I live on this street. As a child, the painted flag was always there. But it was not as it is now in its current form. The previous painting was larger and featured --and still features in my imagination-- a large flag unfurling in the wind.
The history of this painted flag, which was preserved in its current form when the owners of the house on the corner finally decided to re-paint thier wall some years ago, is murky.
I hear that it was originally done to commerate the fact that a local politician lived there. Other reasons revolved around the fact that Carr Street --for that is the name of this street-- was an important place for people who eventually became cultual icons. For example, Jason Griffith was once based at Carr Place.
Over the years the flag, regardless of its history, acquired a meaning and irony of its own. A joyful meaning and irony that no doubt you too see, like those who have proudly preserved it as a Belmont landmark for all this time.
Christopher Cozier is an artist and writer living and working in Trinidad. He has participated in a number of exhibitions focused upon contemporary art in the Caribbean and internationally. Since 1989 he has published a range of essays on related issues in a number of catalogues and journals. He is on the editorial collective of Small Axe, A Caribbean Journal of Criticism, published and distributed by Duke University Press. He is the editor of sxspacea blog platform about the visual on the small axe website. The artist has been an editorial adviser to BOMB magazine for their Americas issues (Winter, 2003, 2004 & 2005). The artist is a Senior Research Fellow at the Academy of The University of Trinidad & Tobago (UTT) and was Artist-in-Residence at Dartmouth College during the Fall of 2007 . A documentary produced by Canadian video artist and writer, Richard Fung entitled Uncomfortable: the Art of Christopher Cozierwas launched in Toronto in January 2006. He was the co-curator of the exhibition Paramaribo Span which opened in 2010 and its related blog and publication. He was also the co curator of "Wrestling with the Image" which opened in 2011 and one of the administrators of Alice Yard.
2 comments:
I live on this street. As a child, the painted flag was always there. But it was not as it is now in its current form. The previous painting was larger and featured --and still features in my imagination-- a large flag unfurling in the wind.
The history of this painted flag, which was preserved in its current form when the owners of the house on the corner finally decided to re-paint thier wall some years ago, is murky.
I hear that it was originally done to commerate the fact that a local politician lived there. Other reasons revolved around the fact that Carr Street --for that is the name of this street-- was an important place for people who eventually became cultual icons. For example, Jason Griffith was once based at Carr Place.
Over the years the flag, regardless of its history, acquired a meaning and irony of its own. A joyful meaning and irony that no doubt you too see, like those who have proudly preserved it as a Belmont landmark for all this time.
seen that made me realy missed home
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