Cabinet on Wednesday approved a proposal to send a contingent of 100 people to Suriname for the Caribbean Festival of Arts (Carifesta) at a cost of $3 million. Deputy permanent secretary at the Ministry of Arts and Multiculturalism Vel Lewis confirmed that the details of this country’s participation had been finalised, and the contingent would participate in a number of activities at the event from August 16-26.
“We will have participants in visual arts, literary arts exhibitions and several cultural symposiums, including fashion and runway,” Lewis said in a telephone interview with the T&T Guardian on Friday. He said the fashion and runway contingent would be co-ordinated by the University of T&T’s (UTT) Caribbean Institute of Fashion. He said T&T would also participate in craft displays and theatrical productions to be staged by the Secondary Schools Drama Association.
Raymond Ramnarine, winner of the 2013 Chutney Soca Monarch competition, will also be a part of the contingent, along with soca artistes, calypsonians and jazz artistes. Lewis said the ministry’s culture division would co-ordinate the contingent’s activities. Dr Kim Johnson will be leading the literary contingent that will be going to Suriname.
Johnson told the T&T Guardian that he had been approached by the ministry to lead the literary group as a master writer, and would be speaking about non-fiction, oral history and the art of journalism. Johnson is a fellow of the University of T&T. He has published several books on the history and culture of T&T, including Renegades: A History of the Renegades Steel Orchestra; Descendants of the Dragon, on the Chinese community; and If You Iron Good You is King: The Pan Pioneers.
In 2011, he was the arts and letters laureate of the Anthony N Sabga Caribbean Awards for Excellence. Another writer, Barbara Jenkins, said she was waiting for confirmation from the ministry for details of the trip. She said: “I expect to hear from them in the next few days. I will be reading from my collection of short stories, Sic Transit Wagon and Other Stories.”
Jenkins won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize Caribbean Region in 2010 and 2011. In April she was named winner of the inaugural Hollick Arvon Caribbean Writers Prize. Gail Guy, president of the Art Society, said her organisation would be sending 21 pieces to Carifesta with the ministry. She said the Art Society was given a week to get pieces from members. “Some of them weren’t able to because of the short time period, but we managed to get the pieces,” she said.
Asked whether a representative from the organisation would accompany the paintings to Suriname, Guy said no. “In previous years a representative would go to co-ordinate the exhibit, but this year we are just sending the paintings.” Asked why, Guy said the ministry had not requested a representative. “We try to support the ministry in whatever way we can,” she added, “because ultimately it is to the benefit of T&T.”
This is the second time Suriname will be hosting the regional festival. T&T has hosted Carifesta three times, most recently in 2006.