The UWI Sculptural Project In Re-shifting the Sightlines. A Relative Descriptive of the Contemporary Artists and the Jammeette.
18/2/2010
Here in this discussion the Jammette is considered as an authentic source, original, working class and here.
The silence is loud, sitting in the foyer of their mansions, not revealing anything real about our journey, undertaken since ships touched the lips of the Trinidad and Tobago 1498 changing the evolutionary processes of the Caribbean. The lights have gone out in our minds, blank, our imagination feeds off the Western world, for justification for becoming a nation; we need our imagination to be validated. Maybe a little too much of wanting to be part of that world. Our imagination has designed our space that is out of sync with our gyrating black bottoms or even the middle class “browning” bottoms. Our modern designs are pretentious and contrary to our genuine characteristics. Those real slick moves in the board rooms, the colourful tongue moves of *Saga Boy and *Tan Tan dancing their way into an unsuspecting fable and folklore to be told by mammies to picknee on moonlit nights. The bright colours and pulsating rhythm of *“Coolie Pink and Green” and the *“Audacity of the Creole Imagination”. The imagination of the doylie, chunky furnishing, the design of the shirt jack (a design, resistant to the Western Jack-kit and tie), those wonderful plastic coverings on tantie’s furnishing, pillows knitted during ideal conversations with family in the relaxed hours of the day, the varnished wood frames of the snow capped mountains, the sacred heart, Jesus and Dr. Eric Williams crafted by nimble firm hands, the temporary architectural designs of Datsun Vill, Bangladesh and Wallerfield squatter communities, the walk and wine and gesticulating humanism of our characteristics are indelible to us, the pirate CD vendor engineered sound system pulsating the corridors of Frederick St., the doubles vendors cart are unique to our social imagination, it tells a certain story of the “we”, a proper rendering will allow us exceptional glimpses of our original selves. Yet it has remained mythological in our folk lore never attaining the pop culture iconography status that they should. Dam the Jammette.
Our fleeting short-term imagination makes walking along the white washed walls cracked by our disappearing history, dangerous. Young men sitting on the “block” chatting, nothing really important, just being what they know from this temporary imagination, our imagination. This imagery of young men in social embrace, grappling with the banter of life’s provocation over a game of all fours, trying to move beyound the limitation of their imagined space, becomes
*Professor Patricia Mohammed, Trinidad and Tobago film festival 2009 /Kim Johnson National Museum 2010
misshapen in this temporariness of our space where the slight peek of realness is contrary, shunned and outlawed. Dam the jammette.
The noise I am seeing within my head, is not me. It’s further away from me, unidentified, gargled, sputtering a hard bass line melody fusing me, their idiocy pulling me sideways into the global fantasies that have been read to me at my bedside when I was a child, the first kidnapping of the imagination.
I am a tired generation, the colours of Leroy Clark’s “El Tucuhe”, Peter Minshall’s “mancrab”, the words of “Dragon Can’t Dance”, Lamming, Walcott and Naipaul....still we walk along the cemetery walls in duwendom of our imagination. The imagination of a generation is at peril and the window pane is crackled by an infuriating beauty that tells us that authenticity is the bastard, questioned and prodded, dam the Jammette. The jammette artists build the *Studios, they *“Galvanize” the *“Jazz Artists on the Greens” and we hold our talks in *“Alice Yard”. Once again the imagery of young bodies in the embrace of imagination can’t be understood, the language feels not right for our civilization, once again the authenticity of the imagination is at peril of sleeping quietly into the landscape of our folkloric language (Francisco Cabral/the painting of Pat Choo Foon sculpture, the removal of the “Inherent Nobility of Man” at the airport 1976). The young bodies in embrace get tired and fall off to sleep in their studio and the bass line slips into repetitiveness of a global capitalist masculinity, dressed in a dutty three piece suit. The evolution of masculine aesthetics.
This proliferation of this masculine “Man Thing” aesthetics is written in our memoirs, concretising the guttural gyrations of our language, mannerism and disconnection with what is built for us, even thou we may sit within the foyers of these edifices. The fable of this masculine aesthetics is one of individualism and an authority steeped in patriarchy, colonialism and ah kindah Neo- Neo liberal capitalism that we seem to have carried to an extreme you can only find in systems close to totalitarianism. They are impressed with the latest and shiniest gadgets. They adamantly believe in their intellectual superiority and don’t believe in the moral rights of the other. The obliteration of contemporary creative innovation is a natural consequence of this aesthetics. Although the contemporary (“Contemporaries”) artists (most of them) are educated and middle class and belong to the same class of the disciple of this conservative aesthetics, the contemporary artists are thrown to the periphery and like the jammette become an underclass. In this underclass state the contemporary artists stands alone and must build up qualities that will allow them to navigate through their space, these qualities act as defence mechanism to continue the quest for survival in a art space that has shut the door on contemporary thought since Aquarella 85-97 and CCA7 97-2007. These qualities usually end up negatively affecting the artist group they belong to. These psychological characteristics and mannerism of the jammette – are: a victimhood personality, certain amount of angst (which can be a form of anger), extreme egoes, depression, cynicism and protectionism of turf is characteristic of the contemporary art world of Trinidad and Tobago.
*Galvanize an urban intervention project: Mario Lewis, Jazz Artists on the Greens: Sean Thomas, Alice Yard- Sean Leonard.
The aesthetics of Trinidad and Tobago’s (more Trinidad) modernity is still perplexed by its past and remains this way due to a lack of direction from our academia to moderate articulating a political understanding of our aesthetics. A proper articulation of this will reflect a healthy democracy.
“We cannot force the growth of the artists. But we can force and accelerate the growth of the conditions in which he can make the best of the gifts that he has been fortunate enough to be born with, of that I have no doubt whatever;”C.L.R. James: The Future in the Present, Selected Writings. Chap 14 - The Artists in the Caribbean.
In all this the “contemporaries” have been forced to self produce their spaces. Creating the small carnival band, producing their own exhibits, publishing their own art books, blogs etc. In their attempt to counter this dominant masculine aesthetics. An alternative language has developed quite separate from the art centre and academia, operating in it’s own rhyme and rhythm somewhat like the jammette.......an angst.
This is where the UWI Sculptural Project sits, an interstice at the centre of the junction caught in the language of reshifting the sightlines towards an alternative aesthetics, a simple exercise in democracy, a blend of artists styles and training originally beginning with 15 artists, it was be a carnival, a procession of words and thoughts that was eventually edited to 7 artists: Edward Bowen: Fine Artist, Susie Dayal : Sculptor, Leslie Ann Noel : Designer, Paul Kain : Fine Artist, Shastri Maharaj : Fine Artist, Che Lovelace : Fine Artist and Dean Arlen : Installation Artits. Eventually Leslie Ann Noel’s, ‘Basketry 101’ sculpture was chosen and now sits outside UWI Main Library, St. Augustine Campus, installed 2009.
The UWI Sculptural Project may have started while I was on Campus early 90’s. The Infinity (the Campus bar) was the space where discussions and libation with my peers, some of which were Sean Thomas, Rubidiri Victor, Lisa Allen Agostini and Ozy Majiq created an opening for our concerns. Always these discussions will always come back to the fact that the artists presence was visibly absent from the Campus and our wider society, would our concerns lead to action? That has always stuck in my mind on returning from study, sculpture installation at the Ontario College of Art and Design 1995. I was confronted with, how do I get contemporary sculpture installed into a landscape that is predominantly conservative and unaware of the advancement of public discourse in aesthetics? Two projects were created one the Sculptural Playground Project and the UWI Sculptural Project. The two had the possibilities to advance contemporary thought in a profound way. The chosen artists of the UWI Sculptural Project where part of the “Contemporaries” and have contributed to the development of a contemporary body of work in Trinidad and Tobago that have defined new directions and possibilities for re-igniting the imaginative sprit of our nation.
UWI was the most logical institution, to play out this conceptual piece of art work (the UWI Sculptural project is a conceptual performance by the artist with the institution). The largest most respected educational institution in the Caribbean with an international reputation for intellectual and developmental research. The UWI Sculptural Project was not only about installing some sculptures on the Campus, it was about the exploration of our aesthetic understanding and possibilities. It is about developing a critical discourse about spatial understanding that will start to create a reading (“MilePosts”). Where artists, cultural bureaucrats, cultural activists can use as guidelines.
This discussion and interaction by artist with the institution, had some interesting anomalies happening around it which played out for 4 years, which saw the original believers of the Project Dr. Bhoendradatt Tewarie, Principal of the University at the inception of the project, 2005 and Will Iton Registrar moving onto respective paths. The Project lay dormant until the arrival of the new registrar Jeremy Callaghan and with the intellectual support from Professor Patricia Mohammed who both had a strong understanding of the aesthetics saw the project to the end. With Steve Ouditt from the Department of Creative and Festival Arts, joining the team. Seven artists became four and of four one was chosen by Prof. Clement Sankat, UWI Principal, St. Augustine Campus.
As the university expands physically and conceptually it will be prudent for them to consider developing an acquisition policy for the commissioning of outdoor art works, fine art etc. In developing an acquisition policy the next step will be to set up a sculptural fund that will assist the institution in commissioning outdoor art works. There are many things that I have learned about the artist and the institution through our interaction with it over the years, but that is another elaboration and itself a conference.
There’re 5 factors that this project tried to achieve.
1: That artist work should be represented in our main institutions.
2: Artists should be compensated for their endeavours (the seven artists in this project was given a macquette fee).
3: That the transaction between Institution and artists must, be legal and contractual and outlining issues such as lineage, copyrights etc.
4: Democratizing art: placing before the public, alternative expressions.
5: Creating a space for constructive critical analysis about urban aesthetics and our role as artists in developing this aesthetics.
In some small way we have found a poetic voice to say something wonderful within the establishment. Although one sculpture was installed the experience of the process must be considered as part of the “contemporaries” asserting themselves within the space of a main institution, such as the University of The West Indies, which in some consequential way has re-shifted the sightlines a bit. Like the ripple effect, created when a diminutive object is thrown into a pond, it’s ever expanding ripples touches us ever so softly in the deepest regions of our unconsciousness. The imagination of the artists, and community has been expanded, it’s been re-shifted.
The challenge in shifting the sightlines is enormous, but can only be done through a constant flow of projects such as this and others, not only to celebrate our work, but to critically analyse it not only within academia but within community. The Redesigning the Mile Post Project aka “ShowingOff” is one such project that will address current art and design as element functional in community. I do believe that my colleague artist will support this process which will in the end set the critical analysis right about the politics of our aesthetics. Resting this data at the door steps of our main institutions, stake holders, bureaucrats, technocrats, our manufactures, the business sector, our community and finally and most importantly the artists themselves (who in the past have participated in some ill conceived projects, most recently the Oval Gallery 2008 and the Waterfront Gallery Project 2009) not only to have a greater understanding of how art and designs can function in our community, but to generate a terminology for our impetus into a dialogue with native space. We need to confirm the indigenous stimulation of the jamettee as a legitimate imagination.
Dean Arlen
Artist/Project Convenor,
University of the West Indies (UWI) Sculptural Project,
St. Augustine,
Trinidad and Tobago,
The Caribbean.
22/2/2010 (C)
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| Artist: Edward Bowen |
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| Artist: Leslie Ann Noel. |
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| Artist: Paul Kain |
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| Artist: Shastri Maharaj |
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| Artist: Dean Arlen |
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| Artist: Dean Arlen |
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| Artist: Dean Arlen |
which will be another discussion for the future and will spawn another form of sculpturing.
As I see these projects as an art piece a form of sculpture. A performance by the artist with an institution a dance piece that goes on and on into the night almost dead on your feet the music carry into vulgarities and sensuousness till there is some orgasmic shudder of flesh, bone and motar.
Something happens you feel it, you know it's there but you must close your eyes, ask for silence and you see it. Just a sliver around the sun it burns your eyes shut. Your must become one with it all.
The work that was presented by the artist said something about where we are as contemporaries attempting, wanting to shape our space.
Out of the seven pieces that was submitted, (Che Lovelace's piece is missing). Five was interactive. There was no prodding by anyone to produce interactive art. But, most came up with interactive pieces. cool. Something never done in our history of design.
With the formation of DADA&Projects, an NGO which will be able to facillitate other projects such as the Redesigning the Mile Post Project. Which will see us enter community in an aesthetis way. Paving the way where we can present thoes alternatives that we all speak of.
Later for dat.
Dean Arlen.
Such discussions always serve to poke a hole of light through the dark window. Then the artist just has to tear back the paper to find the light within.
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