BO­BIE-LEE DIXON

bo­bie-lee.dixon@guardian.co.tt

The Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah is cur­rent­ly adorned with sev­er­al pen­nants bear­ing the faces of some of this coun­try’s cul­tur­al icons and am­bas­sadors—an ini­tia­tive by House of An­gos­tu­ra.

The com­pa­ny’s act­ing CEO Ian Forbes told Guardian Me­dia it was the cor­po­rate, en­ti­ty’s way of show­ing its ap­pre­ci­a­tion for all those, alive and passed on, who have con­tributed to T&T’s cul­tur­al art form.

But more than that, he said it was a mat­ter of im­por­tance to do so in an un­prece­dent­ed era when T&T was ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a nos­tal­gia of its cul­ture.

Forbes spoke yes­ter­day dur­ing An­gos­tu­ra House’s hand over of the cul­tur­al pen­nants to Port-of-Spain May­or Joel Mar­tinez at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah.

Stat­ing the coun­try was still in Car­ni­val week, Forbes said: “Giv­en the fact that we could not have had Car­ni­val cel­e­brat­ed in this won­der­ful place, we have found an in­no­v­a­tive way to recog­nise and pay trib­ute to their con­tri­bu­tion to Trinidad and To­ba­go cul­ture…to our the art form…to who we are as a peo­ple. And in this way, we felt by mount­ing the pen­nants and choos­ing some of our cul­tur­al am­bas­sadors to ho­n­our in this way, that it will serve to re­mind us of their con­tri­bu­tion.”

Of the 30 cul­tur­al pen­nants erect­ed, in­clu­sive of “Leroy “Black Stal­in” Cal­liste, the late Ken “Pro­fes­sor” Philmore and Roy Cape, Forbes ex­plained there was no par­tic­u­lar process in se­lect­ing the icons one will see hung on posts for one month around the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah.

“The se­lec­tion was ran­dom, with per­haps the ex­cep­tion of Singing San­dra who passed away re­cent­ly, and we want to ho­n­our her in this way and cer­tain­ly Stal­in who is still ail­ing, Spar­row...Kitch­en­er who are ob­vi­ous­ly the mega am­bas­sadors over so many years. But with those few ex­cep­tions, it is large­ly a ran­dom se­lec­tion,” Forbes re­it­er­at­ed.

Re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia’s ques­tion on whether such an in­take would con­tin­ue be­yond 2021, Forbes said, it was cer­tain­ly some­thing to con­sid­er as the feed­back from cul­tur­al stake­hold­ers was over­whelm­ing.

“It is in fact some­thing we can look at, based on that feed­back as some­thing as a more long-term ven­ture.”

Rep­re­sent­ing the ca­lyp­so fra­ter­ni­ty at yes­ter­day’s event was the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­son­ian Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) Pres­i­dent Lu­ta­lo “Broth­er Re­sis­tance” Masim­ba.

The TU­CO boss who is one of the cul­tur­al am­bas­sadors dis­played on a pen­nant be­lieves the ini­tia­tive came at the right time.

“This project could not come at a bet­ter time, es­pe­cial­ly com­ing out of the Car­ni­val sit­u­a­tion, where they say that Car­ni­val is can­celed, when re­al­ly and tru­ly the cul­tur­al arts and the Car­ni­val arts are al­ways there with­in us,” Masim­ba said.”

Be­fore Mar­tinez ac­cept­ed the hand over of the pen­nants, he ar­gued there was cur­rent­ly no re­al sym­bol­ism or mon­u­ment in the cap­i­tal city that con­veyed, it was the city of fes­ti­vals or T&T was the coun­try of Car­ni­val and this was so, sim­ply by ne­glect.

“Every­one knows, Trinidad is the land of Car­ni­val. We are known all over the world for it. Show me a mon­u­ment in Port-of-Spain that de­picts that we are the land of Car­ni­val? We are the city of fes­ti­vals? There is none be­cause we just didn’t,” said Mar­tinez.

Re­it­er­at­ing plans for a cul­tur­al walk of fame, dis­closed at the Gov­ern­ment’s Spot­light on Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment and oth­er en­deav­ours to cel­e­brate lo­cal icons and am­bas­sadors, Mar­tinez said he was now work­ing on get­ting one of the coun­try’s great­est Mas cre­ations—a King and Queen to em­bell­ish and wel­come all to the city of Port-of-Spain.

“I am now pen­ning a let­ter to Pe­ter Min­shall to ask him if he can as­sist us in giv­ing me the op­por­tu­ni­ty to put in bronze, Saga Boy and Tan Tan and have that as an arch or some­thing as you en­ter the city of Port-of-Spain,” Mar­tinez added.