Cultural agreement being worked out with Cuba

By Patricia Thangaraj

A Cultural Co-operation Agreement is currently being negotiated between Barbados and Cuba.

This was revealed by Minister of Culture, Sports and Youth, Stephen Lashley, who spoke at a press conference on the announcement of two young Barbadian artists, Ewan Atkinson and Alberta Whittle, who have been selected to participate in the Havana Biennial and the Venice Biennial respectively.

Speaking at Ministry headquarters, he said that he has recently returned from a one-week official trip to Cuba where he was ironing out details for the said agreement that would focus on, among other things, developing cultural ties between that Spanish Republic and this island. This agreement would replace a former agreement between the two countries that expired 32 years ago.

“A part of that visit focused a lot of attention on how we can strengthen cultural ties with Cuba and in particular, what we would be doing, hopefully, in September. We are, as we speak, negotiating the terms of a new Cultural Co-operation Agreement with the Government of Cuba which would replace an agreement which was concluded in 1983.”

Lashley stressed the importance of this new agreement, stating that over the years, Cuba has effectively managed to formulate a lot of contacts, especially with Latin American countries and it is his hope that with the development of this agreement, Barbados would be able to capitalise on these networks as well.

“In Cuba, I discussed with my counterpart many of the new areas of that agreement and you would see for example a focus on how both Barbados and Cuba can work together to encourage and expand export potential in relation to the creative sector and as you know, Cuba over the years has amassed a significant amount of networks, particularly across Latin America that Barbados is very keen on being a part of a number of joint initiatives and therefore, we would be seeing in that new agreement a number of new areas including joint collaboration.”

The Minister of Culture said that another part of this agreement would focus on the curatorial sector with the anticipation that that this island would be able to further capitalise on Historic Bridgetown and its Garrison.

“We are also going to be seeing Cuba working with Barbados in number of curatorial areas and of coarse, one of the biggest areas of interest for Barbados has been the area of conservation and preservation techniques, most particularly in relation to Historic Bridgetown and its Garrison.”