[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ admin_label=”Header” _builder_version=”4.20.0″ _module_preset=”default” collapsed=”on” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.20.0″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.20.0″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.0″ _module_preset=”0669b723-de6a-4731-af0e-3b6076c0b492″ text_orientation=”center” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” _builder_version=”4.20.0″ _module_preset=”default” background_color=”#000000″ custom_padding=”80px|80px|80px|80px|true|true” custom_padding_tablet=”40px|40px|40px|40px|true|true” custom_padding_phone=”20px|20px|20px|20px|true|true” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.20.0″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/edwardbowen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/IMG-20220117-WA0002.jpg” title_text=”IMG-20220117-WA0002″ _builder_version=”4.27.2″ _module_preset=”default” scroll_fade_enable=”on” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.2″ _module_preset=”9626342e-eb66-4c84-a298-879fce153462″ text_text_color=”#FFFFFF” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n
By Simon Lee\u00a0 (aka ”The Inspector”)<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n It would be disingenuous to dissimulate, or in Trinidad parlance play \u201cthe mocking pretender\u201d (empty hyperbolic windbag) or even attempt to \u201cmamaguy\u201d (fool) those of you who have strayed from the drawings, an amazement unto themselves, into this textual morang and sometime meringue. What follows lays no claim to art criticism, although some of it might be. It is neither objective nor detached, as I have known the artist for close on 30 years, arriving in this Trinidada the same year as The Architect of Impossible Physics<\/em> found his way onto the drawing board.<\/p>\n Disclaimers aside, what I can offer are some responses based on life experience and the accumulated research of more than 40 years into Caribbean culture, high and low, popular, folk, rootical, theoretical, historical and supernatural. That\u2019s some of the background, which would also include countless research trips and \u2018deep limes\u2019 across the entire region from Cuba, Hispaniola (Haiti and The Dominican Republic) and Jamaica in the north, all the way down south to Cayenne in Guyane (French Guyana) and the infamous Devil\u2019s Island. En route I\u2019ve met prime ministers and ganja farmers, fishermen and bush doctors, beer brewers and rum distillers, artists and vendors, Vodou, Kali and Orisha priests, cricketers and stickfighters, musicians and hitmen.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re into credentials, you\u2019ve just had some of mine, as I\u2019m convinced, unlike a distinguished academic who\u2019s widely recognized in academe as an expert on Haitian literature but has never set foot in Haiti, that to discuss, or comment on any aspect of culture, one must know the land and seascapes, the his and her stories of provenance and the people who made them. Position and context, point of view \u2013are all more than relevant. Any cultural theorizing or discourse, such as this, must be based on primary research. Organic, as opposed to the cerebral style of theory (largely western and burdened with such schismic titles as structuralism, post structuralism, post modernism, post colonialism) begins with the practice, from which theory is derived. Otherwise theory is disconnected, a cart before the proverbial horse, as practice does not conform to (existing) theory but begets it.<\/p>\n And while the Caribbean is inextricably entangled with Western discourse and has produced postmodern analysis of culture \u2013notably Antonio Benitez-Rojo\u2019s The Repeating Island<\/em>, Caribbean theory like Caribbean new knowledge is (must by definition) be generated here, which is the centre, rather than from a distant metropolis, which is peripheral to our purposes. As Jos\u00e9 Mart\u00ed observed in his seminal 1891 essay Nuestra America <\/em>(which reclaims the name of the region from Yankee monopoly) \u201cThe European university must bow to the American university. The history of America, from the Incas to the present, must be taught\u2026even if the archons of ancient Greece are overlooked. Our Greece must take priority over the Greece which is not ours. We need it more…Let the world be grafted onto our republics, but the tree must be our own.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_button button_url=”@ET-DC@eyJkeW5hbWljIjp0cnVlLCJjb250ZW50IjoicG9zdF9saW5rX3VybF9wYWdlIiwic2V0dGluZ3MiOnsicG9zdF9pZCI6IjMxNDY3In19@” button_text=”Read the full essay here” button_alignment=”center” _builder_version=”4.27.2″ _dynamic_attributes=”button_url” _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_button][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ admin_label=”Testimonials” _builder_version=”4.27.2″ _module_preset=”default” custom_padding=”0px||0px||false|false” collapsed=”on” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.20.0″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.20.0″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_icon font_icon=”||fa||900″ icon_color=”#000000″ icon_width=”56px” _builder_version=”4.20.0″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_icon][et_pb_slider _builder_version=”4.23.4″ _module_preset=”1100dbce-ed76-4fcb-b09c-c3bcc3b5b856″ border_width_top=”1px” locked=”off” global_colors_info=”{%22gcid-8b50368a-c64a-42be-b110-e2137ab417d1%22:%91%22header_text_color%22%93}”][et_pb_slide heading=”Clark Ashton Smith” _builder_version=”4.23.4″ _module_preset=”default” locked=”off” global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_transition=”on”]<\/p>\n The only impossible thing is to define and delimit the impossible<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_slide][\/et_pb_slider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" About MeBy Simon Lee\u00a0 (aka ”The Inspector”) It would be disingenuous to dissimulate, or in Trinidad parlance play \u201cthe mocking pretender\u201d (empty hyperbolic windbag) or even attempt to \u201cmamaguy\u201d (fool) those of you who have strayed from the drawings, an amazement unto themselves, into this textual morang and sometime meringue. What follows lays no claim […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-31179","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n