Event

The Department of Creative and Festival Arts hosts The Principal Handicap: Art Appreciation & Trinbagonian Society panel discussion.

Panellists include: Donald "Jackie" Hinkson; Geoffrey MacLean; Nimah Muwakil-Zakuri; Attillah Springer and Steve Ouditt.

The discussion takes place on April 11 from 1 to 3pm at the DCFA Chessman Building, Lecture Room 3.

This event is free and open to the public. 

About The Principal Handicap

In his graduation address given at The UWI Cave Hill Campus in 1970, Nobel Prize winner Sir William Arthur Lewis emphasised the arts as the avenue for Caribbean people to distinguish themselves. He saw the arts a“the contribution above all others” that we can make to human heritage. Yet, he also observed there are so few people who understand and enjoy the creative arts in our society that the desire or need for art is small. He called this “the principal handicap.”

 Now almost half a century later, his words resonate in a context where it can be argued that the arts are still not widely perceived with care and value. In 2012 reproductions of artwork displayed on the perimeter wall of the Queen’s Park Oval were slashed. More recently, Donald “Jackie” Hinkson’s mural installed outside UWI’s Alma Jordan Library was split open. How might we change the way we see art?

According to art collector Albert Barnes, “appreciation of works of art requires organised effort and systematic study. Art appreciation can no more be absorbed by aimless wandering in galleries than can surgery be learned by casual visits to a hospital.” Is Barnes’ assessment correct? If so, what organised efforts are needed to foster art appreciation in Trinidad and Tobago? The panel discussion serves as an urgent space to consider what appreciation means for us and the conscious steps we can take to achieve it.