The 2019 edition of the Caribbean festival of Arts (Carifesta), the region’s premier arts festival, will be launched in T&T on Tuesday, the Guyana-based Caribbean Community (Caricom) Secretariat has announced.
It said Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley as well as his Minister of Community Development, Culture and the Arts, Dr Nyan Gadsby and the Programme Manager for Culture and Community Development at the Caricom Secretariat, Dr. Hilary Brown, will address the launch of Carifesta XIV.
The Secretariat said the roving Caribbean Festival of Arts will be held in t7t from August 16-25 next year under the theme The Tangible and Intangible – Connect, Share, Invest’
It said that planning for the Festival started in late 2017 and a meeting of the Interim Festival Directorate (IFD) was convened by videoconference in April 2018, followed by a meeting of the Regional Cultural Committee (RCC) in Guyana in June 2018.
“Directors of Culture as well as representatives from various Regional Cultural stakeholders converged at the Caricom Secretariat to discuss cultural matters, chief of which was Carifesta XIV. Issues such as leveraging Caricom’s cultural assets, Reparations for Native Genocide and Slavery, Animation and financing culture, were also on the agenda,” the Secretariat said.
It said that the 16th meeting of the Interim Festival Directorate (IFD) and a meeting of the Regional Cultural Committee (RCC) Working Group will also be convened in Port-of-Spain from Monday.
“The IFD will review and discuss Carifesta XIII which was held in Barbados in August 2017; preparations for Carifesta XIV and the Future of Carifesta,” the Secretariat added.
Carifesta, first held in 1972, is the Caribbean Community’s premier art and culture festival. Its main purpose, which was a mandate of the Caricom leaders, is to celebrate the arts, foster a vision of Caribbean unity while advancing Caribbean culture regionally and internationally.
The event attracts artistes and culture professionals from more than 30 countries in the region and has been held 13 times across eight countries. It was last held in Barbados in 2017.