My current project, Black Power’s Inheritance, fits into the framework of the on-going struggle for self-definition – a grappling with ‘Caribbean Identity’. It is a project about the question of continuity, posed to my peers. What happened after the Uprising of 1970, a pivotal moment in the contemporary history of my nation and region? It has become even more pertinent in light of the 2011 State of Emergency declared by the government of Trinidad and Tobago.
It is a matter of introspection, as well as a search for the pieces of a story that were swept under a carpet of silence, after we looked into a mirror and became shocked by what we saw.
I offer a glimpse into that mirror today, one, and sometimes two or three generations after the fact.
Selections from Black Power’s Inheritance will be on display at Bargehouse, Oxo Tower Wharf, Bargehouse Street, South Bank, London SE1 9PH, September 9 – 25, 11am to 6pm at the African and African Caribbean Design Disapora Festival 2011, in the show Forever Forged. Forever Becoming, curated by Holly Bynoe of ARC Magazine.
