"A PLACE CALLED GOUYAVE"

You Are Cordially Invited To The

BOOK LAUNCH OF "A PLACE CALLED GOUYAVE" BY TONY DECOTEAU MEET & GREET TONY DECOTEAU AND COLLECT YOUR AUTOGRAPH COPY SUNDAY, MAY 20, 5:30 PM, BROOKLYN, NY WHEN:            Sunday, May 20, 2012 @ 5:30pm WHERE            1 Grand Army Plaza           (New glass building tower; opposite Brooklyn Public Library on Eastern Parkway) Literary lovers, you don't have to be from  Gouyave, Grenada, to enjoy this book. http://outskirtspress.com/aplacedcalledgouyave     Around October or November, Anthony DeCoteau, known by his Grenada Boys Secondary School (GBSS) friends and hostel mates as "Cortex," downloaded me the manuscript of A Place Called Gouyave. I planned to watch the New York Giants that evening but instead found myself reading and enjoying DeCoteau's book. Early next morning I finished and called DeCoteau to congratulate him and to discuss some of the episodes. For example, he discussed Hurricane Janet. The morning of September 22, 1955, Headmaster Eli Peters closed the Anglican School and I suspect schools around Grenada were ordered to do the same thing. Since most adults in Gouyave did not believe a hurricane was approaching little boys, including me, went to bathe in the sea until early afternoon when the sea was becoming real rough and some responsible adults commanded us to leave. Yet, A Place Called Gouyave is more than a chronicle about growing up in this small and historic town in Grenada. Most Caribbean persons regardless to island of birth or where raised would enjoy and appreciate DeCoteau's book.  What someone recently wrote about the book is so true, "At the end don't be surprised if your mind reverts to your own hometown and smile at the things you used to love. But as one reviewer noted, A PLACE CALLED GOUYAVE leaves room 'for a learning moment among the more sophisticated readers who seek to understand the fundamentals of the Caribbean people in general.'  In other words A PLACE CALLED GOUYAVE is a book that will surely bring back a flood of memories about your own hometown."  You are not in NY! No problem because you can order A Place Called Gouyave, see the author and get more info by clicking http://outskirtspress.com/aplacedcalledgouyave

ShortKnee art workshop at Pepper Pot Centre in London

LONDON, UK, April 11, 2012 – At the invitation of the High Commission for Grenada in the United Kingdom, Grenadian artist Suelin Low Chew Tung, currently in the UK to attend a conference in Leeds, met with residents at the Pepper Pot Day Centre in Ladbroke Grove.

Fourteen residents took part in an art workshop - creating collaged art masks from paper and cardstock. They also learned about the Grenada ShortKnee, and the history behind this indigenous masquerade that Suelin is researching from a visual art point of view. The Pepper Pot Centre 'provides a wide range of drop-in activities, a hot Caribbean lunch and full day care for older people, part of a comprehensive service to older people from the African Caribbean community in Kensington and Chelsea, to enable them to live more independently in their own homes.' The High Commissioner for Grenada is a Patron of the Centre.

 Suelin also left a small piece of artwork created as a momento of her visit to the centre.

 The High Commissioner congratulated Suelin on this initiative and the Centre also expressed its appreciation to the Grenadian Artist.

Papers on the Grenada's ShortKnee to be presented at four international conferences

ST GEORGE’S, February 27, 2012 - Grenadian art culture in the form of the Grenada ShortKnee is to be represented abroad at four international conferences. Local artist Suelin Low Chew Tung is scheduled to present papers based on her March 2011 solo exhibition entitled ICON: ShortKnee as Art, at conferences in Puerto Rico, Guadeloupe and the United Kingdom.  These conferences are timely, given that the theme for the 2012 Carnival celebrations focuses on the Grenada ShortKnee: Legacy of the Chantuelle.

CONFERENCES

March 22-24 Puerto Rico, USA

1.       Negritud-Afro-Latin American Studies 3rd International Conference, San Juan

Paper entitled: Our Present Image: The Grenada ShortKnee, Instrument of History

2.       College English Association, Caribbean Chapter (CEA-CC) 2012 conference, Arecibo

Paper entitled: The Grenada Shortknee: Ritual in Exile

May 28 – June 1, Guadeloupe

1.       37th Annual Caribbean Studies Association Conference 

Paper entitled: The Grenada ShortKnee: Religiocultural Relic

July 4- 6 Oxford, UK

1.       36th Annual Conference of the Society for Caribbean Studies, University of Oxford

Paper entitled: The Grenada ShortKnee: Straddling the carnivals chasm

Her papers follow two presentations in 2011, at the Edna Manley College/Rex Nettleford Inaugural Arts Conference Jamaica, and the 14th Annual Eastern Caribbean Island Cultures Conference, held in Grenada. All the papers inform on the Grenada ShortKnee and its Carnival history through a visual art perspective, in an effort to bridge the gap between visual arts, heritage and culture, and introduce Grenadian visual art to an untapped assembly.

About the artist

Suelin is a self-employed independent visual arts practitioner living and working in Grenada. She explores the ShortKnee (and its variants, the Vecco and Shakespeare Mas) as art subjects outside the realm of Carnival.

Suelin Low Chew Tung

Box 2066, Sans Souci,

St George’s, GRENADA

Studio: 1-473-456-1953

Email: artstung@gmail.com

Blog: arstung.blogspot.com                                                                              

 

biography     

I am a self taught acrylics and mixed media artist. My work explores issues of life and history specific to my immediate island environment, and is in tandem with my penchant for uncovering and unfolding things mysterious in the underbelly of Grenada, that say more about us as a society and an island civilization. I find that brilliant colour affects a distinctive overtone for the easy digestion of even the darkest subject matter that affects our daily lives, and encourages scrutiny of invisible subjects under the surface of the much-touted Caribbean idyll. Since 2008, as part of a self-directed and largely self-funded research/art project, I have begun to chronicle the histories of our island in paint and other visual medium. Part 1 explores Grenada’s carnival icon, the ShortKnee, one of Grenada’s indigenous carnival characters, which emerged from, and was influenced by the creation of Carnival as a mark of celebration of the ending of the colonial slave era. Part 2 visualises the island’s journey from the arrival of the Amazonian peoples to 1899, by creating new artworks from historical written accounts of Grenada 1650-1899.

My writings include papers on the ShortKnee history research and art process, the chronicling process of Part 2 (above) and an unpublished collection of short stories reflective of our island culture.

select exhibitions

2011                2nd Biennal d'Art de Corbera d’Ebre, Tarragona, Spain

2011                ICON: ShortKnee as Art, Grenada

2010                Chantuelle series – Grenada Pavilion, Shanghai Expo, China

2009                1st Biennal d'Art de Corbera d’Ebre, Tarragona, Spain

features

2005               Small Island Art –Potential Untapped by Dr Susan Mains,

IX^th Congress of the Society for Caribbean Research, Lisbon, Portugal

1995                Grenadian Painters & Sculptors Volume I by Trish Bethany,

Caribbean Art Search Foundation, Provincetown, Massachusetts, USA

 papers/publications

2011                Edna Manley College/Rex Nettleford Arts Conference, Jamaica

The Grenada ShortKnee: Street Performance to Canvas, Getting Past the Carnival

2011                University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras/University of the West Indies-Cave Hill Barbados 14th Annual Eastern Caribbean Islands Cultures Conference, Grenada

The Grenada ShortKnee: Street Performance to Canvas