It’s now been a couple weeks since I left Trinidad, but as I was longingly reviewing my photographs from the past four months, I realized that I never got around to posting my photographs from a day visit with Master Artist, LeRoy Clarke. The visit began in St. Ann’s, at LeRoy’s Legacy House – El [...]

This was the multimedia component of my Red Band Maxi installation about the public transportation system in Trinidad and Tobago. The installation was held at Alice Yard in Port of Spain, Trinidad, on Monday, May 3rd.

On the evening of Monday, May 3rd, I held my first solo photography installation, entitled “Red Band Maxi”. The installation was held at Alice Yard in Port of Spain, Trinidad. It was all about privately owned Maxi Taxis, which are the dominant form of public transportation in Trinidad and Tobago. The installation included a projected [...]

On March 25th, 2010, dancer Celia Weiss Bambara performed a site-specific work in progress at the Alice Yard art space in Port of Spain. Her dynamic piece, beginning which reflected her extensive background in African diasporic contemporary dance, was about the “cyclical and intergenerational nature of violence” (Artist’s words).

These images follow a series of glimpses that I’ve had over the past couple weeks into Hinduism in Trinidad. These images are from the Temple in the Sea in Waterloo, from the 85 foot Hanuman Murti in Carapichaima, which is the largest Hanuman Murti outside of India, and from the Saturday portion of Phagwa at [...]

These photos are from my favorite part of Carnival in Trinidad. J’ouvert (prounounced “joo-vay”) is a morning celebration, beginning around 2am on Carnival Monday when masqueraders take to the streets, covered in paint, mud, oil, and chocolate, dancing until day break. The word J’ouvert stems from the French words “jour ouvert” or “open day”. As [...]

On the evening of February 15th, Carnival Monday in Trinidad and Tobago, I took a windy and very steep drive up the mountain in Maraval to Paramin Village to see one of the traditional Carnival characters, the Blue Devils, “perform.” I put “perform” in quotations because, as anyone who has seen Trinidad’s Blue Devils knows, [...]

A few weeks ago, I posted an image set from the 3canal media launch party at Alice Yard in Port of Spain. More recently, I was fortunate enough to be invited to the successful rapso group’s rehearsal for their show, Jam-It!, at Queen’s Hall. I then also attended their show on February 8th. It’s been [...]

“Bois!” The word literally translated means “wood” in French. In Trinidad, Boismen can be heard chanting “Bois!” during Kalinda matches. Kalinda is a traditional Trinidadian martial art in which Boismen challenge each other with wooden sticks. Kalinda is not just about stick fighting, though. It also incorporates drumming, chanting by a Chantuelle (or “Chantwell”), and [...]

On January 31st, thousands of Trinis gathered in The Savannah in Port of Spain for the 2010 Panorama Semi-Finals. Hundreds of steelpan musicians came out to compete and celebrate Trinidad’s national instrument, the pan. The pan, also known as the steel drum, was invented in Trinidad, and the instrument has evolved over the years from [...]

I love markets, so I was eager to go visit the Market in Tunapuna, Trinidad, and I was even more excited when I found everyone to be agreeable to me snapping pictures during my visit. There’s something about rows and rows of fresh produce and ordinary people going about their daily lives that gives you [...]

This past Friday, I attended my second event at Alice Yard: the opening for Jemima Charles’ Cones installation. Ms. Charles is a young Trinidadian artist whose interest in paper led her to study art in Japan. The construction of Ms. Charles’ cones are drawn from the paper lantern technique, which is also used sculpturally at [...]

These photos begin to trace the disparity of wealth in Port of Spain. Sea Lots, built into cleared out mangroves, is one of the most impoverished areas of Port of Spain, and it sits directly across a beautiful waterfront from the downtown Banker’s Row section of the city. We were brought there by a woman [...]

Part of my semester in Trinidad includes an internship with Alice Yard, an independent art space in Port of Spain. These photographs are from the first event at Alice Yard that I attended–the media launch party for Jam-It, the new 3 canal show “for life love and liberté”. 3 canal is a prominent rapso group [...]

On our first full day in Trinidad, we walked up to the top of Calvary Hill in Arima, where Christo Adonis, the head Kalinago, “Carib,” Shaman on the island performed a traditional smoke ceremony to welcome us to Trinidad. The Kalinago people were mostly wiped out as a result of European colonial rule, so to [...]