The Caribbean was the cradle of New World globalization. With the exception of the indigenous population, our people all came from somewhere else, into the belly of the Americas.

Characterised by waves of migrant experience, the Caribbean became a place of confluence, transience and hybridity which for years romanticized the struggle to be whole, to become one Caribbean people. In spite of this ideal, we remain as fragmented as ever, locked into nationalist crevices, linguistic divides and exclusivist cultural legitimacy.

The repeated production of idyllic images of an eternal playground for tourists on the one hand, and notions of the region as fragmented, failed and chaotic on the other; mask a complex history, leaving Caribbeans ambivalent about a sense of self.

We must answer the question, both creatively and critically, what is the Caribbean? What image of ourselves do we wear and to what extent do these images represent who we actually are? What is the truth of our own lived realities and how do we speak to each other of this reality?

My work exposes tensions within the larger context of a post-colonial history and the more recent experiences of post-independence. More personal explorations of home/land, longing and belonging, run through the work, interweaving poetic sequences with more direct references to our lived realities
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                                                                                                                              January 2009
                                                                                                                   St. George, Barbados