Kingston Creative, organisers of the ArtWalk, held in downtown Kingston last Sunday, are claiming success with this latest staging of the free, monthly exposition which seeks to lay the groundwork for development of an art district in the city.

Co-founder of Kingston Creative, Andrea Dempster-Chung, noted that this event — which presented a hodge podge of creative and cultural expressions -— was one of the event’s better staging with events ranging from a cycle tour of the city and yoga on the waterfront in the morning, to art auctions and exhibitions, pop-up concerts and an art market throughout the rest of the day. She noted that the art market is showing the most growth and, for the first time, there were food trucks.

This was supported by Kerry Jones of Kingston Creative, who noted some of the new features added to the art market this month.

“What was special about the market today was the collaboration particularly between MultiCare Foundation and the Institute of Jamaica (IOJ). It was really a coup d’etat for us as we were able to get IOJ’s latest kiosk, which is an interactive kiosk, which is talking about the history of Jamaica and is tailored for kids and adults alike and I think the whole idea behind this Kingston Creative is to remind people where we are from, remind about our culture and we absolutely had that for anybody who was interested,” she told the Jamaica Observer.

The next staging of the ArtWalk will focus on fashion, Dempster-Chung said. This is a first for the event and Kingston Creative is seeking to get designers from the downtown Kingston area to be part of the showcase.

“The whole concept of the ArtWalk is an event. We believe art districts must have events, so even as we are building out the infrastructure for the art district with the murals and the parks and so on, we are also focusing on getting that rhythm of events going, getting that stigma reduced, getting people to come downtown. We have had lots of visitors who came in and enjoyed the offering. So next is fashion and the following month is culinary arts,” said Dempster-Chung.

Dempster-Chung rubbished critics who argue that hosting the event on such a regular basis will diminish the impact, and patrons will soon lose interest.

“I’m playing the long game. Looking at building something steadily and consistently, one brick at a time. So my thing is once you have started you have to keep a consistent rhythm . In Jamaica we tend to do big things once and then it’s never heard of again. We spend millions of dollars on a on-off concert or event and then nothing is left in place, so having it every single month allows us to go a little bit deeper every time, to find more vendors from downtown everytime, to reach out to different communities an engage them every time. When you consider that we do have different themes each time… we can go the entire year without repeating. we can look at dance, music, visual art, traditional art forms and heritage, film, culinary arts, fashion. So, we know that there is enough art forms to fill the calendar. So having it every month is important because Kingston and Jamaica is not just about music, there are artists and creatives doing so much more. We are able to give each art form a bit of a focus and shine when we stage it like this,” she noted.