Re­search­ing T&T's past has al­ways been part of artist Joshua Lue Chee Kong's process in cre­at­ing his work, and now he'll have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to do so as he has been cho­sen as the T&T re­cip­i­ent of the British Coun­cil's two-month Trans At­lantic Artists' Res­i­den­cy Ex­change (TAARE).

The pro­gramme sees two artists from the Caribbean go­ing to the UK and two artists from the UK trav­el­ling to the Caribbean to do work in their re­spec­tive dis­ci­plines.

On its web­site, British Coun­cil Caribbean said: "The res­i­den­cy can be re­search and/or prac­tice-based and in­cludes round trip trav­el, ac­com­mo­da­tion, a ma­te­ri­als/project bud­get, an artist fee and a stipend for liv­ing costs.

"The res­i­den­cy is sup­port­ed by British Coun­cil, its UK part­ners: Del­fi­na Foun­da­tion, Gas­works, Au­to­graph ABP and Hos­pi­tal­field Arts; and Caribbean part­ners: NLS Kingston in Ja­maica and Al­ice Yard in Trinidad."

Lue Chee Kong said he will use the op­por­tu­ni­ty to find out about the sto­ries of the ob­jects which he has been col­lect­ing here in T&T. Lue Chee Kong said that af­ter study­ing graph­ic de­sign at the Sa­van­nah Col­lege of Art and De­sign in the US he was en­er­gised about the po­ten­tial and the sto­ries of T&T.

"I was hap­py that I had made that step, com­ing back with new eyes, see­ing how we could en­vi­sion a past, present and fu­ture. A lot of his­to­ry is van­ish­ing at a very quick pace be­cause of progress.

"I start­ed from tak­ing pic­tures of hous­es, then it grad­u­al­ly evolved in­to dig­ging in peo­ple's back­yards or ex­plor­ing these places where I find bits of pot­tery, bits and pieces of the past."

Lue Chee Kong said peo­ple have been very help­ful in reach­ing out to him and giv­ing him arte­facts that have been hand­ed down.

"That gen­eros­i­ty has been very help­ful in terms of my progress as an artist, his­to­ri­an, ar­chae­ol­o­gist–I don't know what to call my­self these days. I more fo­cus on the sto­ries, the sto­ries be­hind ob­jects, the sto­ries be­hind hous­es, I love cap­tur­ing that as­pect of it."

The artist has ex­hib­it­ed in T&T, Mar­tinique, Bar­ba­dos, and Ja­maica as well as be­ing fea­tured in lo­cal news­pa­pers, the T&T Chi­na Times and Time Mag­a­zine, where two of his pic­tures were on the front page.

In an­nounc­ing his se­lec­tion, the British Coun­cil said: "He has a keen in­ter­est in his­to­ry and cul­ture and is present­ly ex­plor­ing T&T's folk­lore, re­defin­ing tra­di­tion­al in­ter­pre­ta­tions by ex­pand­ing cul­tur­al iconog­ra­phy and im­agery.

"This has helped cre­ate a new di­men­sion in the re­de­f­i­n­i­tion of T&T's so­ci­ety be­ing rel­e­vant to the present glob­al fam­i­ly, while pre­serv­ing its own cul­tur­al unique­ness and iden­ti­ty, tran­scend­ing racial and so­cial bar­ri­ers."

Lue Chee Kong hopes to be able to take some of the things he has found to Lon­don with him. These in­clude bits of pot­tery, wa­ter jugs, clay pipes and bricks.

"Most of the stuff I've been find­ing so far has been con­nect­ed to the colo­nial past of Trinidad, whether British, French, Span­ish or Dutch.

"I've been cat­a­logu­ing when and where I found them, so now I have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to take that in­for­ma­tion and find out more about the dis­tinct places they were made, the sto­ries that con­nect­ed them to the moth­er­land,and how they found them­selves in Trinidad."

Lue Chee Kong said the UK has kept ex­cel­lent records of his­to­ry, in­clud­ing doc­u­ments, pho­tographs and deeds.

"You just have to know where and how to look. Here in T&T, we on­ly have frag­ments of our his­to­ry and even now we are de­stroy­ing or los­ing it, so for me or any­one else who tries to trace back their his­to­ry, it's near to im­pos­si­ble to find that some­times. It's not unique to the Caribbean or in Trinidad; it's just be­cause we're so small, I think."

Lue Chee Kong said bricks were brought to T&T as bal­last or weight in the holds of ships and then were ex­changed for goods and used as build­ing ma­te­ri­als.

The clay pipes show an evo­lu­tion from the time when to­bac­co was ex­pen­sive to when it be­came cheap­er, as the bowls in­crease in size.

The bits of plates he's col­lect­ed range from when such plates were very ex­pen­sive and hand-paint­ed to when they be­came more ac­ces­si­ble with the use of a new print­ing tech­nique, so more peo­ple could have them as a sta­tus sym­bol. He said his favourite piece has a Ma­son­ic sym­bol on it.

"These things fas­ci­nate me," he said.

More in­fo: Go to: http://jl­ck­cre­ative.wixsite.com/port­fo­lio.