NIFCA Visual Arts winners announced

The Visual Arts winners of this year’s National Independence Festival of Creative Arts (NIFCA) have been officially announced, with two female students taking home the bulk of this year’s prizes.

Tarika Birch from Queen’s College and Cheyenne Hall from the St. Michael’s School walked away with honours this year after receiving the top prizes in Fine Arts and Photography respectively. For their efforts, Birch received the top prize of gold which led to her being nominated for the Prime Minister’s Scholarship, while Hall walked away with 4 prizes, including Most Promising Child Participant, and a Scholarship Award.

Chief Cultural Officer at National Cultural Foundation, Andrea Wells, was pleased at the variety of entries this year from juniors in the visual arts category, noting how also Cheyenne Hall was the only entrant in the Photography category who took home gold. With the abundance of the quality of local arts on the rise, but the lack of pieces being seen in new structures being built, Wells once again renewed calls for the establishment of a National Arts Gallery.

“We need a National Art Gallery with a professional staff whose job it is to make sure the wider appreciation and access to visual art is [present]. You would have a body who is responsible for insuring that new builders, especially persons building on behalf or with Government spend just 1% of their expenditure on local art. That would revolutionise the production capacity of our artistic community, as well as the amount of artwork that is bought and sold on the island,” she said.