Ania Freer describes herself as “an Australian/Jamaican film-maker and creative story-teller”. She operates and curates an online gallery and Instagram platform, Goat Curry Gallery (www.goatcurrygallery.org), which features work by the Jamaican craft producers she works with, as well as her documentaries on this and other subjects. Goat Curry Gallery is a self-funded project, and proceeds from sales go fully to the artists, while visitors can donate towards the film projects — a subtle but pointed non-profit alternative to the hyper-capitalist frenzy around art and its markets in other contexts, such as the international art fair circuit.

This commitment to ethical and equitable engagement is part of what I liked about Ania Freer’s curatorial project, All That Don’t Leave, which was on view late last year at New Local Space (NLS), a non-profit art residency and programme space in Kingston. The exhibition featured craft work and filmed oral histories of seven Jamaican craft producers: Racquel Brown, a basket maker from Robin’s Bay, St Mary; Alexander “Bamboo King” Dempster, from Annotto Bay, St Mary, who creates fantastic creatures from bamboo roots; Jennifer “Eighty” Stewart from downtown Kingston, who makes crochet garments; Kemel Leeford Rankine, a sign painter from Holland Bamboo, St Elizabeth; Jeffett “Georgie” Strachan, a wood carver from Treasure Beach, St Elizabeth, who works in Lignum vitae; Cecil “Bingy” Smith, who makes calabash hats in Annotto Bay, St Mary; and Albert “St John” Phipps from Port Antonio, who makes bead curtains from natural and recycled materials. (Freer’s videos on the artists can be found on the Goat Curry Gallery website). The works on view were for sale, at fair and reasonable prices, with 100% of the proceeds going to the artists. All That Don’t Leave was the inaugural product of the NLS curatorial/writing intensive, a mentoring programme for young art writers and curators that is funded in part by the Prince Claus Next Generation Partnership, a major grant NLS has recently obtained.

All That Don’t Leave raised important, interconnected questions about art, craft and the people who make it; about curating; about the representation of popular culture; about the politics and ethics of the art market; about humanising the cultural narratives, and about engaging with heritage and identity in ways that step outside of the usual trajectories and constructs. These critical considerations were placed at the centre of the project and, as Freer stated in her introduction, the exhibition sought to shift the conversation on two key questions: “who can be called an artist” and “how do we assign value to works”.

The art versus craft debate is, as such, hardly new. It is widely understood, in the Caribbean context, that the hierarchical distinction between the two is, as such, an inherited, Eurocentric construct that is of questionable relevance, and even counter productive to post colonial culture, but most of the challenges to this construct have been remarkably ambivalent and unresolved. Much is lost when “craft” is simply consecrated as “fine art,” which is how this is usually dealt with, without questioning the assumptions and conventions that inform “fine art” in the first place, or without considering the intent and inherent qualities of “craft”. In fact, redefining it as “fine art” only reinforces the hierarchies involved and makes it impossible to consider “craft” on its own terms, with regards to its purpose and the intent of its makers, its technical qualities, and its cultural and individual significance.

All That Don’t Leave presented an interesting alternative, in terms of how it dealt with the work on display and the artists who produced it, and in terms of the important questions it generated in the process. The exhibition was presented in what was, despite the unpolished bareness of the NLS space compared to more conventional galleries, still a “white cube” of sorts, and more or less conventional art exhibition methods were used. The so-called “museum effect” — the powerful aestheticisation of the object on display that almost automatically comes with the formalised display methods that are used in museums — was certainly at work. But this “museum effect” also invited a focused and intensified way of looking at the objects, to which what is regarded craft is not usually subjected, and this had its own place in the cultural politics this exhibition explored. And it certainly needs to be acknowledged that All That Don’t Leave was a visually stunning exhibition.

This “museum effect” was however countered by the strong focus on the makers and the making in the accompanying video documentaries, which contextualised the work on display into the artists’ own physical, cultural and philosophical space, and largely on their own terms. The exhibition strategies employed for each of the artists, further more, echoed those they use in their own context, without feeling staged, and there was active consultation with them on the presentation. There were even some special commissions: the hand-painted exhibition sign was by Kemel Rankine and the bamboo and tree root stand for Bamboo King’s fantastic staffs was produced by that artist for the exhibition. The result was a revealing tension between the exhibition’s invitation to regard the works in the context of the artists’ life worlds and vision, and as a formal display of extraordinary objects, and it was arguably in this tension that the exhibition’s most pertinent questions of “who can be called an artist” and “how do we assign value to works” were raised. The artists were positioned as individual creators, emphatically as artists, rather than as anonymous craft producers, and the artistic and cultural value of what they produce was quietly but eloquently asserted.

All That Don’t Leave was also an exhibition in which the boundaries between the curatorial, the critical, and the documentary, on one hand, and art, on the other, were explored and implicitly challenged. The voices of the artists were powerfully present in the exhibition, and their personal narratives humanised their work beyond any abstracted appreciation of the objects on view. The voice of the curator was also crucially present, although more subtly implied. The project is a part of Ania Freer’s engagement with her Jamaican heritage, and her grandmother’s roots in rural St Mary, a process she has started only quite recently and which is central to her own artistic practice, of which All That Don’t Leave is an important part.

The relationship between artists and curators is always a complex one and is often fraught by differences in actual and perceived professional power — the much-loathed gate-keeping functions. When popular art is involved, this is amplified by what are often significant differences in social status and access to information and resources. All That Don’t Leave was reassuringly devoid of the sort of missionary, self-righteous patronage that often mars representations of popular culture and is instead based on genuinely collaborative, equitable, and even affectionate person-to-person relationships, which are clearly based on mutual respect, trust, and a solid sense of common cause.

And this relationship of trust and common cause was crucially important to the politics of All That Don’t Leave. Making a living from craft has a troubled history in Jamaica, in which the grassroots makers and vendors of craft often feel exploited, disempowered and disregarded. There is significant justification for this, especially in the context of the tourism industry, where the question of who does and who should reap the profits is acutely raised. Informal, “illegal” craft vending has been a recurrent source of social conflict and contention, and even those who are part of formalised arrangements, such as the vendors in the official craft markets, often feel marginalised and displaced, especially by the powerful duty-free shopping consortia. The craft markets are furthermore flooded by cheap, mass-produced craft that is imported from other parts of the world and displaces the more expensive and hard-to-procure local work.

As Ania Freer has documented, there is a prevailing sense among many traditional craft producers today that their skills are no longer wanted or appreciated, that young people are not interested in carrying on the traditions, and that they are not even recognised as an important part of Jamaican culture. The title of the exhibition, in fact, actively referred to this sense of frustration and loss — it was taken from a conversation between Freer and the basket weaver Racquel Brown, in which the latter bemoaned the decline of the type of craft she produces, stating that “all that don’t leave, die” (or, that most of her peers have migrated or died), which implies that her practice has no future beyond herself.

All That Don’t Leave provided a timely platform to discuss what needs to be done to ensure fair trade, and social and environmental sustainability in the Jamaican craft sector (I add environmental here since several artists use recycling techniques that have long standing in the popular culture, and are part of a creative response to scarce resources and poverty, but that are now recognised as environmentally friendly practices). The questions of value raised by the exhibition are not only applicable to market value and fair trade, but also their status in Jamaica’s cultural and social hierarchies, which is arguably lower than ever, as there were some solid efforts until not so long ago to validate such traditions — such as the old craft markets at Devon House and Harmony Hall, where many grassroots producers were present, along with the foundational work of Things Jamaican. I am also reminded of the efforts in the 1970s and 80s to recognise the work of Louisa “Ma Lou” Jones, who was one of few remaining exponents of the African-Jamaican pottery tradition.

It is fair to say that, today, Jamaica is failing its grassroots craft artists and the important cultural traditions and equally important areas of innovation they represent. The quality, imaginativeness and diversity of what was on view in All That Don’t Leave made an eloquent statement about what is at stake, humanly, artistically and culturally, and proposed a model for how these artists and practices can be more appropriately and productively recognised, valued and supported. It was an implied call for action, which has now gained even more currency in the midst of the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis, since grassroots craft artists are among those who will be the worst affected, economically, and need to be proactively supported.

Photos: Veerle Poupeye, Ania Freer & Errol Keane