Image by Marisol Villanueva

09.23.1999 Boriquén/Puerto Rico
"Mom tells the story of a great-grandmother who was a Taina and used to live in the caves,hiding from the Spaniards when they took over the island.  She used to steal crops to survive. The one who later became my great-grandfather waited in watch to see which animal was eating his crop. When he discovered it was an Indian he set a trap and caught her, and they fell in love, and they got married."
   - Alice Daisy Chéverez

IN THE BEGINNING…

Long before we came to know of them, they were here. Living and working, building families and memories, etching their stories into the history of these islands, of this region.

The indigenous peoples are the human link bridging the islands of the Caribbean.  We should know of them intimately - these peoples whose legacy of festivals and cuisine, whose knowledge of geography, flora and fauna, whose very bloodlines make up an invaluable part of our collective present day existence.

How did they live?  What of their societies?  Their religious, social, political and cultural beliefs and practises?

Some answers are in history books, some questions we can ask their living descendents, but beginning Friday 15th August 2003, the people of Trinidad and Tobago have the opportunity to immerse themselves in the lives of Amerindian peoples, through contemporary works of art and materials created by ancient and modern indigenous communities.

Caribbean Contemporary Arts (CCA) and InterAmericas/Society of Arts and Letters of the Americas/Sociedad de Artes y Letras de las Américas/Société des Arts et Lettres des Amériques (InterAmericas) invite you to take a journey "to the beginning," through three concurrent exhibitions at CCA7, Centre for theContemporary Arts and participate in a rich variety of related events from 15th August to 17th October 2003.

In the InterAmericas Space:

"Marisol Villanueva: THE NEW OLD WORLD/El nuevo viejo mundo" - a new exhibition combining 80 black-and-white photographs from "THE NEW OLD WORLD: Antilles - Living Beyond the Myth" (originally exhibited 2002-2003 at the George Gustav Heye Center in New York of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian) and 12 colour giclée (Iris) prints from Volume IV of 12/12, CAZABI: Gift of the Americas (published by InterAmericas and the Research Institute for the Study of Man (RISM). The timeless images of CAZABI: Gift of the Americas portray the preparation of cassava bread, and feature texts from the work of Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés (1478-1557). Exhibition copies of Fernández de Oviedo's works bound by Richard Bolai are also on view and available for reference.

The photographs in "MARISOL VILLANUEVA: THE NEW OLD WORLD/El nuevo viejo mundo" are from the Archives of Phase I (The Caribbean: 1999-2002) of Puerto Rican artist Marisol Villanueva's long-term curatorial project, THE NEW OLD WORLD/El nuevo viejo mundo, which documents the people, traditions, and landscapes of indigenous peoples in the Spanish and formerly Spanish Americas, including the Taíno in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico, and the Carib in Dominica and Trinidad.  The Archives of Phase I include approximately 5000 images, 400 pages of journal entries and correspondence.  There are 800-900 images of Trinidad, mostly taken in the Santa Rosa Carib Community in Arima.

There is a 32 page bilingual catalogue, Marisol Villanueva: THE NEW OLD WORLD/El nuevo viejo mundo, which complements the exhibition and contains both additional materials from the Archives of Phase I.  The catalogue also features Plate 10 of CAZABI: Gift of the Americas (caption: " 02.01.2000/Arima/Julie Calderon separating the catebi (dried lumps of cassava) in the manári (sifter)."

In the Main Gallery:

Featured are two "works of the imagination" by contemporary artists: "Place of Beginnings: The World Views of The Amerindians of Cairi and of Medieval Europe" by John Stollmeyer and The Seville Diptych by Tina Spiro.

"Place of Beginnings: The World Views of The Amerindians of Cairi and of Medieval Europe" by John Stollmeyer is a set of three new installations which explore concepts of mapping c.1500 CE in the Gulf of Paria and its surrounds, including Trinidad.  The title is drawn from Arima, which means "place of beginnings" in the Karinya language.  The multimedia installations are Cairi (Trinidad), as seen from what is now called Calvary Hill, Arima; Warao Cosmology, with its north point located in Trinidad; and Columbus' World View, extrapolated from medieval maps and Columbus' writings, locating the Garden of Eden at the Orinoco Delta.

"The Seville Diptych" (1992) by Tina Spiro is a dramatic depiction of the arrival of Columbus on the North Coast of Jamaica (Xaymaca) in 1494 in the vicinity of what is now known as "Seville", an area which was then inhabited by the Taino (Arawak) peoples.

Also in the Main Gallery are concurrent exhibitions of contemporary items and historical artifacts on loan from Santa Rosa Carib Community in Arima and The Archaeology Centre, Department of History at the University of the West Indies/St. Augustine.

Participants at CCA's Art Camp 2003: B.C. The New Old World have created a model Amerindian Atta (shelter). which is installed in the Main Gallery.  The CCA Art Camp has been generously supported by the High Commission for Canada.

Related Events

As part of the CCA7 Artist Talk Series, Marisol Villanueva spoke about her work on Tuesday 26th August 2003 at 7pm along with Ricardo Bharath- Hernandez, Chief of the Santa Rosa Carib Community.

Also scheduled is a book launch of BREAD MADE FROM YUCA: Selected Chronicles of Indo-Antillean Cultivation and Use of Cassava 1526-2002 published by InterAmericas® Society of Arts and Letter of the Americas/Sociedad de Artes y Letras de las Américas/ Société des Arts et Lettres des Amériques 2003.  At this launch, John Stollmeyer will speak about "Place of Beginnings: The World Views of The Amerindians of Cairi and of Medieval Europe".  Date to be announced.

All exhibitions were on show from 14th August - 1st November 2003 at CCA7.