Nine months after Hurricane Irma devastated St. John in September 2017, island residents gathered in school rooms, church assembly halls, senior facilities, and empty retail areas. They set apart their seemingly endless hurricane restoration duties for some hours, selecting as an alternative to interact in resourceful play, mirrored image, and artistic expression: They made a mask.
The consequences have been outstanding. Over several weeks, almost 500 masks were completed as part of St. John’s first public artwork challenge with an artwork remedy element.
The method of making these masks and how the network was tormented by it has been documented in a 12-minute movie, “Masks within the Aftermath.
Now, the creators of the mission need to take numerous steps. In addition to extending the film, they want to explore how the humanities can be incorporated with intellectual fitness applications in the U.S. Virgin Islands and create opportunities for neighborhood artists. To do that, they’ve launched a fundraising initiative on Indiegogo, a crowdfunding website for artists and marketers.
The movie “Masks Inside the Aftermath” can now be considered with the general public’s aid at the venture’s fundraising web page. The page additionally describes the undertaking’s genesis, accomplishments, and ability to assist groups in coping with screw-ups. The venture was initially conceived by Kurt Marsh and Priscilla Hintz Rivera Knight, two contributors to the Arts and Culture Recovery Committee—a part of St. John’s Long Term Recovery Team.
Research has proven that community art initiatives and artwork therapy were powerful in wearing out creative community-building, which’s important inside the catastrophe healing manner,” Knight said. “This has been our collective experience on St. John after the hurricanes. Our revel in has proven that artwork packages help communities heal and improve. Working with the mask is a well-known therapeutic practice, as it opens opportunities for individuals to discover elements of themselves, their fantasies, and their cultures. It’s even more suitable in the Caribbean, where mask-making and masquerading have a long tradition. Some of the project’s participants wore their masks at some stage in the St. John July 4th Festival parade.
The nearby community had further opportunities to revel in the mask, which roven in two Cruz Bay locations in the cummer of 2018; after that, numerous dozen masks have selected for a show at the Department of Interior in Washington D.C. In the fall. The whole technique was captured using filmmaker Crystal Fortwangler, assisted by photograph designer William “Bill” Steltzer and St. John High School student Ameir Sprauve. The group at the back of “Masks in the Aftermath” now wants to enhance $25,000 to extend the film’s period and deepen the communique about the want to improve the right of entry to intellectual fitness offerings.
There is a superb need for greater intellectual fitness guides in our islands, and even more so in the aftermath of screw-ups,” stated Knight. “In March 2019, V. I.Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. Declared a mental healthcare emergency within the U.S. Virgin Islands because of a scarcity of psychiatric physicians and behavioral health companies. We believe producing a characteristic-duration documentary film can assist in making a case for expert artwork-therapy programs in the USVI.
The venture’s creators now desire to carry collectively neighborhood intellectual healthcare vendors with artwork-remedy professionals and capture all of it in the movie. They also need to create possibilities for artists inside the community through several associated initiatives: St. John image artist Kamaria Penn is now working on an associate book. Art scholar Lauryn Sinclaire Samuel is designing a fixed of notecards that can be offered to elevate finances.
On the Indiegogo fundraising web page, donors can pick out (as a present) a poster, a book, or a fixed of notecards, depending on the quantity of the donation. They can also emerge as the owner of one of the unique masks made at some stage in the mission. (Many famous St. John artists made masks for the task’s duration, but their paintings are nameless, consistent with the challenge’s nature.) As a further final result, the challenge’s creators desire to install a St. John Arts & Cultural Emergency Fund to assist nearby artists in want.
