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Showing posts from 2011

Walk Good, Aggrey

Professor Aggrey Brown   "Rather, in examining and assessing what the media are in the Caribbean, we came upon the question - Talking with Whom? Do we have infrastructures and channels for communication without communications processes in the Caribbean?"  - from "Talking with Whom", Brown and Sanatan, 1987. For hundreds of us in the Caribbean - the name meant, and means, so much. Aggrey. Aggrey the teacher, Aggrey the torturer, Aggrey the brain, Aggrey the critic, Aggrey the angry, the sage, the visionary, the thinker, the talker. Dare we see his like again? I hope so. If any of his searing intellect, his fiery passion, his incisive and insightful criticism - and his caring about and for the West Indian Civilisation are anything to go by, then there are scores of Aggreys in the making, thanks to him, ever since 1974. For 22 tumultuous years, he was Mr. CARIMAC , synonymous with the training school, research crucible, lab and temple for Caribbean c...

Barbados: Towards a Media Farm in 2012

 Caribbean Media Centre, Bridgetown (CMC) A question mark need not follow that headline, as it so often appends itself to ideas on this and many other little rocks in the Atlantic pond. I return to something I've been advocating and others have been talking about for some time now - a media farm: a single cooperative space where media artists and entrepreneurs can operate; a cottage industry in air-conditioned comfort; a one-stop shop for clients and creators - its eventual shape can be limited only by our imagination... and our resolve. I know of many Barbadian producers and filmmakers who crave a place to lay their hats, grab face time in a conference room, 'hold a corner' for their creative engine room, get access to a decent printer/copier etc. Picture a score of office enclosures, one-room suites and a central large space that's farmed out to occupants freely and at cost to outsiders - a soundstage or multicamera studio with audience bleachers, perhaps. S...