"I CELEBRATE THE CHORUS OF THE CREOLE CHANT " (2008)
 Project 45 (2)

'I Celebrate the Chorus of the Creole Chant' is a four and a half minute, single screen, looped video installation. The work is presented here in a compressed version.
This video installation suggests regional legitimacy for all Caribbean nationals.

'I Celebrate the Chorus of the Creole Chant' is the second work in an evolving series of works collectively titled Project 45. Project 45 evolved out of my thirty-minute video project - On the Map.
Project 45 responds to Article 45 of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, signed by fourteen Caribbean countries in 2001 to create a single market and economy.

Article 45 declares that Member States “commit themselves to the goal of free movement of nationals within the Community.” Article 45 is yet to be implemented.

My goal with Project 45 is to create a body of artistic works that take a critical view of the top down approach to Caribbean integration, expose the cultural heterogeneity of Caribbean People, while at the same time reveal underlying interconnectivities and advance a sense of Caribbean identity based on respectful coexistence.

I Celebrate the Chorus of the Creole Chant (2008) (Short Video)

I am the complex Creole

My context is the Caribbean

An archipelago crocheted into a crossbreed
Of carnival, class and comess
Cognizant of Columbus
And the Commonwealth
That created these confused colonies
Correctly criticized for the callous treatment
Of the Amerindian
And the reconstitution
Of a Caribbean caste system

Several centuries later
My coronary artery crackles
When I think of the creatures
That created this cacophonous confusion

And although we collide
There is more chaos than community
Some feel like foreigners
As though uncharacteristic
Of these now ex-colonies
Our natural native islands

I celebrate the chorus of the Creole Chant

But I have a creed that I wear
Like a crest on my chest
My credentials are that I am created equally
Credible from my cranium to my coccyx

I cleave to no church, temple nor country
I sing the canticles
And practice a yoga
I chant
I breathe
I made my jappa and wrote a creed
I owned a crucifix
And acknowledge the crescent

I anoint myself with a communion of
Cinnamon, coffee and cumin
Cocoa, cotton and cane
It is with composure and compassion that
I conceive my compatriots as compatible
Whether Cuban or Guyanese,
Christian or Muslim, Hindu or Jew

I contemplate a Caribbean conservatory
That is a consanguineous conscious community
Confidently confirming a conglomerate
Who speak patois, Papiamento, Spanish and Creole

I celebrate the chorus of the Creole Chant

As a complex Creole
Confronting this crossroads of centuries
I cannot condone the corruption
Nor those who configure the conflict –
I outcast them from community

I contradict the unicursal way
And commemorate the cobweb we have become
I come to you
Not as a comedian
Nor as a clown
I come to you as a coalition
Of combustible matter
A civilized collective
Sometimes caustic, but never counterfeit
I am a cordless creator of culture
Conveying my codes
To a community that isn’t convinced
Of the credit of cultural producers

And now I wear coronet
A continuous circular

In my cipher
I chuckle
I weep

I celebrate the chorus of the Creole chant

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