Gillian Moore

In mark­ing its third an­niver­sary, the Al­ice Yard arts space in Wood­brook has been abuzz with art, mu­sic and ac­tiv­i­ty, cul­mi­nat­ing tonight with the un­veil­ing of work cre­at­ed by Mar­lon Grif­fith dur­ing his 24HRS re­silien­cy pro­gramme. A week ago, on Mon­day night, sup­port­ers gath­ered for Free Plus Three, to hear artists and de­sign­ers dis­cuss "the idea of free".

Led by mod­er­a­tor Nicholas Laugh­lin, ed­i­tor of The Caribbean Re­view of Books and one of Al­ice Yard's ad­min­is­tra­tors, the pan­el in­clud­ed Richard Rawl­ins, ed­i­tor of Dra­con­ian Switch art and de­sign We­bzine; artist Mar­lon Dar­beau, who re­cent­ly cre­at­ed a new font for the space; dancer and de­sign­er Dave Williams and IN­DE­groove pro­duc­er Ter­ry Smith, who to­geth­er worked on Erot­ic Art Week ear­li­er this year and Al­ice Yard di­rec­tor, ar­chi­tect Sean Leonard.

The pan­elists grap­pled with the is­sues sur­round­ing in­de­pen­dent arts pro­duc­tion in T&T, in­clud­ing ques­tions of how to sus­tain a vi­brant arts com­mu­ni­ty, how to pro­duce art with lim­it­ed funds and make it prof­itable, and means of dis­tri­b­u­tion in lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets.

On Wednes­day night, 12 the Band launched its new al­bum Streets and Av­enues at the space, al­so cel­e­brat­ing their tenth an­niver­sary. They played songs from the new disc, in­clud­ing Imag­i­na­tion and Pros­per, giv­ing a tight per­for­mance be­fore a packed yard. Many pa­trons were seat­ed on brand new bleach­er-style seats, de­signed by Dar­beau for the an­niver­sary. The artist al­so de­signed the CD's pack­ag­ing, which re­sem­bles a flex­i­ble yel­low-red-and-green ac­cor­dion.

Dar­beau and vet­er­an artist Christo­pher Co­zi­er joined with 12 front­man Shel­don Hold­er, Mar­tin "Mice" Ray­mond, who pro­duced the CD, and artist Wen­dell Mc­Shine, co-di­rec­tor of the an­i­mat­ed video for Pros­per, for a brief talk be­fore the band played. Tonight, Al­ice Yard will close off its an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions, when Mar­lon Grif­fith–an artist and mas de­sign­er who has shown his work in New York, Jo­han­nes­burg, Kingston, Gwangju and Cape Town, Lon­don and Toron­to–shows new work at the yard as part of the 24HRS res­i­den­cy pro­gramme, which he con­ceived. The idea is for him to in­hab­it the space for the day, in­ter­act­ing with any­one who is there, and cre­at­ing a site-spe­cif­ic work of art. Artist Jaime Lee Loy, who has worked with Grif­fith and was the first artist to show work at the space, will give an in­tro­duc­to­ry talk.