Carnival Museum to close doors amid funding struggles

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val Mu­se­um will close its Pen­ny Bank venue to the pub­lic from to­day, cit­ing dif­fi­cul­ties se­cur­ing Gov­ern­ment and cor­po­rate sup­port.

In a me­dia re­lease is­sued on Wednes­day, TT Car­ni­val Mu­se­um Di­rec­tor and Chair­man of the TTCM Steer­ing Com­mit­tee Ken­ny At­tai said the mu­se­um would close its doors from Oc­to­ber 1 un­til fur­ther no­tice.

At­tai said the de­ci­sion came af­ter what he de­scribed as an “ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult” year and a half in se­cur­ing fi­nan­cial sup­port for the na­tion­al cul­tur­al in­sti­tu­tion.

“Through a few friends and well-wish­ers along with our own per­son­al fund­ing and the tremen­dous out­reach of vol­un­teers we were able to keep the mu­se­um open to the pub­lic this year,” he said.

The mu­se­um was in­cor­po­rat­ed as a non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion in March 2021 with the aim of cre­at­ing a space where Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Car­ni­val her­itage could be col­lect­ed, pre­served and made avail­able to the pub­lic for ed­u­ca­tion, en­ter­tain­ment and en­light­en­ment.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­lease, the project gained na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al at­ten­tion and re­ceived the award of the icon­ic Pen­ny Bank build­ing in 2022 to be re­pur­posed as a Car­ni­val Mu­se­um.

The mu­se­um said the Pen­ny Bank build­ing brought added his­toric val­ue to the project, while in­ter­nal ren­o­va­tions were 80 per cent com­plet­ed through an ear­ly grant from the Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts.

To date, the mu­se­um has host­ed sev­en suc­ces­sive ex­hi­bi­tions, more than 20 school tours and wel­comed more than 4,000 vis­i­tors.

De­spite the clo­sure of the phys­i­cal venue, the mu­se­um said its vir­tu­al plat­forms would re­main ac­tive.

Its web­site, www.ttcar­ni­val­mu­se­um.com, and so­cial me­dia plat­forms will con­tin­ue to be up­dat­ed with projects cur­rent­ly in progress.

At­tai thanked those who sup­port­ed the mu­se­um’s mis­sion, in­clud­ing vol­un­teers, sup­pli­ers and or­gan­i­sa­tions and in­di­vid­u­als who pro­vid­ed re­sources and col­lab­o­rat­ed with the project.

He said the mu­se­um was in­tend­ed to be the first phase to­wards a full-scale Car­ni­val mu­se­um.

“We take this op­por­tu­ni­ty to once again thank all those who be­lieved in the mis­sion and part­nered or col­lab­o­rat­ed with us in cre­at­ing a Home for Car­ni­val so that our rich cul­tur­al her­itage can be pre­served,” At­tai said.

He al­so ex­pressed hope that Trinidad and To­ba­go would recog­nise the val­ue of pre­serv­ing the coun­try’s Car­ni­val her­itage and the cre­ativ­i­ty and in­ge­nu­ity of its peo­ple.

“It is our sin­cere hope that Trinidad and To­ba­go sees the val­ue of rec­og­niz­ing what we have and those who brought us joy and pride since 1841 with the cre­ativ­i­ty and in­ge­nu­ity of our peo­ple, lest it is tak­en and owned by oth­ers,” he said.