News Releases

From Creative to Cash, UWI Design Colloquium looks for the way forward

For Release Upon Receipt - May 18, 2015

St. Augustine


ST. AUGUSTINE, Trinidad and Tobago (May 18, 2015) – The Visual Arts Unit of The UWI St. Augustine’s Department of Creative and Festival Arts (DCFA) is taking on the call for national diversification.

The Design Colloquium entitled Ministry of Design – from cottage industry to state enterprise is a display, symposium and challenge to the nation to begin to consider how we can harness our abundant creativity into growing national identity, the economy and Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The event is committed to the exploration and development of the indigenous and contemporary Caribbean arts and culture. The DCFA sees the arts and culture as a basis for education, training and practices that are rewarding to the artist, beneficial to society, and make Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean  internationally competitive.

This Colloquium will take place on Thursday 28 and Friday 29 May at The UWI’s Open Campus Auditorium, St Augustine. During the colloquium, designers, design educators, and professionals from varied disciplines including engineering, architecture, manufacturing among others, will present their views on how a Ministry of Design could function; how design practice can be improved through government intervention. The Colloquium will also feature an exhibition highlighting work by design students, alumni and faculty of the Visual Arts Unit of the DCFA, which aims to show the wide scope of the design industry.

Colloquium chairs Lesley-Ann Noel, product designer and DCFA lecturer in Design and Architect, Michael Lee Poy, will guide the process over the two days and encourage debate on the possible outcomes should the government of Trinidad and Tobago direct substantial financial investment towards design initiatives on a national level. 

The event is free, but spaces are limited and the campus community and the general public are invited to register online at https://eventbrite.com/event/16776634365/

For further information, please contact Roberta Quarless at the DCFA via email at Roberta.Quarless@sta.uwi.edu.

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About The UWI

Since its inception in 1948, The University of the West Indies (UWI) has evolved from a fledgling college in Jamaica with 33 students to a full-fledged, regional University with well over 40,000 students. Today, UWI is the largest, most longstanding higher education provider in the Commonwealth Caribbean, with four campuses in Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Open Campus. The UWI has faculty and students from more than 40 countries and collaborative links with 160 universities globally; it offers undergraduate and postgraduate degree options in Food & Agriculture, Engineering, Humanities & Education, Law, Medical Sciences, Science and Technology and Social Sciences. UWI’s seven priority focal areas are linked closely to the priorities identified by CARICOM and take into account such over-arching areas of concern to the region as environmental issues, health and wellness, gender equity and the critical importance of innovation. Website: www.uwi.edu

 

(Please note that the proper name of the university is The University of the West Indies, inclusive of the “The”, hence The UWI.)

 

 

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