Barbados Unveils Major Cultural Revitalization Projects for Next Two Years, Says Prime Minister Mia Mottley

Barbados is set to redraw the cultural landscape with several major heritage and creative projects over the next two years, Prime Minister Mia Mottley revealed on Thursday.

The ambitious plans include expanding cultural hubs across the island, starting with upgrades to Queen’s Park and new developments at other iconic locations like the Newton Burial Ground and the National Botanical Gardens.

While addressing the official opening of the Marcus Garvey Amphitheatre in Queen’s Park, the prime minister insisted the city cultural hub must be accessible to the average Barbadian at any time of day.

She said: “Queen’s Park will also see further renovations over the course of the next year or so. We determined… that this must be the cultural hub and the place where Bajans formally and informally can get to know one another and participate; therefore, we will see different hubs. We already have the hub committed to theatre with the very modest Queen’s Park Theatre.”

Noting that there is already an art gallery there, Mottley said the government expects to have artists in residence, a studio, and the headquarters of the National Cultural Foundation (NCF) relocated to Queen’s Park.

Declaring that this work will roll out as an evolving undertaking, Mottley said that if Barbados were not in an economic transformation programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the government might have been able to accomplish many of these cultural developments this far earlier.

“To that extent, it is important that I share with you that we, as a government, have now settled the financing of three other major projects that will take place and that one, we already, little by little, in the last five years, put aside money to be able to have it done,” she said.

“But those projects to which I refer, the one for which we have been saving over the last five years and which is now formally started, is the monument at the Newton Burial Ground, in what will become the Barbados Heritage District. And I thank the Barbados Tourism Investment Inc (BTII) for very quietly and patiently going about the business of having that monument ready next year for us.”

“Separately, we have also agreed to have the financing of those three projects… one, a theatre in the Barbados Heritage District at the same location of Newton Burial Ground. You heard me refer just now to the very modest theatre here at Queen’s Park; and before we become 60 years old as a nation, this country must have spaces that are equal to the genius and creativity that our people have had, rather than ‘butting ‘bout’ to try and find somewhere to be able to perform in circumstances where it takes away from that which has been nobly created by our artists.”