Let’s
observe a minute of silence in memory of the bodies that were found in various
stages of decomposition somewhere in merging with the soil in our islands, in
our region in our little world this morning, yesterday – our world that has
become a metaphorically Hayti- for which we want to cry - and ask that we
reflect on how we have contributed to making it that way, and how we could make
it otherwise: with our words and our pens and our images and our thoughts and
our actions.
Chief Ifa Oje Won Yomi Abiodun—Master Artist,
Leroi Clarke our guest of honour, it is my distinctive
honour, in this, my maiden public address as the Chair of the first board of
the National Museum and Art Gallery - that the first public act of this Board
is to throw open the doors of this institution to a phenomenon like this one. It
is our honour that Master Artist Le Roy Clarke has recognised the need to sanctify
this space with his art – a space which we call a National Art Gallery, but
which to many has to yet live up to that name.
Lest
we forget, sitting as it does next to the shiny silver caterpillar next door,
to some of us, this space might mean nothing; evokes no sentiment, stimulates
no memory, but for many others it means many more things. In another life – it
was known as the Royal Victoria Institute, established in 1892 – as a science
and art museum.
Master
Artist, if you might allow me to take a little of this space to reflect on some
things that we do not know, or have forgotten, and because we have forgotten
have lost respect so that we could wake up each morning unphased that another
dead or decaying body of
