SOUTHFIELD, St Elizabeth – Heritage-based Spanish wall buildings here are set to become available for limited tours come next year following the completion of a project being spearheaded by the Wattle and Red Earth (WARE) Collective for a living museum.

Georgia Love, WARE executive officer, explained that the non-profit organisation is focused on preserving and improving awareness about heritage buildings.

“The organisation believes traditional buildings and crafts tell beautiful stories about our ancestors’ ingenuity, resourcefulness and resilience. Which is why we are creating a heritage-focused, community-based living museum in South St Elizabeth, just outside Southfield. To date, we have rescued and restored historic Spanish wall structures made from red earth, stone, white lime and lumber. These buildings were built by newly freed Africans and their descendants. We plan to offer limited tours and heritage experiences that feature these buildings at our museum site in 2024,” she told the Jamaica Observer recently during an arts and heritage summer camp.

The camp, which was held to accommodate children, focused on aspects of mural design.

Love said the seven students from five schools were engaged in the two-week camp.

“The arts are an important aspect/vehicle for heritage. The WARE Collective is committed to youth engagement as a central part of our heritage education objectives,” she said.

“Since 2020 we have hosted an annual two-week Arts and Heritage Summer Camp for local primary school children. In 2021, as an extension for that year’s camp we created a public muralmosaic in the Southfield Square. The Southfield Square mural was in collaboration with a young Jamaican artist/muralist, Zorhia Allen, and Carolyn Elaine, a US-based artist, to create a piece called Legacies of Sun, Sea and Red Earth,” she added.

Love said the GraceKennedy Foundation, the Lions Club of St Elizabeth, and South and Jakes Treasure Beach sponsored this year’s camp.

“This supported the collective to host a group of seven teenagers from four St Elizabeth and one Manchester school. They learned about Spanish wall buildings and worked with Pamella Chang during week one to complete the painted elements of the mural’s design. For the second week they learned about fabricating and installing mosaic using tiles,” Love said.

She said St Elizabeth is ideal for the living museum located in Malvern Chase where heritage structures that were set for demolition have been relocated to the site.

“St Elizabeth is known for its natural beauty, bountiful land. The WARE Collective is building on those traditions to foster and celebrate the region’s built heritage and crafts. One way to do that is to create opportunities for young people to connect their artistic talent with their heritage to shape their communities,” said Love.

WARE Collective copped the Ilucidare Challenge 2022 Award, funded under a European Union grant programme, at a ceremony in Brussels, Belgium.

At that time, Love explained that her organisation submitted a 10-page proposal for an open-air museum in Jamaica as a heritage-led innovation. She said such a museum concept is new to the Caribbean region, but well-known in Europe.