Caribbean Culture Fund Announces Grants to 21 New Creative Projects and Residency Programmes Across the Caribbean

“Collectively, the grantees are showing the power of art in its many dimensions,” said Caribbean Culture Fund Executive Director, Kellie Magnus. 

From individual arts projects to large-scale collaborations to residencies connecting creatives across the region, Caribbean Culture Fund (CCF) has announced 21 new projects under its Calls 4 and 5; bringing its portfolio to 100 projects across 32 countries. 

The funded projects for these cohorts are led by organisations and artists from Aruba, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Caribbean Netherlands, Martinique, Saint Martin, Sint Maarten and the United States Virgin Islands, while the residency programmes will be hosted in Barbados, Curaçao, Dominica, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Saint Martin and Trinidad and Tobago.

Call 4 covers the themes Art for Change and Caribbean Collaboration. The projects span film, theatre, photography, multimedia, architecture, digital heritage, libraries and archives, and include initiatives such as the British Virgin Islands’ first interactive digital archive for culture and heritage, a documentary exploring shared Afro-Caribbean dance traditions in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, a youth-led digital storytelling project in Aruba, and research into traditional Caribbean architecture linking Saba and Dominica.

Call 5 focuses on Residencies and Fellowships and will support programmes that give Caribbean artists time, space and opportunities to develop new work while building professional networks across the region.

Many of the projects respond to challenges facing Caribbean artists and cultural organisations. Grantees were selected by independent juries based on their alignment with each funding theme, the quality and feasibility of their proposals, and the demonstrated ability of project leaders to deliver their work.

Ryan Oduber, who served on the jury, said evaluating the proposals gave him an even greater appreciation for the quality of creative work emerging across the Caribbean. “I was pretty much amazed by the projects.”

For previous grantees, CCF funding has created opportunities that weren’t available before, including increasing the longevity of supported projects. 

Belizean designer Damian Moore, whose Wired for Change: Empowering Voices Through Carnival Art received support through CCF’s third call, said the project continues to create opportunities beyond the original grant. “It’s been quite a ride, in terms of, not only the work, but it’s like a jumping board into other things, and the project still continues ….[I]t’s taken on a brand of its own, which I’m really, really glad for.”

For Sonia Farmer, founder of Poinciana Paper Press based in Nassau, The Bahamas, the grant gave the organisation the stability to invest in its long-term future. “We were able to get a permanent studio, buy the equipment that we needed and run the programme exactly as we wanted to.”

The newly announced grantees will begin implementing their projects and residencies over the coming months.

Together, the 100 projects demonstrate how investment in Caribbean arts and culture can strengthen regional collaboration, preserve cultural knowledge and create lasting opportunities for artists and cultural organisations.