BY JULIE CARRINGTON | JUL 6, 2022
Minister with responsibility for Culture, Senator Dr. Shantal Munro-Knight. (FP)
Participants in the Division of Culture’s 24-hour Online Visual Arts competition have been highly commended for their artistic interpretation of Barbadian cultural heritage.
Minister with responsibility for Culture, Senator Dr. Shantal Munro-Knight, heaped praise on the island’s youth during the prize-giving ceremony at the Ministry in Sky Mall on Tuesday. The contest was one of the activities for Heritage Month, which falls during the Season of Emancipation.
Senator Munro-Knight stated that despite negative comments in some quarters about the “direction” of the island’s youth, she argued that the competition, which involved research and intergenerational dialogue among their parents and grandparents, to produce the finished art work, showed that the future of culture was in good hands.
“But here today, we have a demonstration that young people are not just only involved in political activities. But if you look at it, it is only art, but in order for them to have produced the work that they did, they would have had … to do some research. They would have to communicate…. They would have had to be intergenerational dialogue … to understand that history or that heritage,” she underlined.
The Minister continued: “The demonstration that we’ve had here … is really a reinforcement of something that perhaps we should be proud of, that young people are indeed connected and understanding their cultural heritage…and that certainly, from the prizes [awarded] to these young people that clearly, the evidence of our cultural heritage is in good hands.”
Dr. Munro-Knight noted that the contest, now in its second year and targeted youth between the ages of 14 and 21, allowed them to “uncover all of the nuances in terms of an expression of our cultural heritage”.
The online challenge began at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, June 11, when three items of heritage culture – the steel donkey, mangoes and the standpipe – were posted to the Division of Culture’s Facebook and Instagram pages.
Participants had 24 hours to complete the visuals using the three items and post to the Division’s social media pages on Sunday, June 12. The first prize winner was Shamera Hall; second was Kya Knight, while Kailá Webb and Sherquan Isaac placed third and fourth, respectively.
