Zahra Gor­don

For Ja­maican artist Jas­mine Thomas-Gir­van, be­ing award­ed the 2012 Aaron Mat­alon Award from the Na­tion­al Gallery of Ja­maica last month was hum­bling.

The jew­eller and sculp­tor, who resided in T&T for the past 13 years, was giv­en the award for her out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion to the gallery's bi­en­ni­al ex­hib­it. Gir­van pre­sent­ed two pieces for the ex­hib­it–Dream­ing Back­wards, a wall as­sem­blage in­stal­la­tion, and Oc­cu­py (Alche­my of Promise), a free-stand­ing sculp­ture.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view in her tiny blue and gray stu­dio show­room, Gir­van shared that she was ho­n­oured to have been in­clud­ed in the show with oth­er hard­work­ing artists. She has oc­cu­pied this space at Build­ing 7 in the Fer­nan­des In­dus­tri­al Cen­tre for all of the 13 years she's lived in T&T. Gir­van was one of the first ten­ants when the arts cen­tre Con­tem­po­rary Caribbean Arts 7 (CCA7) opened at Build­ing 7 in 2000. Gir­van said CCA7 was her in­tro­duc­tion to the T&T art scene and pro­vid­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty for strong re­gion­al artis­tic di­a­logue.

Large pieces of an­tique fur­ni­ture fill the cor­ners while sal­vaged fret­work adorns the walls. One of the pieces mix­es the old with the new and is a piece from her 2008 ex­hib­it Gems in our Midst. At­tached to the fret­work is plex­i­glass with quotes from not­ed Caribbean writ­ers such as Derek Wal­cott. Read­ing is part of Gir­van's artis­tic process and a source of in­spi­ra­tion for her work. Dream­ing Back­wards was in­spired by an Oc­tavio Paz po­em The Bro­ken Wa­ter­jar.

"Dream­ing Back­wards is about re­flect­ing on our his­to­ry and our past and us­ing it as a com­pass for the way for­ward be­cause un­til we un­der­stand where we are com­ing from I don't see how we can forge a way for­ward."

The two pieces are the first in a se­ries that will be show­cased in De­cem­ber at Y Art Gallery. Gir­van is not sure what ex­act­ly she will cre­ate be­tween now and De­cem­ber, but she wants to tack­le the rewrit­ing of his­to­ry.

"I want to em­pha­sise the things I think need re­con­sid­er­a­tion. Up un­til now the his­to­ry that we as Caribbean peo­ple have em­braced is a his­to­ry that has been writ­ten for us and of­fered to us as fact, but they are not facts."

One of the pieces that may be in­clud­ed in Gir­van's up­com­ing ex­hib­it is a charm bracelet. Made with red string and sil­ver, the charms in­clude a Hin­du Om sign, the dates 1804 and 1959 for the Hait­ian and Cuban rev­o­lu­tions, re­spec­tive­ly, and a cross or "x" sym­bol which rep­re­sents both re­li­gious iconog­ra­phy and the "X" in Mal­colm X.

To find out more about Gir­van,you can vis­it her Web site: www.jas­minethomas­gir­van.com.