Banyan Limited
Port Of Spain, Trinidad

Since 1974, Banyan has distinguished itself as a pioneer of endogenous Caribbean television and a producer of innovative and entertaining programmes, which aim at the same time to inform and reflect Caribbean people and culture.

Banyan holds one of the largest video archives of contemporary and traditional Caribbean culture that exists anywhere. Over 3,000 broadcast quality videotapes, which have been, used as exclusive sources by The Smithsonian Institute and many other institutions to document Caribbean arts and culture.

Recently moved into the Southern Caribbean’s only a purpose built vault for audio Visual material, the Banyan Archive is presently being sorted and catalogued electronically to facilitate searches, the Banyan Archive is the core of the Caribbean Motion Picture Archive established at Banyan with the assistance of the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) and UNESCO.

Banyan has trained video units throughout the region from Belize to the Guyanas and has pioneered regional co-productions since the early 1980s. In 1984 its production Caribbean Vision, a co-production of St. Lucia, Dominica, St. Vincent, St. Kitts and Montserrat, laid the groundwork for the successful CBU series, Caribscope. In 1988 Banyan produced the first Documentary series on Caribbean Culture, Caribbean Eye, a landmark series of one hour programmes which won numerous international and regional awards including the CARICOM award for stimulating Caribbean integration. Co-productions outside the region have been done with Brazil, Ghana, India, Turkey, Mexico, United States and Canada.

While maintaining and developing links with its community through co-productions with cultural organisations, trades unions, and community organisations, Banyan works internationally, using the latest technology to have the world seen through the eyes of the Caribbean.

 

The Cropper Foundation
Port Of Spain, Trinidad

The Cropper Foundation is a framework for organising expertise and resources, beginning with those of the founders, John and Angela Cropper, to contribute to development issues and outcomes. It creates opportunity and context through which other individuals and organisations, similarly motivated, may combine efforts, expertise and financial resources to address shared concerns, whether local, Caribbean, or global. It catalyses activities in the public interest as well as provides modest support for private individual needs in education.

The Foundation is a not-for-profit philanthropic organisation established in 2000 under The Companies Act, 1995 of Trinidad and Tobago.

Current activities are in:

 

inIVA, Institute of International Visual Arts
London, England

The Institute of International Visual Arts (inIVA) is an innovative and progressive contemporary visual arts organisation, with a special interest in new technologies, commissioning site-specific artworks and international collaborations. Working across the creative forms of exhibition-making, education, research and publishing, inIVA has achieved wide recognition of its diverse and challenging programme. inIVA's modus operandi is based upon creating new forms of collaboration with artists, curators and writers from culturally diverse backgrounds. Without a venue of our own, we are always forging new relationships with other local, national and international partners, within business and the arts alike.

 

InterAmericas
New York, New York

InterAmericas was founded in 1992 and is a program of NYFA that inter alia has worked extensively with archives in all media. It is increasingly concerned with the creation of an inventory of existing documentation on the cultural life in the Caribbean because of its past, present and future importance to the intellectual history of the Americas. InterAmerica’s most recent efforts have been in Cuba, where it has published a comprehensive bibliography, of the work of Fernando Ortiz and the contents of his literary archives. It is committed to working with CCA and other institutions based in Trinidad to develop a structure for the inventory, cataloguing and preservation of materials related to the history of the arts in the Caribbean. The Front Gallery will create oral history material to be integrated into existing resources.

 

New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA)
New York, New York

NYFA is dedicated to fostering the imaginative spirit within the individual and presently provides one the most comprehensive support systems for artists and arts organisations of all disciplines in the United States. CCA and InterAmericas are two of the many artistic endeavours that NYFA supports. Approximately 75 emerging arts organisations and 300 independent artists’ projects benefit from this valuable service.

The historical and cultural links between New York City, its environs and the Caribbean make an affiliation with the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) an important one. Because CCA is a sponsored project of NYFA, NYFA serves as the non-profit fiscal sponsor [501(c) 3 status] for CCA. Harlem, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan are home to one of the largest and most vibrant Caribbean communities outside the region.

 

The Triangle Arts Trust
London, England

Over 2200 artists have attended workshops operating on the Triangle model initiated by the Trust since the first workshop was established by Sir Anthony Caro and Robert Loder in New York in 1982. The Triangle International Artists workshops are part of a wider picture of workshops and residencies leading to an exchange of ideas and practice between artists, loosely held together through the Triangle Trust, which acts as a facilitator in this world wide artist run enterprise. The Triangle Arts Trust is not so much an organisation, as a movement that depends on a huge amount of voluntary effort by the participating artists themselves. Triangle Workshops provide a counter balance to the prevailing emphasis in the Western art world on product and marketing by providing a space where creativity and process can develop.The Workshops achieve the following objectives:

• provide the possibility of the exchange of practise and ideas amongst artists.
• offer the opportunity for artists to experiment and explore.
• create confidence and confirm a sense of vocation amongst artists - particularly in Africa where the task of maintaining a consistent practise needs great determination and perseverance.
• support the creative process encouraging the development of high quality work from each individual artist and involve the public and community in this art making process.

In the course of 1998-1999 new workshops have been established in Uganda, Nigeria, Trinidad, and Venezuela (in 2000). We are now in the process of planning for Pakistan, Martinique, Curacao and Malaysia.

Gasworks, a studio building in Vauxhall, established by the Trust in 1994, provides 12 studios for UK resident artists and has hosted over 40 visiting artists on residencies from 20 different countries. Many of these visiting artists have shown at the Gasworks Gallery.

In 1990 the Trust established the Bag Factory Studios in Johannesburg which has 20 studios and a residency programme.

Last year the Trust began establishing a studio building in Cape Town which will operate on the same principles as the Bag Factory.

By mobilising the enthusiasm and commitment of participating artists, the Trust has established a unique opportunity for artists to work, experiment, exchange and exhibit with their peers from a wide variety of backgrounds. All its projects are artist led.

(top)