Downtown Kingston is set to come alive today with Kingston Creative, a series of events designed to have the public experience art in the streets of the city. The event is set to bring together artists, artisans and designers of all backgrounds and lay the groundwork for the development of an art district and hub for creative entrepreneurs in Downtown Kingston.

The events commence at F&B Downtown, 107 Harbour Street (Swiss Stores), with original vinyl roots reggae spinning by DJ Shazad, and will then move to the Jamaica Conference Centre for a special viewing of the best talent in the JCDC 2018 Visual Arts competition and a live performance by Alex Lawson at 12:00 noon. The group will then visit the National Gallery of Jamaica for a performance by Nikeishia Barnes and will close off at F&B’s Water Lane location with theatre troupe Tribe Sankofa performing two special pieces — Walk an’ Talk and A Tribe Ting.

Kingston Creative’s Market Street, hosted by Bookophilia, is the other main event taking place all day on Sunday in Water Lane.

This outdoor “makers’ market” is a great opportunity for local designers and entrepreneurs to showcase their products each month and for shoppers to get great deals by buying directly from the maker.

Founder Andrea Dempster-Chung explains, “We see Kingston as the creative capital of the Caribbean and are committed to the long-term goal of enabling all Caribbean creatives to succeed. Our goal is to empower entrepreneurs to create economic and social value, gain access to global markets and have a positive impact on their local communities. We now host a monthly meet-up for creative networking and our next big project will be creating a series of murals to develop an art district downtown. We hope to garner widespread support and partnership for this venture.”