A forum of artists from around the Americas was held this week in Belize as part of the “Landings” series of art exhibitions.
But far from just exhibiting, Landings is meant to spark a cultural and societal revolution for a generation addicted to the trappings of modernism.
The Landings Nine forum was held all this week at the Image Factory on North Front Street. Over twenty artists, including Belizeans Yasser Musa and project curator Joan Duran, put down their paint and brushes and picked up ideas from each other.
Joan Duran, the father of Stonetree Records manager Ivan Duran, told Amandala that the purpose of this week’s forum was to turn the region’s creative minds away from simply exhibiting for money, or becoming tools of the system. Instead, they must become what he calls “warriors of ideas.”
In a press conference today at the Image Factory, artist Adan Vallecillo of Honduras told the assembled media that art is not a “secondary necessity,” but a “vital need for society.”
What this means, Duran told us, is that art cannot be confined to a subject in the classroom, or an item in a newscast, or even an article in a newspaper.
Artists, he said, must lead the fight for creative recognition in a region constantly dominated by interests that wish to control, or crush artistic expression of any kind.
“It is a mistake,” Duran told Amandala, “for young artists to think that they need to channel their art to discuss social issues. Art, to be appreciated, must in and of itself be an experience, an inspiration. We prepare ourselves to go to church; it must be the same way with going to an art exhibition.”
Musa backed his colleagues, saying that they do not consider what eventually lands on the canvas, or the CD and cassette, as finished. Art, he told us, is really determined by the popular reaction to it (as is the case with famous works like Beethoven’s Symphony or the Mona Lisa), more so than what the artist thinks.
Unfortunately, Belizean leadership has adopted a philistine attitude to cultural development, leading our artists to seek glory on foreign shores, said Joan Duran.
He maintained that the kind of love poured out recently for the late musician and government official Andy Palacio after the success of his album Watina in 2007 (produced by Stonetree and which Joan Duran says still gives him chills listening to it) is an example of what a government can do to instill pride in artistic expression and creativity – and channel the pursuits of the next generation, away from the mindlessness of popular television and street crime.
The last Landings exhibition was held in Taiwan earlier this year and featured Musa’s participation. Belizeans to have exhibited during the Landings international tour begun in 2004 include Adrian Barron (living in England), Santiago Cal, Richard Holder and Michael Gordon. Gordon, Cal, Barron and Musa will all participate in the final exhibition scheduled for Baradoz, Spain, in 2009.
And what then? Musa tells us the artists will then take the fight for recognition to their individual homelands and continue to build bridges with each other and with those both sympathetic and indifferent to the coming revolution. Part of that fight in Belize, he added, is the push for art to be taught at all levels of education and an increased interest by the new government in culture at all levels.