On
Friday, March 17th from 5 to 8 PM receptions will be held at
Ft. Frederik Museum
and the Caribbean Museum Center in Frederiksted, St. Croix for
the third edition of the multi media art installation, Transfer.
There will be two simultaneous and different exhibitions of Transfer in both locations on view from March 17th to the 31st. St. John
artist, Janet Cook-Rutnik, has been working on this project for
the past three
years with collaborators, Edgar Endress and Lori Lee. Transfer embraces the multi layers of Caribbean history, economics and
identity through a series of exhibitions and conversations, which
addresses the Danish transfer of the Virgin Islands to the US
in 1917. Mr. Endress is an award winning Chilean video artist
and his wife, Lori Lee, is an anthropological archaeologist completing
her PhD. studies at Syracuse University. She is a specialist
in the material culture of African Diaspora populations in the
nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries. Virgin Islands writer, Edgar Lake,
notes in the introduction to the exhibition catalog, that “Our
heritage could be lost except for the art that makes us remember.”
Each
presentation of the Transfer installation is unique and affords
an opportunity to connect visually and emotionally with this
pivotal period in Virgin Islands history that changed individual
and collective identity. In this 1918 to Virgin Islanders,
includes an original story by well-known
Virgin Islands storyteller, Elaine Jacobs, written expressly
for this presentation of Transfer. Another video illustrates
a
story from the book Backtime by the late Lito Valls and Ruth
Low. The story is Andromeada Titley Keatings’ recollection
of Transfer Day, 1917 when, as an eight-year old girl her sole
interest was in the American apple she was promised. This narration
is
by Theodora Moorehead, the author’s niece.
Cook-Rutnik
says, “History
doesn’t change but the way
we look at it does. By telling these stories through the use
of contemporary art methods historical facts become part of a
very
moving personal journey.”
In
addition to video, photography, paintings and prints, the presentation
on St. Croix includes
a panel discussion with scholars and community elders on
Saturday, March 18th at Ft. Frederik Museum from 10 AM to 12
noon. The
public is cordially invited to the receptions, the panel
discussions and to view the exhibitions. This program is being
funded in
part by a mini grant from the Virgin Islands Humanities Council,
the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Virgin
Islands Council on the Arts. Other sponsors include the Caribbean
Museum
Center and Ft. Frederik Museum. The project evaluator for
the VI Humanities Council is Dr. Gilbert Sprauve. Kindly contact
Janet Cook-Rutnik, at Sólo Arte, 715-2150,
the Caribbean Museum Center, 772-2622, or Ft. Frederik Museum,
772-2021 for more information.
