On the 7th of November 2022, a rainy Monday morning, we gathered into a classroom in the Professor Stuart Hall building at Goldsmiths University for the UK Symposium for the Surviving Storms | Caribbean Cyclone Cartography project. In the room from Dominica were project collaborators Kaila Ann Guiste and Gibran Espirit (research interns), along with Yuanne Stowe (Project Manager) from …
‘Music is my life, music is everything to me’ ‘In Dominica… survival supposed to be in you’ In this short film the renowned calypsonian Christopher ‘Chris B’ Sylvester of St Joseph, West Dominica, tells the story of his hit song ‘My Country Still Nice’, which earned rave reviews in the 2018 Kaiso monarch finals that followed Maria. He takes us …
‘Out of the darkness comes something beautiful’ Shadrach ‘Shadi’ Burton, is a visual artist from the village of Wotton Waven, in the Roseau Valley, now based at the RoBurton Gallery in Picard, Portsmouth. His work is inspired by the flows of energy that permeate life – from volcanic energy beneath his natal village, to the swirling cyclone, to water vapour …
‘For me nature is the thing that heals, it kind of softens… I think that we still have a lot of healing to be done in Dominica…’ ‘New shoots of growth… documenting growth is my healing’ Carol Sorhaindo is a Dominican artist and designer. Her research interests connect her to place through explorations of the historic threads that entangle transatlantic …
A short film by Tiana Smith, Sydney Thomas and Naomi Celestine. Directed by Adom Philogene Heron and Annabel Wilson. Executive production, Samantha Sweeting. Judith tells her story of growing up in banana farming, raising her family, the traditional practices of her parents and the shortfalls of chemical fertiliser and pesticides. She also speaks of her dreams for the future – …
A short film By Cecilia Green and Michael Lees following the life journeys of Lillian Marcelin and Octavia Hunter, two women farmers from Calibishie, north eastern Dominica. The women’s oral histories track their personal journeys in farming, from childhood memories on family farms, to earning great respect for prolific banana and passion fruit cultivation in adulthood, to supporting and raising …
Road to Repair tells the story of villagers rebuilding a the road to their home, their farms, their livelihoods – a lifeline for a community devastated and displaced by tropical storm Erika in 2015. Shortly after landslides and floods took the lives of 18 souls, the village was declared abandoned by government. Yet, many continue to make life there. Some …