CULTURAL activists have shared differing opinions about the strategies that can be implemented to make Trinidad and Tobago’s creative sector more economically viable, particularly on the international scene.
While some believe there is a paucity of government policy to effectively guide the sector, others argued the onus was on creatives to devise their own cultural policy before approaching the government.
Tobago Performing Arts Company’s (TPAC’s) interim CEO Jared Prima believes the country does not have enough policy “to guide and to frame what this creative industry is and what it is poised to do in an international space.
“Perhaps it still starts from us, the ones who are challenging, to perhaps begin to create the work that requires certain types of policy because sometimes in the creation of the work we see what is needed,” he said.
From its perspective, Prima said, TPAC has done “a number of different types of products that certainly have challenged certain things and have placed the question about policy within the space.
“So perhaps other organisations can do similar things, and let’s create the need for policy.”
He spoke on June 1 during a multi-disciplinary panel discussion about moving the orange economy forward at the Shaw Park Cultural Complex.
The discussion formed part of the TPAC’s FOURCE festival, which showcased the island’s cultural heritage in the areas of film, dance, music and drama.
Other panellists were TPAC’s artistic director Rayshawn Pierre-Kerr, dance and movement co-ordinator Shakeil Jones, Naparima Bowl CEO Marlon De Bique and Music TT’s general manager Melissa Jimenez.
Pierre-Kerr, who recognised the efforts of the cultural practitioners who nurtured and mentored her, argued that governments are not responsible for creative practice, but can help to shape it as a commercially viable product.
She said, “One of the things I recognised as a young creative, from very early, just by observing the space, I had a very clear sense of what I am good at and what I want to offer the world as a social entrepreneur from my own creative practice, because governments are not responsible for cultural practice.
“It is the individual creative on the ground who does it, who performs it. Governments can shape it. So I want to kind of ‘Sankofarise’ as a perspective the thing by looking inside first so then we can deal with the external perspective.
“If we spend some more time – because we like to throw brand around – that individually we offer, perhaps we will be very clear on what we want to sell.”
Pierre-Kerr alluded to the work of a cultural studies lecturer who conceptualised the term “creative clustering” to demonstrate her point.
She said creative clustering does not involve government interference.
“It causes the same community groups, the same people who have like skills, people who operate within the same frameworks of cultural practice, the small pan group, the small group of dancers, an encore (dance theatre), a ‘youthquake,’ who understand that they can train
