If you are walking past the National Library and Information System Authority (Nalis) you can’t help but notice the beautifully painted mural on Nalis’ Abercromby Street wall.
The artwork was done by the UWI, Visual Arts Unit in collaboration with the Embassy of Colombia in T&T, to create a mural.
The artwork which is 115 feet x 12 feet-scale is titled “The Caribbean Sea Which Unites Us” is a gift from the Colombian Government to Trinidad’s capital city of Port-of-Spain.
The mural was conceived by Colombian artist Paula Osorio Tintadelrio.
Two participants of UWI’s Visual Arts Degree programme, Shania Warris and Shireen Ragoobir, assisted Osorio with painting and bringing her ideas to life.
Warris is a current, final-year, visual arts degree student, and Ragoobir is a graduate of the visual arts degree programme, who now works at Nalis as a graphic artist.
Warris and Ragoobir spent weeks working to make the mural a reality. The completed work is a vibrant, creative collaboration between artists from the region.
It emphasises our similarities, rather than what divides us. The Caribbean Sea is incorporated in the mural as a connecting force, with its waters washing our shores, and expanding what we define and understand as “Caribbean.”
Images in the mural include cultural scenes, along with flora and fauna. Viewers can enjoy pictures of hummingbirds from both Colombia and T&T.
Trinidad’s Maracas Beach is depicted, while also recognising that “Maracas” is a Spanish word for an instrument filled with percussive elements that produce sound when shaken. Scenes of Carnival and umbrella-covered market vendors depict sites of community and exchange.
“Libraries are critical resources for accessing knowledge about ourselves and the world. Art also functions as an important vehicle for knowledge—for understanding who we are and imagining who we want to be. Art fosters dialogue.
“This collaboration is a natural fit,” said Dr Marsha Pearce, lecturer and coordinator of the visual arts unit at the UWI St Augustine campus.
“I am happy to have worked with Nalis and the Embassy of Colombia in T&T to produce a work that is a site of public knowledge, a work of art that encourages rich conversation between our countries. I am proud of Warris’ and Ragoobir’s contributions to art that will impact our cityscape and our people,” she added.
The mural was launched at a ceremony held on July 20, 2022, marking Colombia’s 212 anniversary of its independence from Spain.