Funding for cultural industries...For Barrington Braithwaite, an ambitious venture long in creation

Funding for cultural industries…For Barrington Braithwaite, an ambitious venture long in creation

Jul 29, 2019 News

When the Department of Culture last week revealed the names of creative individuals who would share in a $20M grant, it was the first fruit from an idea that had been almost 27 years in the making.
One of the individuals behind this idea is graphic artist Barrington Braithwaite. The creator of the popular Guyanese superhero The Jaguar, Braithwaite has always been an advocate for pushing Guyanese culture to international levels, and for ensuring that creative individuals who produce excellent work are financially rewarded.
In an extensive interview with Kaieteur News, Barrington described the subvention as a “great plus”.
“This is possibly the first time our industry has been given some level of recognition.
“It’s a big thing, and I don’t think it has sunk home as yet as to what has happened. It is a plus for this administration, it is a serious plus that you are willing to (financially) liberate people.”

Graphic artist and writer Barrington Braithwaite

Braithwaite identified music producer (Kross Kolor ) Burchmore Simon as being one of the few individuals who had tirelessly lobbied with him for this financial support that has finally become a reality.
“Wherever the path led in lobbing for cultural industries, Burchmore was the only person who would assist me in submitting documents to Ministries, and to everywhere that required a document. He was the only person willing to accompany me to meetings on this issue.
“One individual in music even said he was too busy for that. I even got an email from one friend who said, ‘boy, they pushing you around, but I said no, it (financial support) would happen.
“Some individuals who I felt should have been recipients (of the Government grant) were not, because they did not even submit (their projects).”
Braithwaite said the idea for such a subvention was first raised around 1992. This happened during a meeting with former Minister of Education Deryck Bernard (who passed away in 2008).
Minister Bernard, who had a keen interest in the arts, was intrigued as to how Braithwaite acquired the resources to produce and self-publish his Jaguar graphic novel series.
“He said ‘you seem to have done the research, where did you get the help from?’ I have to fund it all.’”
“He said ‘you did the (Jaguar) trilogy, what next, and I said that ‘I got to recover, because when you do everything yourself, you are tired; you run to the clients, you get a cheque, and I didn’t have an account, nobody will give me a cheque in my name, so they gave the cheque to National Printers Limited, where all my work was done. And he said you need to have a subvention for this…”

The Elder was one of Braithwaite’s first creations

“But then the Government changed in 1992, and the PP had no interest in this,” Braithwaite said.
According to him, he presented the idea to the Ministers of Finance and Ministers of Culture in the PPP administration. He got no response.
“I started lobbying again, (but) no document given to the Minister of Finance or the Minister of Culture was even acknowledged.”
CHALLENGES
Braithwaite also lamented that many creative individuals are forced to let their projects languish because they are unable to access funding. It is more daunting because Guyana has no publishing house.
“I have a Jaguar script on our drug problem, but I have been unable, so far, to invoke the interest of anyone in the Ministry of Health to give me (financial) support for funding this. I have young people who have approached me online as to when I can do another edition of the Jaguar… the concepts are there but the other issues never came…like many other artists, the work is there but not published…”
“Sometimes you have to hold back your ideas until you can pay somebody to edit your work. You also have to pay for the copyrighting of your material.”
Despite the recent positive step by Government, he cautioned that there is still much to be done, to enable creative individuals to profit from their work, and to make Guyana’s cultural industries a substantial foreign exchange earner.
Braithwaite is also concerned about the absence of stringent copyright legislation, since its absence leaves creative individuals vulnerable to exploitation. “You cannot have the arts functioning without protection.”
“A subvention does not mean that the end is there. A subvention is a tremendous help, an tremendous statement, but how do you get those who are representing culture to understand that Guyana needs to have, for example, a national book festival at least four times a year, where you buy local books and sell them back, where you are responsible for assisting in the development of creativity by allowing people to earn from their talents, …we are not doing great work in maneuvering expertise.
“We have a policy where the arts are not taken seriously, you need to separate (the Department of) Culture from Youth and Sports. There are too many things that are not being done that should be done.”
“We have a lot of talented people. The prisons used to have drama clubs, plays.. We have to now recognize this, appreciate it and move forward.”