YOU, ME & CSME: Smell the CAFÉ

The Caribbean – markedly different things, different experiences for  different people. One might even suggest that the cultures of the North and the South, the  East and West, demonstrate the wonderful diversity this region subconsciously emits. Perhaps it is the Caribbean artist who best puts these into stark perspective for us.Recently, the University of the West Indies showcased an exhibition like no other at the Errol Barrow Centre for Creative Imagination. People flowed through the halls, spreading the word to not miss the show. It was a CAFÉ – a part of the Cuban American Foremost Exhibits.  A CAFÉ is a showing of Cuban American artists – a demonstration of their journeys. It is a roving series of art events and exhibits, including all forms of arts used by Cuban artists, outside of Cuba. This perhaps is their way of keeping, transforming, and reinventing themselves and each other while living in the diaspora.On show was an intriguing, passionate outlay of a people’s attachment to their country; one could even say, a longing for their country, as they bloomed outside of their island home.  These exhibitions are cast internationally generally where Cubans find community, belonging, home. It is a telling fortune that these brilliant Cubans have found community here amongst their Anglo-Caribbean neighbours.The CAFé was curated by Professor Dr Grisel Pujala and artist Leandro Soto. Dr Pujala, a Spanish professor invited to Barbados by the University of the West Indies, brought in Cuban artistes of every genre – dancers, academics, designers – and they spoke on issues ranging from the particular histories of Cuba, to the particular race relations now existing, to the creativity and technology being developed inside of Cuba, to the great potential that Cuba is to the region and perspectives of Cuba’s future.  They spoke, too, of the great generosity that Cuba has shown to the peoples of the Caribbean in medicine, agriculture, pride of person and country. And they spoke to the shortcomings of the revolution.We, the audience, ate it up, as though we’d been craving this information, these insights into a land we think so much of, but know so little about.Soto, a multidisciplinary artist who integrates performance, movement, music, painting, video, and installation art in his shows, is renowned for inspiring and working with Caribbean artists of every ilk. He has been pushing the boundaries of “art” for the past 40 years, since being one of the leading figures of the “Volumen Uno”, an artistic movement that changed the course of Cuban art by significantly bringing the Afro-Cuban heritage into play.The real attraction to the CAFé’s and Soto’s work, perhaps more than anything, is the visual installation art which emerges from his performances. Soto responds to the post-modern coordinates of implosion and satire, often subverting the inceptions of culturally accepted notions of high/kitsch, traditional/pop, global/local, and profane/sacred art forms.  It seems to be a metaphor for our Caribbean community – a synthesis and integration of values – raising personal and cultural awareness to the inner organisation of how we have been formed and its metaphoric implications.Among the paintings that captivated students and the visiting public alike was a vast piece, spanning perhaps the entire south wall of the gallery. It depicted the Caribbean sea and the life that exists in it from the viewpoint of a tear-filled artist’s eye. Each island, each person, each centimetre of this our Caribbean space, was touched, caressed, embraced by the tears of the paintbrush, until one noticed after pondering the painting more intensely, they weren’t tears at all, but the artist’s rendition of the energy that pervades this our Caribbean world. There was no piece of matter that was impervious to its singular energy. It was as though the artist was thankful that here art is still given rein to provoke thought and challenge beliefs and systems no longer conducive to growth.• Michelle Cave has done her thesis on the regional integration movement.