Virtual Visuals

Virtual Visuals

FOLKLORE REBIRTH: Re-imagining Bajan folk characters

A virtual art gallery of original artwork by artists and designers and their interpretation of some of Barbados’ traditional folk characters reborn in a modern setting. In collaboration with Artists Alliance and Oneka Small.

As you scroll past the beautiful submissions be sure to check out the creative descriptions of how each character was interpreted from the artists themselves!

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Hit here to see the rest of the Freedom Festival.

VISUAL EXHIBIT JULY 27 – AUGUST 31

The artwork will be digitally mounted up on the site gineon.com/virtual-visuals and displayed in a visually appealing way. During this period the curators will also select pieces to be mounted in the physical gallery by Artist Alliance The Print 2020.

COSPLAY CHALLENGE AUGUST 13 – 31

Cosplayers locally and regionally will be challenged to create costumes inspired by the art work in the gallery. They will then be encouraged to post photos of their creations on their social media platforms. These post will be re-shared by Gine On?! on our social networks.

GUIDELINES

The online exhibition is open to locals as well as international contributors however only those residing in Barbados are eligible to win any of the prizes. 

Artwork can be submitted as Drawings, Sculptures or Canvas art. This includes digital and traditional drawings. Sculptures can be from any material and we would be taking photos or videos of the sculptures from various angles.

The various Barbadian folk characters artists are encouraged to re-imagine and design are:

• Mudda Sally
  • A masquerade entity in which a male portrayed a female was known as ‘Aunt/Mother Sally’. ‘Aunt Sally’ was the name of the 1936 entity as it performed at the May Day Bank Holiday celebrations. ‘Mother Sally’ was another name for the entity and the one that it was hailed by at independence. Again, the male performer used cloth and other materials to create an exaggerated bosom and backside. And the performer was masked.
• Shaggy Bear
  • This masquerade entity was covered in strips of dried banana leaves and spun round and round, which caused the leaves to move. A well-known figure, one seventy-five year old respondent argued that the concept of ‘Shag’ evolved from the use of the banana shag as the material for the strips that adorned the Shaggy Bear. The dried banana leaves of Shaggy Bear were replaced by strips of cloth which eventually became the accepted performance material.  Layers of colourful cloths created new dimensions of performance for the masquerade. Yet the loss of the leaves meant the loss of an intricate narrative that spoke to centuries of lived experience.
• Landship
  • The Landship call their dance steps naval manoeuvres in keeping with their shipping motif. The maypole dance is performed around a tall pole, which has ribbons attached. Both male and female Landship members dance the maypole. The dance movements and manoeuvres speak to the African-creole heritage, while the name recalls its English relation. Members mask themselves in the naval uniforms and performed its creolised dances in the streets. Adopting the imperial uniform allowed landships to practice their masquerade traditions and rituals in full view of the coloniser.
• Mr. Harding
  • A masquerade entity that appeared once a year as part of plantation Crop Over was ‘Mr. Harding’. An effigy, believed to have represented a white planter or overseer who had been especially cruel to his enslaved and/or freed labourers, it could also represent the hard times that followed the end of the crop season as then the majority of labourers were unemployed. ‘Mr. Harding’ was burnt at the end of the celebrations, though it has been argued if the labourers on a particular plantation had cordial relations with their planter/overseer they were unlikely to burn the effigy.
• Heart Man
  • Character who kills children and offers their hearts to the devil. This character was a man, dressed in all black who carves out the hearts of people, especially bad-behaved children and feeds them to the devil. He supposedly drove a black hearse and frequented the parishes to the north of the island. Young or old, the Heart Man was feared by all.
• Steel Donkey
  • This ‘creature’ emerged sometime in the early 20^th century, out of the superstition of ‘cursing’; that is, the belief that persons could put curses on others. In appearance, the steel donkey has features of an animal (more specifically, a donkey) with eyes like fire (and apparently he was fire breathing as well according to some reports) and a clanking chain. The donkey has been associated with stones landing on houses without anyone in sight seen to be throwing them. Others have associated the steel donkey with terrorizing some members of Barbados, particularly those from rural areas and their homes in the middle of the night.
• Stilt Man
  • The Stiltman wore clothes, with layers of voluminous ruffled petticoats and drawers reaching just below the knees ending in a frill. Both men showed by their actions and gestures that they were aggressively masculine.  Not only would Shaggy Bear be dressed in banana leaves, but so would the Stilt walker. Perched high in the air on wooden stilts these men would often perform daring tricks.
• Nutseller
  • Standing proud and tall, balancing a tray on her head filled with “comforts, toffees, packages ah nuts”, the traditional nutseller was a staple on the Barbadian landscape.
• Mauby Woman
  •  The Mauby woman or “Mawby” woman fills a glass from the canister on her head.
• Old Hag (Soucouyant)
  • The soucouyant is a shapeshifting Caribbean folklore character who appears as a reclusive old woman by day. By night, she strips off her wrinkled skin and puts it in a mortar. In her true form, as a fireball she flies across the dark sky in search of a victim. The soucouyant can enter the home of her victim through any sized hole like cracks, crevices and keyholes. Soucouyants suck people’s blood from their arms, legs and soft parts while they sleep leaving blue-black marks on the body in the morning. If the soucouyant draws too much blood, it is believed that the victim will either die and become a soucouyant or perish entirely, leaving her killer to assume her skin. The soucouyant practices black magic. Soucouyants trade their victims’ blood for evil powers with Bazil, the demon who resides in the silk cotton tree.
• The Chase Vault
  • The vault was originally built in 1724 but was purchased by the Chase family when Mary Ann Chase died at the tender age of 2. The little girl was placed in the vault in a lead coffin along with the vault’s single other occupant who was interred in a wooden coffin. Just a few short years later Mary Ann’s sister Dorcas was also buried in the tomb after starving herself to death. Death continued to plague the Chase family when the sisters’ father Thomas died around a month after his eldest daughter. However, when the thick marble slab that sealed the entrance to the vault was removed, the burial team discovered that the three coffins inside had been violently tossed around and were standing against the walls of the tomb in seeming disarray. There was no evidence of human tampering with the sealed vault, and none of the other vaults in the cemetery had been affected in the same way, eliminating the possibility of earthquake or flood. Regardless, all of the coffins were placed back in their original places and Thomas’ was added to the orderly pile. Years later when the vault was once again opened to add another body to the pile, they found the coffins had been tossed around once again and were lying all about the vault. This time, before resealing the seemingly watertight and impenetrable space, a layer of sand was placed on the floor to detect any footprints should the culprits return again. After a couple of years, with the story percolating among the public, the vault was reopened to check on things, and as the story goes, it was revealed in front of throngs of curious onlookers that the coffins had once again been moved around. At this point, all of the coffins were removed from the vault and reburied elsewhere in the cemetery. The empty vault remains open to this day, filled only with ghost stories. However with no coffins to toss around, any malevolent spirit (or committed prankster) may have a hard time making themselves known.

The deadline for submissions is August 3rd, 2020. Submissions should be sent via this link. Along with the photos(s) of the artwork, artists should also submit:

• Full name
• Country
• Age
• Valid Email Address
• Cell / WhatsApp Number
• Website / Social Media Platforms
• Name of Character Re-imagined
• Title of artwork
• Brief paragraph description of the artwork

Artists have to submit their original artwork.

The Virtual Visuals Online gallery is open to those of all ages.

Artwork containing significant gore, violence, or sexual profanity will be rejected.

There is no limit to the number of artwork each artist can submit.

Submitted photos should be in high definition with plain or no backgrounds.

JPG or PNG formats would be acceptable file formats.

Artists names would be included in promotion of the gallery.

Prizes will be awarded to top artwork based on the expertise of our reviewers.

All accepted submissions will be displayed in the Virtual Visuals gallery on GineOn.com with the title of the work, description and artist name, with links to the artist’s website or social media platforms. 

Submitted artwork may be used in the promotion of the Virtual Visuals online gallery on Gine On?! website and social media platforms

Artwork will be displayed on the site for the duration of the exhibition and selected pieces would be mounted in The Print 2020 gallery.

Artists shall retain all copyrights of any image they submit to the Gine On?! Virtual Visuals art gallery.