General Outlines
The Caribbean Biennial (BC) was conceived in Santo Domingo in 1992, as a contest and an encounter dedicated especially to Painting in the Caribbean and in Central America, including the Greater and Lesser Antilles, Mexico, Columbia, Venezuela, Guyana, Cayenne and Surinam. During the last two editions (2001-2003), the Republic hosted the so-called "transterrados" that is, those Caribbean artists who settled especially in Miami and New York. It is during these editions that the Biennial consolidated its prestige and organizational potential as an international platform, thus affirming its operational capacities ranging from integration to an invitation to all contemporary plastic and visual forms.
In the context of the Declaration of the city of Santo Domingo as "American Capital of Culture 2010", the Ministry of Culture, through the Modern Art Museum, are committed to the task of radically redefining the bases of the original organization, objectives and name of the Biennial which, as from this invitation, will move towards new concrete horizons such as the International Triennial of the Caribbean (TRIC 2010) as well as other open and alternative spaces of the Dominican capital from the 1st September to the 24th October 2010.
During the first decade of the 21st century, The Dominican Republic has acquired a prestigious presence in the processes of integrating and reinforcing Democracy in the Caribbean region and Latin America. These initiatives taken on by the President of the Republic, Dr. Leonel Fernández, put forward worthy solutions to the conflict situations which have recently shaken the regional political stability.
In a spontaneous way, various political personalities and institutions have honoured the First City by giving it the title of "Capital of dialogue and Democracy". Thus, in the context of the festive activities of "Santo Domingo, American Capital of Culture 2010", the Ministry of Culture and the Modern Art Museum have conceived this first International Triennial of the Caribbean, finding inspiration in the deep-rooted vocation of the "City of the Ozama" as a space for regional encounters and fraternal dialogues concerning the most worrying social, cultural, political and environmental problems facing Humanity today.
Due to global climate warming, the "holes" in the ozone layer increase the risks of carcinogenic sun rays, the ice of the two Poles and the glaciers of the Himalaya are melting with increasing speed; climatic disasters are occurring more often and with greater frequency, affecting dramatically today nearly 250 million people. Suffice it is to mention that in 2008, the main gases responsible for the green house effect reached levels never before seen since the pre-industrial era. Experts warn that if we do not manage to reduce from 50 to 80% of global emissions by the year 2020, by mid century only 5% of tropical forest will remain. In 2090, 66% of mammals will be extinct as well as the birds and plants of our planet earth. In some regions, the atmospheric warming is already destroying agriculture, killing cattle and increasing the surface of oceans and deserts and the frequency of rains, with hunger and extreme poverty as its terrible consequences.
The 15th International Conference of the Organization of United Nations on Climate Change (COP 15) that recently took place in Copenhagen, Denmark ended, after a “strange” agreement to disagree, with the signature – on the part of the main industrialized countries – of an anti warming political pact which amounts to the ratifying of the Kyoto Protocol (2005).
The intensification of dialogue and interdisciplinary processes, offering concrete solutions to the complexities of the current global crisis, is essential not only as an imperative of an ethical and moral order but also as an ideological challenge to all nations, all sectors be they political, economic, scientific, cultural, communitarian, professional or civil, to the dominance of economic values over environmental values and which makes it one of the main causes of this crisis.
As it is with Science and Technology, Art represents a form of multi-disciplinary knowledge and an exceptional means of communicating with the cosmos and bears witness to the engagement of Culture and Art: the concepts of Development, Society and the Environment are inseparable. Always in the avant-garde, artists are involved in the risky and fertile task of getting back into creation, of learning – and of teaching – of once again belonging to the Earth and never leave her again.
In the area of contemporary plastic and visual Arts, symbolic practices and alternative proposals towards a more integrated and harmonious relationship between Biosphere and Social Space, Culture and biodiversity, Humanity and Nature, Society and the Environment are emerging. Contemporary visual creators are ‘intervening’ and getting closer to Nature for whom she becomes a theme or a space for creative, critical, provoking and always involved actions.
Today, the committed artist wants his creations to reflect, from a critical point of view, the alarming changes of values and to have an influence on highlighting and rectifying them.
The I International Caribbean Triennial wishes to be a privileged platform for the empowerment of contemporary artists from the Caribbean and Central America: as a new challenge towards a multicultural, edifying, encouraging reflections, poetic, transparent, festive, proposing, fraternal and imposing – from and through imagination, sensitivity and creativity. Allowing freedom of materials, ideas and resources, the TRIC/2010 will especially target artists whose proposals will share the fact of intense questioning concerning the many elements which make up the complex identities and contemporary social realities as well as an essential concern about the disastrous effects that result from the staggering degradation some human groups inflict on biodiversity, often through systems of exploitation, “development” and consumption of non renewable natural resources.
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