Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

The Cen­tral Bank Mu­se­um is set to kick off its first ex­hi­bi­tion of the year, “Play­ing We-Self: Par­al­lels, Sim­i­lar­i­ties and Co-imag­i­na­tion in mas­quer­ade and mu­sic cul­ture in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

It was con­cep­tu­al­ized and cu­rat­ed by Kamille An­drews, the Mu­se­um’s cur­rent Artist in Res­i­dence, one of two artists un­der the Bank’s Cre­ative Res­i­den­cy Pro­gramme (CRP).

The ex­hi­bi­tion fea­tures ex­am­ples of tra­di­tion­al mas as well as mu­sic that il­lus­trate var­i­ous his­tor­i­cal and con­tem­po­rary in­flu­ences on car­ni­val cul­ture and cre­ation. The pub­lic will have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to vis­it and in­ter­act with this ex­hi­bi­tion from Feb­ru­ary 1 to 23.

The ex­hi­bi­tion aims to en­gage vis­i­tors through ed­u­ca­tion­al and in­ter­ac­tive dis­plays that stim­u­late in­tro­spec­tion on the ex­is­tence and im­por­tance of so­cial in­clu­sion and di­ver­si­ty in the aes­thet­ics, mu­sic and cul­ture of Car­ni­val, and by ex­ten­sion, T&T so­ci­ety.

Sec­tions of the ex­hi­bi­tion in­clude Play Yuh Mas, where vis­i­tors can learn the ways var­i­ous groups have his­tor­i­cal­ly in­cor­po­rat­ed their be­lief sys­tems, spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, rit­u­als and fes­ti­val tra­di­tions in Car­ni­val. Play Yuh Mu­sic, show­cas­ing mu­sic over the years that has fused var­i­ous tra­di­tion­al sounds root­ed in African and In­di­an cul­ture as well as con­tem­po­rary sounds, el­e­ments and con­cepts. Build Yuh Mas, where vis­i­tors can have a hands-on ex­pe­ri­ence in de­sign­ing a char­ac­ter of their choice us­ing sim­ple ma­te­ri­als un­der the guid­ance of An­drews and staff of the Mu­se­um.

An­drews joined the Bank in Au­gust 2023 un­der the year-long CRP and has been work­ing on projects and ex­hi­bi­tions with the Mu­se­um and the wider Bank since that time.