ART, POWER AND THE IMAGINATION

ART, POWER AND IMAGINATION -
When I read this article, as you never really get art news on India or other South-South countries, when I do I read, this one is interesting; I have argued that art sits in the realm of power, with support of the middle-intelligentsia-cultural-class; which is in itself powerful. As much as art can and has created social revolution in the world, cultural moments, Rasta, Mother Earth, Bob Marley, Steel Pan comes to mind, I have found that the research of art in pivoting moments in our Caribbean, Trinidad and Tobago context needs to be expanded or even explored, how has Leroy Clarke's paintings, Earl Lovelace or V.S Naipaul affected the philosophical mooring of political and aesthetic thoughts, this is something I have always wondered, in this everydayness of movements is the artists' embedded in those movements, just saying 
- Quote - "The gallery sits on prime real estate in the central business district of the city, with posh neighborhoods, the expansive Cubbon Park, upscale shopping hubs, government offices, the High Court, and Vidhan Soudha, the seat of the state government, all within walking distance. It is also in the same compound that houses the popular Government Museum and the Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum, both popular destinations for school trips and tourists." - Unquote -

Artists Protest Collector’s Takeover of Indian Museum

by Deepa Bhasthi on April 20, 2016

http://hyperallergic.com/290996/artists-protest-collectors 

A protest organized by VAG Forum against the privatization of the Venkatappa Art Gallery (all photos courtesy VAG Forum unless indicated otherwise)

 

Art has this meaning in our lives, this invisible, philosophical, spirituality that makes that pan so sweet, mammy's pie so sweet, dat saga man so swagger....this is the art a meta construct, the science of being, is what this is about.

 

 

A protest organized by VAG Forum against the privatization of the Venkatappa Art Gallery (click to enlarge.

 

The last time, the art community came together was the local content policy debate, there has been a silence as neo-liberalism has taken over and we have all gone into the studio to make our work travel and get our careers doing, while Rome or other spectaculars takes it space, such as science, politics, religion. The arts have not taken its space on the hill, artists are afraid of the word revolutionary, boots and hard social intervention, even when art in itself is revolutionary.

This being a protest, will it be a protest to say lets build a gallery in the poor communities of the world to show them that they matter, show them their power, what would that gallery be like, would we as proper middle-class protest for a museum in Laventill, Mt. Dor or Bhagatell all working class spaces.....

ART must take its rightful space in our community, city, towns, villages....in our lives

 

Dean  

REFLECTION OF A CARNIVAL WALKER - J'OUVERT TO CARNIVAL TUESDAY

REFLECTION OF A WALKER
Carnival Monday and Tuesday Reflections.

Well dis carnival, was de lowest it has been in my attendance to shows, events and my 10 years of walking the city of Port of Spain. There has been an attempt at smoothing the edges, fixing the cracks; so the visible soars where not as in your face as it would be...Carnival needs to get out of the obeah of bacchanal, the rum shop fraternity, open the door to design, systems and operation....One story a friend revealed to us....to get an all access pass, applied online, when he went to National Carnival Commission, NCC, they didn't have his pass, they checked found it, printed it, then told him that he would have to visit every single organization individually and get them to sign and pay them separately in cash, each one! this is rum shop design system thinking...where I want meh money up front so ah could go to the store an get meh rum for meh self, if you give he de money, he go by he rum fus, get drunk and spend out meh money, so give meh, me money in cash.....
It is the same story with me, going to get my annual carnival CD's, by Cleaves music store, Port of Spain, "what is the latest carnival song Cleave?", "don't have any" "when yuh getting?" "not until after, might get some compilations", "why they don't come together to record some compilations for the early part of the season?" Cleaves tells me that he ask them to do that, people come to ask...the soca artists have not responded....
O-B-E-A-H  .
So we have to look at this

Oh, I forgot to mention - Brian MacFarlan have no right to comment on the endeavors of Peter Minshall...Brian MacFarlan is part of the problem in synergy with Yuma and dem, the bikini and beads, low level design out put, where they look outwardly, take and implement...tdue to a lack of critical content they become heroic.

These are the workers of BLISS

when I see this, I see the belly of carnival sitting in servitude to a festival their ancestors have played in major role in developing...when I see this I see the failure of our education system to provide peoples with the innovative skills to participate in their festival. I was in South Africa, I asked some friend lets go to this beach, they said nah not that one, to many white people there....ah say wow, isn't this what the anti apartheid revolution was for, the ability to go to these spaces.

This is what carnival is...the ability for the proletarian to be another person, the masking, the ability to be a warrior, King and Queen for the season, not pulling rope...WTF  

Art and Design
As mentioned in my Instagram post Art is as democratic as any other phase in our lives, Carnival is a proletarian activity, where the ordinary becomes the extraordinary. Its in the translation of ideas where we can see how nimble, trained our hands are. There is a need for training of our craft peoples, artists and designers, the other thing, we do not have design in carnival, you can count on your hand the designers in carnival, what we have are mass makers, product people, marketers...
To bring carnival to where it should be; is to speak of carnival from its ancestral and communal moorings, rather than its capitalist, business merits....heritage carnival supports real development, this slick, all inclusive carnival presentation supports an individualist position of the human form and enslaves spaces and people to its own bidding.
The city can't survive in this model as we see happening in J'orvert, where a black middle class have moved this celebration from downtown, to the outskirts, for reasons they say...................  





are security reasons, now the capital is almost empty, I played mud for 10 years, I have seen no major issues and we all know carnival is one of the safest times of our lives.....yet the death and the rise of class warfare is being supported by a African and East Indian middle class all in name of the neoliberalization, bling culture the feel that is needed to make them feel that they have made it.......





The concept of uptown and downtown carnival is real....carnival is one time you can see class separation in clear skin tones, and class division, Independence Square as we passed through is BLACK and WORKING CLASS,  and black means Afro-Indo Trinbagonians, as you move West to Ariapita Avenue, there is colorism and little shading. Peoples have all moved to Ariapita Avenue, from Green Corner moving West, check it out.



PEOPLES ECONOMICS
carnival is peoples business, I was once told how people don't work around carnival, which is an absurd notion of productivity, (working or not working in Trinidad have a lot to do with management and the relationship that has developed with workers through our history, their is plenty of ducking, their is also plenty illiteracy....buh dat is another story)....carnival is when people hustle, boil some corn soup sell, make a band play, be a DJ party, sell beer, drink....Bar-B-Q eat, carnival people HUSTLE, in so many ways, living rooms are converted into production spaces, garages into warehouses, cars into transportation....family into labor, friends to supporting network.... 





THE NATIONAL CARNIVAL COMMISSION
have some work to do, this was Port of Spain, when I passed through around 3 pm, DEAD! I like the fact that there is the soca dome, it has created the opportunity for smaller bands to take up that void...what needs to happen is development, going into communities, supporting training and re-conceptualizing of what we deemed what carnival is...with the intention that we can have 50 small to medium size bands by next year........  

security
DEY WAS OUT, ME, I HAVE ALWAYS SEEN CARNIVAL AS SAFE, AS I WAS COMING IN WE'RE STOPPED BY POLICE ROAD BLOCK, TOLD TO TURN ON MY HOUSE LIGHTS, THEY LOOKED AT US AND THEN ALLOWED TO PROCEED, TO OUR LEFT THERE WAS A PICK UP WITH YOUNG MEN BEING RUBBED DOWN....DEY, POLICE ALWAYS OUT....IN DE CARNIVAL



DIS ROPE BUSINESS
I find this funny that black people have brought back the colonial rope, to block black people from there own people....one part of colonial was playing mass on truck, that will be the next step....when we could invest our time in shaping or censuring behavior, we always react emotionally unintelligently to situation....in my community dem watless youth liming in de tree, de elders want to cut down de tree, Manning hav a problem with de contractors, he for UDECOT, 
WE ALWAYS CREATING SOME MAD ASS SYTEM DAT DOH WOK FOR NOBODY.
So a man and some woman get dey ass beat up and dey pelt bottle because of ignorant security.......
HEAR DIS STORY
Ah breads and me was talking about harvest in the St. Johns community, I asked him, do you'll have harvest still (he is from the squatter community up St Johns Road, which is being regularized now), he told ne nah, dem fellas and dem, is fight to much in de harvest, so dey stop it.....I asked, so no one never asked them to stop, there was a silence and he said no!
No one never said to the men, stop fighting, no aunty, no mother, no uncle, grandfather, friend, girlfriend, son, daughter....no one said to stop.....
This is the same situation with the rope....the ROPE! a racist legacy is being used by children of slaves and indentured workers to regulate their own people of color.
THAT IS HILLARIOUS................................
DUE TO OUR LACK OF INNOVATION WE CAN'T DEVELOP SOCIAL TOOLS TO SUPPORT SOCIAL CHANGE
https://theconversation.com/designer-nights-out-good-urban-planning-can-reduce-drunken-violence-52768
Designer nights out: good urban planning can reduce drunken violence    
READ THIS ARTICLE AND YOU'LL SEE HOW PEOPLE WHO UNDERSTAND THE ROLL OF DESIGN CAN ACHIEVE      

THE SMALL BAND MAN
I saw him them, dey, rocking the street, playing dem feathers, proud, bright shinny coming down the street...dey still dey!
DE SMALL BAND DEY STILL DEY....





DE BOTTLE HUSTLE...IS A BIG ONE!
I HAD A FRIEND WHO AFTER PARTIES WOULD COLLECT BOTTLES, HE STORED THEM IN HIS GARAGE...HE WAS ABLE TO GO TO CROP OVER TWICE FROM THIS ACTIVITY....OH HE WAS AN ENGINEER...



ALL STARS STEEL PAN
WITH $100, SHOW UP IN A WHITE OUTFIT SAILOR, ARMY AND YOU JUMP UP, WITH SOME OLDIES AND GOODIES....DAT IS MASS,
DAT IS CARNIVAL....



JUST HILLARIOUS
HE WAS MIMICKING THE DEEPSEA DIVER IN THE FISH TANK......
JUST HILLARIOUS..



STREET ART-