Fay­ola K J Fras­er

With a stun­ning rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s finest, re­cent Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty grad­u­ate Cameron Ho­sein has used his tal­ent to pro­mote the coun­try on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage. Ho­sein has cre­at­ed a book in his se­nior the­sis project (ac­com­pa­nied by an art in­stal­la­tion) doc­u­ment­ing 72 of T&T’s cre­ative minds in the dance, mu­sic, art, fash­ion and the­atre in­dus­tries whose art has im­pact­ed and trans­formed T&T and has even reached out­side of our bor­ders.

In his artist state­ment in the book, he said its pur­pose was not on­ly to show­case T&T’s wealth of cul­ture and tal­ent, but it is al­so “a project for the young dream­ers” who are told “to play it safe”.

A young dream­er him­self, Ho­sein was born and raised in San Fer­nan­do, at­tend­ing Na­pari­ma Col­lege, and has since made his mark in one of the most revered aca­d­e­m­ic in­sti­tu­tions in the world.

How­ev­er, al­though art was al­ways part of his life, his jour­ney in­to art on this scale wasn’t lin­ear. Ho­sein first left home for Har­vard, equipped with a schol­ar­ship with his eyes set on neu­ro­science. While in school, he took one elec­tive paint­ing course dur­ing his fresh­man year, which pow­er­ful­ly awak­ened his love for art and ul­ti­mate­ly changed the course of his fu­ture. The COVID pan­dem­ic had be­gun, and im­ages of over­whelmed health­care pro­fes­sion­als made him ques­tion whether neu­ro­science was tru­ly his path.

“I saw im­ages of health­care pro­fes­sion­als be­ing over­worked and burnt out dur­ing the pan­dem­ic,” he says, and at the same time, “I re­alised I en­joyed art way more.”

On this sec­ond it­er­a­tion of his jour­ney back to art, some­thing shift­ed.

Dur­ing sec­ondary school, Ho­sein’s artis­tic in­spi­ra­tions of­ten leaned to­ward scenes out­side the Caribbean. “Back then, I al­ways want­ed to paint things from oth­er coun­tries, like Eu­rope,” he says.

But leav­ing Trinidad changed that. He felt a nig­gling, un­shake­able re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to rep­re­sent his roots, which in turn helped him main­tain the in­trin­sic con­nec­tion with his home.

“I had to be the un­of­fi­cial am­bas­sador,” he laughs.

His ear­ly art­works re­flect­ed this evo­lu­tion. One of his first pieces was based on a let­ter from his par­ents, in­un­dat­ed with

sym­bols of home. Short­ly af­ter, he pro­duced an­oth­er piece en­ti­tled Cul­tur­al Icons of T&T, fea­tur­ing fig­ures like Bri­an Lara and V S Naipaul, which was the pre­cur­sor to his fi­nal the­sis project.

Dur­ing his ju­nior year, Ho­sein be­gan push­ing be­yond tra­di­tion­al paint­ing in­to im­mer­sive 3D art, such as sculp­tures. Some of his stand­out projects in­clud­ed a mod­el old-style wood­en house on pil­lars, com­plete with chick­en bricks and ba­nana trees. An­oth­er ma­jor project was a beach scene with sand, Carib bot­tles, an ode to Caribbean leisure and nos­tal­gia.

By his ju­nior year, Ho­sein’s artis­tic iden­ti­ty had crys­tallised, and view­ers likened his work to mu­se­um in­stal­la­tions. One day, on a flight from JFK to Port-of-Spain, he was ca­su­al­ly flip­ping through an is­sue of the Caribbean Beat, and see­ing so­ca artiste Na­dia Bat­son, it dawned on him that “there are so many tal­ent­ed Tri­nis that a lot of peo­ple don’t know much about”.

As the thought took shape in his mind, he de­cid­ed it was his du­ty as an artist to cel­e­brate the cre­ative ecosys­tem of T&T, and that would form the base of his se­nior the­sis.

His fi­nal prod­uct be­came a 148-page book de­signed by Ho­sein–a glossy mag­a­zine fea­tur­ing artists, dancers, mu­si­cians, play­wrights, and fash­ion icons. The for­mat was in­ten­tion­al—ap­proach­able and vi­su­al, meant to be flipped through, not filed away. He in­clud­ed mu­si­cians in the genre of so­ca, like Kes, steel­pan play­ers like Joshua Re­grel­lo, and oth­er gen­res such as chut­ney and ca­lyp­so.

Ho­sein in­cor­po­rat­ed ma­jor play­ers in the film in­dus­try, from play­wrights such as Er­rol Hill to lead­ing ladies such as Pene­lope Spencer and Ce­cil­ia Salazaar. He al­so in­clud­ed dancers and artists/artistes, many of whom are not house­hold names in T&T but who can be found on Broad­way and the West End and in gal­leries in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

His cul­mi­nat­ing show was more than an ex­hib­it—it was an ex­pe­ri­ence. In­spired by Andy Warhol’s Ethel Scull 36 Times, Ho­sein cov­ered a wall with 72 vi­brant por­traits in var­ied colours. Vis­i­tors walked through the en­trance to the in­stal­la­tion which was flanked by a pho­to of Ho­sein sip­ping co­conut wa­ter and, on the oth­er side, his artist state­ment, to make them feel like they were walk­ing in­to and through a book.

He even in­clud­ed a T&T-shaped ta­ble en­graved with var­i­ous home­towns, a vi­su­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the ever-present con­nec­tion to place.

Ex­plain­ing his path to oth­ers isn’t al­ways easy. “When I say I study at Har­vard, peo­ple nod. But when I say I do art, there’s con­fu­sion,” Ho­sein says.

The scep­ti­cism isn’t lost on him—he ac­knowl­edges that job se­cu­ri­ty is a con­cern—but said that job se­cu­ri­ty was a con­cern in al­most every field.

Ho­sein is al­so quick to point out the evolv­ing role of art in to­day’s world. “Every brand, every cam­paign, every launch needs a cre­ative mind. It’s not just about paint­ing any­more.”

His con­fi­dence is firm: art is a vi­able ca­reer, even for young peo­ple from the Caribbean raised on more tra­di­tion­al dreams.

De­spite the chal­lenges that in­ter­na­tion­al stu­dents are fac­ing in the US and es­pe­cial­ly at some in­sti­tu­tions, Ho­sein re­mains fo­cused. For now, he’s re­turn­ing to T&T af­ter grad­u­a­tion to push for­ward with his project and hope­ful­ly, one day get it pub­lished. Nev­er hav­ing lost the ex­cel­lence of the left side of his brain, Ho­sein is still in­volved in the STEM field (Mi­nor in Com­put­er Sci­ence), teach­ing vir­tu­al cal­cu­lus cours­es through Har­vard’s sum­mer school.

Al­so want­i­ng to make time for re­lax­ation, Ho­sein says, “I want to take some time off and chill,” but it’s clear that his next chap­ter will be any­thing but idle.

Cameron Ho­sein’s jour­ney is a blue­print for Caribbean cre­atives nav­i­gat­ing be­tween tra­di­tion and in­no­va­tion. From San Fer­nan­do to Har­vard and back, he’s proven that art can be more than ex­pres­sion—it can be doc­u­men­ta­tion, preser­va­tion, and recla­ma­tion.

Through his art Ho­sein is not just paint­ing his home­land and the peo­ple in it —he’s reimag­in­ing how we see it all.