Culture Ministry in bid to reopen Carnival Museum

Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­[email protected]

The clo­sure of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val Mu­se­um has prompt­ed in­ter­ven­tion from Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin, who says she has di­rect­ed min­istry of­fi­cials to en­gage the in­sti­tu­tion’s lead­er­ship as ef­forts be­gin to ex­plore ways to re­open it.

The min­is­ter’s re­sponse fol­lows the mu­se­um’s an­nounce­ment that its Pen­ny Bank, Port-of-Spain fa­cil­i­ty would close from Oc­to­ber 1 due to on­go­ing chal­lenges in se­cur­ing Gov­ern­ment and cor­po­rate sup­port.

In a state­ment to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Ben­jamin ac­knowl­edged the mu­se­um’s sig­nif­i­cance to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cul­tur­al her­itage, high­light­ing its role in pre­serv­ing the his­to­ry of Car­ni­val and cel­e­brat­ing the con­tri­bu­tions of mas­men, band­lead­ers and ar­ti­sans. She stressed, how­ev­er, that the Min­istry of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment is not re­spon­si­ble for the mu­se­um’s day-to-day op­er­a­tional costs.

De­spite this, Ben­jamin said she had in­struct­ed min­istry tech­nocrats to meet with the mu­se­um’s chair­man and ex­ec­u­tive in the com­ing days to dis­cuss po­ten­tial so­lu­tions and av­enues of sup­port aimed at re­open­ing the fa­cil­i­ty.

Re­spond­ing to Ben­jamin’s com­ments yes­ter­day, Car­ni­val Mu­se­um ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber Ros­alind Gabriel wel­comed the prospect of sup­port.

“It is very sad we had to come to the de­ci­sion we came to in an­nounc­ing its clo­sure. We fought for a year and a half to keep the Car­ni­val Mu­se­um go­ing and it be­came al­most im­pos­si­ble, so any hope that comes is wel­comed,” Gabriel told Guardian Me­dia.

Mu­se­um di­rec­tor and chair­man of the TTCM Steer­ing Com­mit­tee, Ken­ny At­tai, an­nounced the clo­sure on Wednes­day, de­scrib­ing the past 18 months as “ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult” be­cause of the strug­gle to se­cure sus­tain­able fund­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to At­tai, the mu­se­um re­mained op­er­a­tional this year large­ly through the gen­eros­i­ty of friends, sup­port­ers, vol­un­teers and per­son­al con­tri­bu­tions.

The mu­se­um was in­cor­po­rat­ed as a non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion in March 2021 with the goal of cre­at­ing a per­ma­nent home for the preser­va­tion, doc­u­men­ta­tion and pro­mo­tion of the na­tion’s Car­ni­val her­itage.

In 2022, the or­gan­i­sa­tion re­ceived the his­toric Pen­ny Bank build­ing, which was ear­marked for con­ver­sion in­to a mu­se­um. The in­sti­tu­tion said ap­prox­i­mate­ly 80 per cent of the in­ter­nal ren­o­va­tions were com­plet­ed with the help of an ini­tial grant from the for­mer Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts.

Since open­ing, the mu­se­um has mount­ed sev­en ex­hi­bi­tions, host­ed more than 20 school tours and wel­comed over 4,000 vis­i­tors.

At­tai said the Pen­ny Bank fa­cil­i­ty was en­vi­sioned as the first phase of a larg­er, full-scale Car­ni­val mu­se­um project.

Al­though the phys­i­cal lo­ca­tion has closed, the mu­se­um’s web­site and so­cial me­dia plat­forms will re­main ac­tive, con­tin­u­ing to show­case its work and on­go­ing ini­tia­tives.

Thank­ing vol­un­teers, donors, sup­pli­ers and part­ner or­gan­i­sa­tions for their sup­port, At­tai al­so urged greater recog­ni­tion of the need to pre­serve Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Car­ni­val lega­cy.

He warned that the coun­try’s rich cul­tur­al his­to­ry, and the cre­ativ­i­ty and in­no­va­tion that un­der­pin Car­ni­val, must be safe­guard­ed for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.