Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

Sto­ries of mi­gra­tion, de­vo­tion, re­silience and mem­o­ry now fill the walls of the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) Na­gar in Ch­agua­nas, where colour, sym­bol­ism and lived ex­pe­ri­ence con­verge in The In­do-Trin­bag­on­ian Ex­pe­ri­ence—an art ex­hi­bi­tion mark­ing In­di­an Ar­rival Day.

Bring­ing to­geth­er the work of 29 lo­cal vi­su­al artists, the ex­hi­bi­tion of­fers more than a dis­play of paint­ings and sculp­ture. It presents a deeply per­son­al and col­lec­tive re­flec­tion on iden­ti­ty, trac­ing the jour­ney of In­do-Trin­bag­o­ni­ans through her­itage, spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, strug­gle and cul­tur­al trans­for­ma­tion.

Of­fi­cial­ly launched on Sat­ur­day, the ex­hi­bi­tion runs from May 23 to June 6 as part of the NCIC’s In­di­an Ar­rival Day com­mem­o­ra­tions. Cu­rat­ed by cul­tur­al ad­vo­cate Richard Ram­per­sad, the show­case fea­tures paint­ing, draw­ing, ce­ram­ics, sculp­ture and mixed me­dia, each piece con­tribut­ing to a broad­er con­ver­sa­tion about be­long­ing and cul­tur­al con­ti­nu­ity in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Rather than telling a sin­gu­lar sto­ry, the ex­hi­bi­tion un­folds as a mo­sa­ic of ex­pe­ri­ences — some root­ed in an­ces­tral mem­o­ry, oth­ers re­flect­ing the re­al­i­ties of con­tem­po­rary Caribbean life.

In his cu­ra­to­r­i­al state­ment, Ram­per­sad de­scribed the ex­hi­bi­tion as a “Col­lec­tive ex­plo­ration of mem­o­ry, iden­ti­ty, spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, mi­gra­tion, and cul­tur­al con­ti­nu­ity,” not­ing that the works re­flect­ed both an­ces­tral mem­o­ry and con­tem­po­rary ex­pe­ri­ence.

He ex­plained that the ex­hi­bi­tion traces the his­tor­i­cal jour­ney of East In­di­an in­den­ture­ship, which be­gan in 1845, while al­so high­light­ing how gen­er­a­tions of In­do-Trin­bag­o­ni­ans pre­served, trans­formed and reimag­ined East In­di­an tra­di­tions over time.

Ram­per­sad said the art­works moved be­tween “The per­son­al and the col­lec­tive, the sa­cred and the every­day,” cre­at­ing a vi­su­al di­a­logue root­ed in faith, fam­i­ly and cul­tur­al re­silience.

Faith emerges as one of the ex­hi­bi­tion’s strongest vi­su­al threads. Im­ages of prayer, de­vo­tion, fes­ti­vals and sa­cred rit­u­als fea­ture promi­nent­ly through­out the col­lec­tion, un­der­scor­ing the en­dur­ing role of Hin­duism and spir­i­tu­al prac­tice in shap­ing In­do-Trin­bag­on­ian iden­ti­ty and every­day life.

The ex­hi­bi­tion al­so turns at­ten­tion to the qui­eter rit­u­als of home and com­mu­ni­ty. Food prepa­ra­tion, sto­ry­telling, mu­sic, dress and in­her­it­ed cus­toms ap­pear through­out the works, re­flect­ing the ways cul­ture is pre­served not on­ly in places of wor­ship, but around fam­i­ly ta­bles and in every­day rou­tines.

Cui­sine, Ram­per­sad not­ed, serves as both metaphor and mem­o­ry, pre­serv­ing the ex­pe­ri­ences of mi­gra­tion, labour and fam­i­ly bonds across gen­er­a­tions.

Sev­er­al artists al­so con­front the painful lega­cy of in­den­ture­ship, us­ing their work to re­flect on dis­place­ment, sur­vival and adap­ta­tion. Through these pieces, view­ers are in­vit­ed to con­sid­er the last­ing in­flu­ence of the in­den­ture­ship ex­pe­ri­ence on Trinidad and To­ba­go’s so­cial his­to­ry and cul­tur­al con­scious­ness.

Rather than pre­sent­ing a sin­gle in­ter­pre­ta­tion of In­do-Trin­bag­on­ian iden­ti­ty, Ram­per­sad said the ex­hi­bi­tion em­braces a di­ver­si­ty of voic­es and artis­tic per­spec­tives.

“The art­works form a liv­ing archive — one that ho­n­ours her­itage while ques­tion­ing, ex­pand­ing, and re­defin­ing what it means to be­long in a mod­ern Caribbean so­ci­ety,” he stat­ed.

Pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture, Su­ru­jdeo Man­ga­roo, praised the ex­hi­bi­tion as an im­por­tant cul­tur­al show­case high­light­ing the cre­ativ­i­ty and re­silience of the In­do-Trin­bag­on­ian com­mu­ni­ty.

Man­ga­roo said the ex­hi­bi­tion re­flect­ed the en­dur­ing con­tri­bu­tion of In­do-Trin­bag­o­ni­ans to the de­vel­op­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s na­tion­al iden­ti­ty and cul­tur­al land­scape. He not­ed that In­di­an Ar­rival Day was not on­ly a time for re­mem­brance, but al­so an op­por­tu­ni­ty to cel­e­brate the achieve­ments, tra­di­tions and artis­tic ex­pres­sions that con­tin­ue to shape the na­tion.

He added that the NCIC re­mained com­mit­ted to pre­serv­ing and pro­mot­ing cul­tur­al her­itage through the arts, ed­u­ca­tion and com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment.

The ex­hi­bi­tion fea­tures works by Alana Kezia Joseph James Arm­strong, Al­isha Mo­hammed, Ja­son Ba­haw, Allen Brown, Kailash Singh Esar­dial, Anal­isa Mo­hammed, Ka­reena Sir­joo, An­geli Paras­ram­s­ingh, Kylie Jack, Ar­ti­ka Sari-De­vi Per­sad, Maris­sa Yung Lee, Avind Ganesh, Nu­ala An­tho­ny, Car­ris­sa Ram­lochan, Par­bat­tee Bap­tiste, Em­ma H. Per­sad, Prashant Ramkissoon, Em­ma Ramjohn, Pta. Rachael Ramdeo, Ezan Mo­hammed, Ra­jesh Rea­gan Tilka­ran, Garvin Sobers, Ru­pa Ram­sa­roop, In­grid Bridge­lal, Samatha Rochard, Tama­ra Bap­tiste, Xaviere Di­az and Vivek Vinayak Ma­haraj.

For vis­i­tors, the free ex­hi­bi­tion of­fers not on­ly an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­pe­ri­ence art, but al­so a chance to re­flect on the sto­ries, strug­gles and tra­di­tions that con­tin­ue to de­fine the In­do-Trin­bag­on­ian ex­pe­ri­ence with­in the wider Caribbean nar­ra­tive.