From the outset, she wanted to expand the boundaries of our interview beyond the issues that we had settled on earlier. It was not, she said, that she took lightly the opportunity which the interview afforded to provide a measure of mileage for her own work. The truth was, however, that she was no less interested in exploring the broader issue of craft and the craft vendor and, more importantly, how to fashion the collection of creative industries in Guyana to transform them from “what is mostly a hustle” to the sort of lucrative pursuit that manifests itself in other countries.
We had begun on the subject of CARIFESTA X111 and even though she had queried whether that was a suitable point at which to start she agreed to let go of her preference for another starting point. In the end, the substance of our talk on CARIFESTA justified the direction that we took. She raised the issue of the dichotomy between the creative focus of the regional festival and what she believes is the legitimate expectation of craftspeople that the investment associated with being at CARIFESTA outside of Guyana gave rise to legitimate expectations that commercially, participation would be worth the while.
Against that backdrop she said, without the slightest hesitation that the imperative of Guyana making a creative contribution to CARIFESTA, notwithstanding, living in Barbados, as she was, she had become more than convinced that from a commercial perspective, the expectations of the small and micro enterprise Guyanese craftspeople who went to Barbados to participate in CARIFESTA X111, were unlikely to be realized.
