Statement of Intent

The primary aim of this visual art archive is to corroborate and complicate major art history subjects, heritage ephemera and first-hand oral accounts contextualising modernist and contemporary art in Jamaica — with consideration and in relation to the regional Caribbean.

Since 2021 my self-initiated and largely self-funded curatorial, pedagogical and research-based practice has advanced through rapid response collecting, spontaneous memorialisation, and critical extended field work and excavations throughout the Caribbean region, USA, UK and Europe.

Building on the existing scholastic foundation laid out dutifully by Dr David Boxer and Dr Petrine Archer-Straw, this deep study of artistic materials, placemaking and historical records has produced frameworks for a richer textural canonical picture of Jamaica’s visual cultures and histographies since the 1920s, and predating.

Located in Kingston Jamaica, the newly constituted and growing Arts Jamaica Archive is made up of hundreds of distinctive, rare and unique material including; exhibition materials, photography, newspapers and magazines, artworks and artefacts, vhs and dvd recordings, press releases, flyers and circulars, correspondence, brochures, reviews, résumés, artists’ statements and biographies, invitations, rare books and printed texts, exhibition catalogs, 35mm colour slides and negatives, illustrations and reproductions.

The archival preservation process requires that documents first be assembled, classified and preserved, then actuated. This is urgent but must be done diligently, not quickly. Through collective action this independent non-profit initiative will pursue immediate and long-term strands of inquiry; new pedagogies and workshops, printed matter, digital media, art-writing, exhibitions, monographs and other modes of strategic exchange.

I am forever grateful to all those who have facilitated and assisted me with this herculean task over the years.

For Margaret Reckord Bernal and Herman van Asbroeck, both life-long stewards of Jamaican art, I am especially indebted. Their insight, tutelage and generosity of spirit has emboldened my vocation and steadfastness. As do the young artists in Jamaica who deserve to aspire.

All fruits ripe!

RIANNA JADE PARKER 

Archivist and Researcher, 2026