Collections : Carifesta

Carifesta

The Caribbean Festival of Creative Arts (CARIFESTA) is a regional festival which has been held in various CARICOM countries since its establishment in 1972. CARIFESTA is  an occasion when artists, performers and  other  persons in the  field of  culture meet and  exchange  ideas through presentations  of  music, dance, drama, exhibitions on art, sculpture, poetry and  symposia. The CARICOM Secretariat through the Council on Human and Social Development (COHSOD) has since been involved not only in the shaping and preservation of CARIFESTA but also in promoting a coordinated approach to cultural policy development as embodied in the CARICOM regional cultural policy which is currently under review. Matters in relation to culture come under the purview of this Council. The Regional Cultural Committee ( RCC) which consists of Directors of Culture or Senior Officials is responsible  for culture  in Member States and  Associated member states.

 The CARICOM Secretariat was invited in 2004 to participate  in the  Digital Library of  the  Caribbean (dLOC) along  with other  regional partners from libraries, archives and institutions.  This  invitation was   readily accepted  since it was  felt that  we could contribute our CARIFESTA collection  to this  cooperative  resource of  historical and  cultural Caribbean materials which would  be  useful  for  research. We commenced digitizing in 2006.

The materials digitized have been drawn from the ten CARIFESTAS which have been held in the region to date. Guyana hosted the most recent  festival in 2008.  The collection consists of consultants’ studies; papers; press releases; articles indexed  from journals; pamphlets; tourism  brochures; posters advertising all of  the various CARIFESTAS; programmes detailing  events; and newspaper clippings.   Most of the news clippings were sourced from the Guyana National Library. Our  Collection was supplemented by  further  contributions from the Directorate of Human and Social Development through its  Culture desk which liaises with  the  various  Directors  of  Culture in the region.

Today we  boast a total of 1,500 images which we  have  digitized and added to Digital Library, although  only 795 items are  currently accessible to viewers.  The CARICOM  Secretariat is  firmly committed  to the  dLOC  project and sees  our participation as sharing and preserving information that  is  not easily accessible regionally and internationally.

The Digital Library of the Caribbean's teaching guides include guides on Carifesta Murals and Carifesta.

CARIFESTA	YEAR	COUNTRY	THEME
CARIFESTA I	1972	Guyana	The artist in society, with special reference to the third world
CARIFESTA II	1976	Jamaica	A hallmark of cultural extravaganza
CARIFESTA III	1979	Cuba	A rainbow of people under one Caribbean sun
CARIFESTA IV	1981	Barbados	Living images of the sun
CARIFESTA V	1992	Trinidad & Tobago	Togetherness is strength
CARIFESTA VI	1995	Trinidad & Tobago	The world's best cultural mix
CARIFESTA VII	2000	St Kitts & Nevis	Caribbean arts and culture...reflecting, consolidating, moving on!
CARIFESTA VIII	2003	Suriname	Cultural Diversity