The secret to keeping one’s history alive is art.

During her brief remarks at the end of the first Paint Your Village Competition, Senator Dr. Shantal Munro-Knight, a Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office responsible for Culture, stated this opinion.
Even though that art preservation is normally only seen as being for older persons, she said, supporting the arts and culture has grown to be a top priority for many nations, of whom some are facing challenges when it comes to accurate history being retold.

“In certain countries now, they are rewriting history books to change history, to change the story of the African diaspora, to change the story of who we were, who we are, and to change our journey [and] suffering. If we don’t ground ourselves to understand where you come from, and those history books are changed, it means then that somebody can come and fool you. You would not know the history and understand where you have come from, and understand the resilience of the people who have fought to bring you here.”

She added: “This will become a lived piece of expression that others will be able to see,” she declared. “That next year, perhaps others will be sitting in that chair and we will be able to build a body of work that expresses for Barbados, [that] this is our community, this is our village.

“We have to have ownership, you have to have ownership of the vision that you see for our community and the vision you see for Barbados. Unless you do that, unless you have that ownership, unless you see and unless you are able to express that, it leaves the opportunity for somebody else to come and express it for you. That is not the kind of Barbados we are intending to build.”