ADVANCING RACIAL & SOCIAL JUSTICE THROUGH CULTURAL SUSTAINABILITY IN THE CARIBBEAN
CCCADI Staff Meets with Piñones Aprende y Emprende (PAYE) Organizer in 2021.
The Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute announces the public phase of its area of work dedicated to artists and cultural workers in the Caribbean, CROSSROADS. Created in 2021 as an organizational pathway for advancing its mission of cultural equity, racial and social justice for African descendant communities through arts and culture, CROSSROADS strengthens the African Diaspora’s Pan-Caribbean connections by focusing on the cultural sustainability, autonomy, innovation, and self-reliance of artists and cultural workers living and working in the Caribbean.
Over the past three years, the CCCADI CROSSROADS team has built the roadmap for executing this work. The framework seeks to use a decolonizing and holistic healing justice approach to develop a self-sustainable ecosystem through skills development, supporting individuals, and sustaining their contributions to culture, economy, and collective well-being.
Senior Program Associate Marissel Hernández Romero (right) serves as a panelist at Mercado Cultural Caribe in Cartagena, November 2023.
A critical development of the program was the creation of a Caribbean-based advisory board of cultural workers. The advisory board is comprised of eight representatives from various nations: Micherline Islanda Aduel (Haiti), La Vaughn Belle (U.S. Virgin Islands), David Gumbs (Saint Martin), Zuleica Margarita Romay Guerra (Cuba), Mapenzi Nonó (Puerto Rico), Rafael Ramos (Colombia), Abril Troncoso (República Dominicana), and Natalie Willis Whylly (Bahamas)—their collective experience and expertise help to inform the needs and realities of Afro-Caribbean communities across the region.
Melody Capote, CCCADI Executive Director at Mercado Cultural del Caribe, November 2023.
Anchored in Pan-Caribbean solidarity, CROSSROADS has also built relationships with like-missioned organizations, most recently including Corporación Cultural Cabildo, based in Cartagena, Colombia, and Escuela Kalalú Danza in the Dominican Republic.
June 2024 marks the beginning of public programming by CROSSROADS with the launch of its lunchtime virtual talk series, La Fiambrera. The series represents the cultivation of sustainable practices through the exchange of experiences and advice among Caribbean artists and cultural producers. The first installment, set to air in June, delves into the acquisition of spaces from the lens of two artists in their practice and roles as cultural managers.
