CARIFESTA XV: “Archiving the Self” Workshop
This lovely woman created a collage depicting her childhood memory of picking ackees with her uncle and cousins.
One of the pleasures of being invited to CARIFESTAXV was the opportunity to lead my workshop, “Archiving the Self: Collaging Personal Cartographies.” I was delighted that every available seat was filled with participants ranging from teenagers to people in their 70s, many of them eager to make their first collage masterpieces.
My collage-making began as an illustrative practice; a way to turn my microfiction stories into visual language. For this workshop, I wanted to emphasize collage-making as a journaling practice and as an entry point into emotional centering and remembering. With the prompt to think of a memory that delights or moves them, I encouraged my participants to close their eyes for a few minutes and then write or sketch the thoughts and scenes that came to mind. Some of them were instantly overwhelmed by this task, but I gently reminded them that the beauty of collage is not perfection or realism, but its function as a path to genuine self expression.
After the first hour, I was deeply moved by what was emerging in my class. Plucking from tables of fabric, paper, baubles, ribbons, glitter, and other ephemera, my participants began building visual stories about picking ackees with family, their everlasting love of their children and partners, their hopes for the future, and memories of past lives lived elsewhere but returning to Barbados as solid ground. I was so damn proud, ya’ll!
I wish I had a slide for every masterpiece, because they all worked so very diligently on these works. My deep appreciation goes out to all the attendees for sharing parts of themselves and their lives with me. It was truly a delight to spend time with every single one of them.
