boundaries; keeping in, shutting out. As much as we may want to apply principles of social justice to the act. A fence is a fence.

“DON’T FENCE ME IN” – Cole Porter

We came to this “Fence” through three steps;

1.    Philosophy – there was an understanding, that as a safety measure, this fence must not only act as a boundary, but act, as a sculptural form, a work of art, which speaks to the people, through their history

2.    Community Consultation – some members of the community had concerns about the junction, as the playspace will buttress the junction, of the Priority Bus Route, PBR, and Orange Grove Road, where the western side of the PlaySpace will run, North-South. These two concerns were

a.    Pollution from cars and buses

b.    The possibility of accidents

In light of this, a green fence was conceptualized to deal with these concerns, in a sustainable way.

3.    Vernacular Design – the art of memorializing memory into design

a.    Through iconographic texturing, impaled onto the surface of sculptural forms,

b.    The fence must be seen as work of art, as a functional sculptural formula – this space must and should be able to be seen in the drawings of a child

c.    History – the space, the fence; always was to speak, in a very personal way to the heritage of the people of the Tacarigua

These three steps, will see the “evangelism of art” an experience which is acknowledged as one of art’s emotive reactions.

This evangelizing of the fence, brings a state act into the personal space of the body; through –

1.    Ritualism of the body, in relational to the fence, the communal space/allows for this to be nurtured….yet the “fence” have this possibility to bring the body in relational opposites to it, developing another kind of performativity, of spiritual awakening in

2.    The Spirit, the Intellect, the Mind – this other action, another type of relation, existential in nature. Almost immeasurable, yet profoundly important, in developing the familiar

3.    The Aesthetics – within aesthetics, lies the formula, the didactic nature of form, is as important for the two, too happen properly. Yet the nature of our cultural experience must and should highlight the importance of the politics of aesthetic, in achieving social justice.

There are three, views memory brings the body into reaction, action to the fence,
transforming and challenging aesthetics. There is
1-the moving body,
2-the contemplative,
3-the gathering 

It is in this moment we will radically alter the symbolic ideals of the fence as a provocateur of the state’s authoritarianism and capitalism consumption of communal space.

This is the nirvana of art

Memory allows the political body to engage a new relational.
This new relational evokes a new political body.
There are 4 modules, I have identified so far
1-personal
2-family/friends/community
3-walking
4-driving

Esoteric Values in design is implied as we search for meaning in aesthetics. The political act, in search of social justice, overrides esoterics, as Black Stalin’s – Wait Dorothy Wait

“As ah take up meh pen to wright the first verse, this is what I remember, oil money come and oil money go, an poor people remain on the pavement and the ghetto, so when Mr. divider start to divide the bread equally, yes ah going to finidh the whole dam calypso about Dorothy, how ah jam she, and she jam me and we roll back,

But once my people fighting for an equal share of the cake,

Wait Dorothy wait”

We must here a stake in the symbolism, as we sit in the privilege position, of class and position, we must seek on behalf of the commons; space an aesthetics equivalent to the political identity of the proletariat, that commonality of space.  Therefore, the fence in its essence, must hold the power of the chantwel, to become somewhat like, the Caribbean Wailing Wall.