In June of 2019, Upon completing my Bachelors Degree in Theatre Arts in Kingston Jamaica, I returned home to the smaller island of Antigua, on fire, armed with my newly honed art making skills and ready to generate conversations that hopefully could lead to change. I quickly learned, that would be more difficult than I though.
After spending 4 years of my adult life as a dependent, as I was unable to work part time while doing my degree ( the school doesn't allow it because the rigor of the work won't ), I needed to be generating a steady income to not only make art but to simply survive day to day living in Antigua.
I got a job, doing digital marketing, which is what I did before I perused my degree and I was working at stabilizing my earning so that I could make the work I really wanted too, I even joined a local theatre company to keep myself involve, active and sharp, and it was working!... right up until about March of 2020.
Working for a hotel, I lost my contract as soon as the pandemic hit and the theatre company I had been playing with had to stop gathering as well. I was out of work and off stage in a blink.
So much to do! And yet, 3 month of complete lock down said, there's very little that you can do. So I chose to bask in the freedom to think and have deep meaningful conversation with the people around me virtually and otherwise. The kind of conversations that teach you, about yourself and the world around you. Conversations about love and safety and trauma and healing and the stories began to come to me. The things I wanted to say about our collective suffering as post colonial bodies and how we can transcend it together.
I made it through the rest of 2020 and 2021 trying to make ends meet working in spaces that allowed me to utilize the things I learnt and apply them to cooperate needs for ads or artiste and other personal needs for images and visual story telling. It was fun and I i am sharper for it but it did not leave much room for personal work so in January of 2022, I made the spontaneous decision to move back to Jamaica to be closer to my artist network and mentors for support and guidance on how to realize the art I want to make. I still wasn't sure how but I knew it was a start.
Then it happened. In March of 2022 I received an email from the Artist Change Maker Program by the Global Feminist Fund congratulating me on being one of their finalist in their new cohort! My possibilities feel endless and the time is now. So mentors in hand and stories in heart, the simplest way to answer the question of "Where do we go from here?" Is Up.
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