THINGS THAT MATTER
Back in 2012, I was invited to be a Keynote speaker at the big FOROMIC Conference hosted by Barbados at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre. The central message of FOROMIC is to celebrate and promote the creativity and opportunities for entrepreneurs across Latin America and the Caribbean. My topic was “Generating business from the World Heritage site ‘Historic Bridgetown and its Garrison’”. The opportunities handed to us on a golden plate by this UNESCO inscription are legion – but being in the stranglehold of the Implementation Deficit Disorder, sadly, we have taken hold of few of these opportunities I discussed in that lecture five years ago. What are they?
I group them under three headings. First, the Tourism Spin-offs of our UNESCO branded cultural heritage. World Heritage inscription dramatically enhances the profile of every destination so recognised, with rapid expansion of tourism and economic spin-offs. Visitor numbers typically double or more in a few years. This means planning for more hotels, bars, restaurants, taxis, tour guides, cultural events, et cetera. In short, expansion of the whole tourism chain and more jobs, if effectively managed. Note: “If effectively managed.”
Heritage tourism is not a niche market, it’s an evolution of modern tourism. It’s the fastest growing aspect of today’s tourism globally. However, Caribbean tourism agencies and governments and our hotels are still working with the Sun, Sand and Sea image; they need a complete re-think. Websites of our hotels are yet to make mention of the rich heritage outside the hotel! It’s amazing – almost all continue to try to seduce guests purely on room décor, buffet menus and other services, and the blue sea beyond the balcony! Hardly any boast of the scenery, the gardens, the Garrison, the museums, the great houses, the rum, et cetera. Not even the marvellous Changing of the Sentry at the Main Guard at the Garrison! Yet everyone should now know that visitors interested in heritage spend much more than tourists seeking solely sun.
Secondly, there are numerous cultural, entrepreneurial oppor-tunities linked to our World Heritage inscription. They abound in:
* Art, especially fine art and fine craft, such as ceramics (from Chalky Mount to creative studio pottery), weaving, sculpture, photography, print making, batik, tie and dye, fashion design; souvenirs in the form of creative ceramics, models of our Morgan Lewis Mill, chattel houses and Main Guard Clock Tower have huge potential;
* Entertainment, including music, song, dance and dramatic theatre featuring characters like Rachel Pringle and the gentleman pirate Stede Bonnet, music recordings, day and night tours of all kind, and story telling;
* Cuisine, with emphasis on the creole nature of our cuisine based on local products, our creole heritage of African, European and Asian, and the farming opportunities to provide those foods;
* Education, especially with emphasis on high literacy, and tertiary education with global connections, and first-port-of-call resources for all Caribbean information;
* Publishing, from Caribbean and third world text books to popular, ‘coffee table’, historical and other scholarly works – books and DVDs;
* Film and television, taking advantage of our historic sites and branding, buildings and scenery;
* Manufacturing of indigenous products, including sophisticated packaging and marketing of the finest sugar in the Continued from Previous Page
world, our world-famous rums, liqueurs such as falernum and sorrel liqueur, our world famous but undersold pepper sauce and antique reproduction mahogany furniture.
A third area of cultural industry opportunity relates to the World Heritage Committee’s recommendation to create training programme to train cadres of skilled craftsmen in traditional building techniques and other crafts, and a philosophy of appreciation and expertise in restoration of historic buildings, furniture and craft, and even of fine art, books and documents, all areas of great need and acute shortage across the Caribbean. The need is urgent for the skills of our forefathers, and the opportunities are being missed.
Barbados has recently experienced an explosion of the arts, and our UNESCO inscription is a catalyst for even more dramatic development. The Barbados Arts Council and gallery at Pelican Village, the Barbados Art Collection Foundation, the Barbados Community College’s Fine Arts Department, and the commercial galleries have all combined to produce an explosion of art, splendidly profiled in the Barbados Art Directory, by Corrie Scott and Kathy Yearwood, on the web. Do look it up – The Barbados Art Directory. Like the famous St. Ives in Cornwall and South bank in Paris, re-branded Historic Bridgetown and its Garrison can become a hive of creative activity, with a reputation for the arts.
Similarly for live entertainment: we tend to equate entertainment with calypso, but the field is far wider – folk singing, our famous police band, spiritual choirs and so on. And why don’t we exploit story-telling – a gift and a passion we all have in the Caribbean! We could be the equally famous equivalent of Jonesborough in Tennessee – the world capital of story-telling. And what a fabulous flagship for culture and drama the iconic Empire theatre restored as a theatre would be.
And cuisine – food and drink. This needs a whole column to discuss their more effective exploitation – from the best rums in the world to pepper sauce, mango chutney to guava cheese, sweet potato, cassava and breadfruit chips, and of course marketing our sugar as gourmet golden sugar.
Education: our goal should be for our University of the West Indies to be the first port of call for all information on the Caribbean, working in partnership with other entities such as the Barbados Museum, National Archives, and most importantly, our National Library’s Reference Department, individual scholars and NGOs… to provide a comprehensive knowledge network for researchers, businesses and the world. Sadly, our library remains neglected, and neither private sector nor government is committed to restoring the Carnegie Library.
Film and TV opportunities abound – as we’re witnessing an explosion in film-making as well as fine art.
One more point: how well do we market ourselves? Websites on Barbados are mostly the work of entrepreneurs. However, our embassies provide great opportunities. I understand Chile uses its embassies with great success. Our embassies can easily and profitably do the same … for everything from pepper sauce, videos, music, books, heritage souvenirs of all kinds, art and craft, gourmet food, to tour packages for our many heritage sites and museums.
Mining these Cultural Industry opportunities will both create jobs and develop communities, and help maintain the sites themselves, ensuring local cultures and customs are preserved. What I said five years ago is even more urgent today. Will CARIFESTA provide a wake-up call and follow up, to earn the rewards of the touted eight million dollar investment?
Postscript: Art lovers should go along to Art Splash at Hastings Rocks, to see the vibrant, creative exhibition ‘Elemental’. Curator Lois Crawford has put together an invigorating collection of innovative artists’ work (including her own sculptures in wood and metal. My favourite was the elegant “Nature’s Nemesis”).
I particularly liked the almost lyrical marine abstracts in acrylic by Marissa Singh – gorgeous blues and greens dominated in “Depths”, “Sediments of the Caribbean Sea” and “Sitting on the Boardwalk”.
There were two quite extraordinary mixed media collages – brilliant expositions of the movement originating in Russia 100 years ago, known as constructivism. Gordon Ashby’s piece “electronic collage” utilised discarded parts of a computer and keyboard, with old bus tickets, marbles, shells and other mysterious detritus around a central mirror. Like his artist name Donga, there are many layers to this fascinating piece. Other intriguing mixed media pieces were by Lilian Sten-Nicholson and Sarah Venable. Sarah’s “An Angel will fix it” was also many layered in its interpretation. The beautiful (female) angel was surrounded ambiguously by soft textiles and tough looking tools of all kinds. It triggered my own domestic scene, where it’s my own multi-tasking, angelic wife who solves the problems that crop up around an old house!
It’s another splendid display of our Explosion of Art!
Bouquets of the week: To the UWI for celebrating the life of our national hero (without the capital letters designating the official ten) Sir Frank Worrell, on the fiftieth anniversary of his death. And to the Dean of columnists, Orlando Marville, for another brilliant column this week (Wednesday’s edition of The Barbados Advocate, Page 10).
Professor Fraser is Past Dean of Medical Sciences, UWI and Professor Emeritus of Medicine and Clinical Pharmacology. Website: profhenryfraser.com