this/discourse/has/no start(middle)nd

WHO?

Hi, I'm Adam and I'm a ceramic artist. My parents are Gerard and Ann Williams, both are retired. My mom used to be a nurse and my dad was into plastic manufacturing.

WHAT?

I teach pottery, make sculptural work out of clay. Oh let me think, what else? I'll leave it at that. I do other things but I don't know if I should mention things like the fact that I sing although it never leaves the bathroom. 

WHEN + WHERE?

I work out of my home and studio which is in Diego Martin.  The best time of day for me to work is in the morning.

I've got a show this week. It's a Christmas sale, which I have every year. There was also a sale in June with Ajoupa Pottery. Very few people do pottery in Trinidad and Tobago, so you find that you get into bed with whoever does ceramics.

I have not had a gallery show since Alice Yard in September 2007. I've been hurting career-wise because I think artists should at least have a gallery display once a year. But these days, my plan is to avoid galleries. For my sculptural work, I'm not going to be using galleries if I can help it. I'm rethinking spaces at the moment and trying to use more public areas.

WHY?

I got into ceramic art as a break from drawing and painting. I was a painting major when I was studying in Canada. The thing is, in terms of the hierarchy of the visual arts, painting is at the top. Whatever the case for arguing that video and installation art has an edge over painting, these are new mediums. And performance art is still an obscure thing to digest. Painting is where most of the money is; it's also very very macho and competitive. But being at the top, it's somewhat oblivious to a lot. I found it stifling and I was developing many hang-ups. You tend to develop too many snobberies or particularities to the point where what you're left with is a very limited avenue to work with. I found that my solution to that was to get out of it completely.

With clay, what I found was that I could return to the drawing board. I could return to a medium where there is no baggage. It was new for me. Oh, by the way I normally ramble...

PLEASE SAY SOMETHING DEEP (ABOUT ART):

Ok, I'll tailor this towards art and design. Each ceramic artist will lean a little towards one or the other.

In terms of the design aspect I'm what you describe as a small-scale producer or 'one of a kind' practitioner, and part of my philosophy as a one of a kind designer is the idea that I'm taking the time to take mundane consumable items and investing my creativity and intelligence into elevating those items. If I was making furniture you would not see a generic plastic lawn chair after lawn chair. It basically boils down to the experience of choosing to buy your clothes in the mall as opposed to buying from Meiling.

The experience of the one of a kind is profound. It was not always but in a consumable age it means a lot. I'm a bit of a purist or a traditionalist in that sense. It is elitist and it is expensive but I don't think it has to be like that, actually. You jump into your car and you drive for miles to Toco and there see houses with all sorts of things hanging up outside of them that you've never seen before in your life that are one of a kind; that are not things you'll find flipping through a Sears catalogue...they are making indigenous things. And this is something which I think is being lost more and more.

ASK AND ANSWER THE QUESTION YOU WANTED US TO ASK:

You'll have a long pause here... I wanted you to ask, 'What is your art about?'

What is my art about? It recently has gone through a very noticeable shift and I'm not sure about it yet. It's become extremely autobiographical in the last patch. It started when I was making a couple of pieces for my boyfriend and my parents where it was extremely clever work, but the audience was me and three other people; there was something exciting about that.

I think there is an expectation that artists must make art universal, but the intimate stuff was something I was getting a kick out of--keeping it very small but also very effective among these four people. It became a lot about my family and a lot about me.

Do you know David Sedaris? Rufus Wainwright? I've been pulling from them as sources a lot. Sedaris is a writer who talks about his neighbours parents, siblings, incredibly insightful and comical. He's not talking about Obama and Bush; keeping it small. And all his writing is just like that. So recently my work's become very autobiographical. I'm toying with the idea of only making it accessible to very few people.

***

(BTW, WE SHOULD ALSO ADD:)

Adam Williams was born in Trinidad in 1982. He attended classes at the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto, and later the Creative Arts Centre at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine. He also studied piano with Nancy Jackman and music theory with Graham Newling. He's got a Christmas sale on Saturday. This is what he looks like:

Adam Williams, 1989. Photo courtesy the artist. 

Header photo: PriceSmart by Andre Bagoo

CHECK the artist's website for contact info here. GLIMPSE some of his smaller pieces here. READ more about an installation piece by Williams at Alice Yard here. This/discourse/has/no/start(middle)nd is an interview series for Trinidad artists. FIND out more about it here.

Pieces of Adam Williams

1. Gas-fired dark stoneware vase with Tenmoko glaze and raw clay, 7" high. 2. Gas fired porcelain vases 15" and 14" high. 3. 'Two donkey's and a tale', Gas fired porcelain bowl approx 4" high, 6" wide.

THIS Saturday, potter Adam Williams holds his annual Christmas sale at his studio in Diego Martin. READ an interview with Williams here. CONTACT the artist here.

Art politik

Hat of Heart from 'We Bought It' by Marlon Darbeau

"Political language, as used by politicians, does not venture into any of this territory [of the artist] since the majority of politicians, on the evidence available to us, are interested not in truth but in power and in the maintenance of that power. To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed"--Harold Pinter, Art, Truth and Politics, 2005.

The relationship between the artist and politics is at once exceedingly complex and exceedingly simple. As Pinter points out, the artist, beneath her fictions, is ultimately concerned with the idea of a basic truth: of the self and the state of the world. But because the artist lives in a political context, it is inevitable that her work becomes embroiled in reacting to that political context. Arguably, though, the art itself must, to maintain its integrity, transcend such politics. But this in itself requires a truly deontological, if not political, system of set values and beliefs. For can art survive without politicised civilisation?

Graphic designer Marlon Darbeau this week posts two pieces on his blog which raise the perennial question of the relationship between art and politics. The pieces, at first glance, appear to be reactions to this week's opening of the building called the National Academy for the Performing Arts in Port-of-Spain, as well as issues dogging the political adminstration that built that it. The pieces are examples of art in politics in the best sense, but they, for me, brought to the fore questions whether or not artists have an obligation to focus on the politics of the day within their art.

Thinking about this this week, I was reminded of something once said by Adorno:

"Contemporary mass-culture is historically necessary not merely as a result of the encompassment of life in its totality by monster enterprises, but as a consequence of what seems most utterly opposed to the standardization of consciousness predominant today, aesthetic subjectivism. True, the more artists have journeyed into the interior, the more they have learned to forgo the infantile fun of imitating external reality. But at the same time, by dint of reflecting on the psyche, they have found out more and more how to control themselves. The progress in technique that brought them ever greater freedom and independence of anything heterogeneous, has resulted in a kind of reification, technification of the inward as such. The more masterfully the artist expresses himself, the less he has to 'be' what he expresses, and the more what he expresses, indeed the content of subjectivity itself, becomes a mere function of the production process"--Theodor Adorno, Minima Moralia, Part Three, 1946 - 1947.

Surely this idea of "technification" results a process that actually forces the individual artist to deal with the non-subjective. For, if art is concerned with life, and politics is concerned with power, then the artist is impelled to deal with that around him, as a part of dealing within. But at the same time, for art to retain its integrity, there must be no normative edict so directing. In which case, the process must be ultimately an individual choice which resolves itself in the work, if work ever resolves itself in any form.

CHECK Marlon Darbeau's blog here.

A place for the arts

The National Academy for the Performing Arts, Port of Spain.

Tomorrow, the spanking new $518 million National Academy for the Performing Arts around the Queen's Park Savannah, Port of Spain, will officially open. But a few blocks away, at the corner of Roberts and White Street, Woodbrook, the historic Little Carib Theatre will remain boarded-up and shut. The restoration of that historic theatre, which was founded by local dance legend Beryl McBurnie in 1947 and which has played a key role in the development of the arts in this country, has stalled for about two years.

The problem? Reportedly a lack of funding, with an additional $2 million needed to complete the restoration not forthcoming from the State. The same State that can pump $2 million into a flag around the crumbling Hasley Crawford Stadium and which can build arts academies apparently at the snap of its fingers.

The opening of the academy comes after a long history of the arts and artists in this country being relegated to the marginal by successive governments regardless of the status of the country's wealth. For decades, artists from all walks of life agitated for a proper home for the arts, but to no avail.

Examine, for instance, the traumas of the Trinidad Theatre Workshop (TTW), once housed at the Old Fire Station Building on Abercromby Street, Port-of-Spain. The TTW, whose founder was Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott, was housed at that historic building for ten years from 1989 to 1994, when Walcott won the Nobel, and then to 1999.

Old Fire Station Building, Abercromby Street, Port of Spain.

Yet, after a swanky restoration, and the construction of a National Library around it, the TTW was quickly booted out of the building and left to find accommodation in a small gingerbread house on Jernigham Avenue in Belmont. To date, despite its name, the TTW has no real theatre of its own, with a small space at the house in Belmont acting as a performance area. The Old Fire Station is used for such things as press conferences by the Ministry of Information as well as hosting administrative offices.

 

Trinidad Theatre Workshop Jermingham Avenue, Belmont.

Then, of course, there was the plight of Queen's Hall, one of the most important architectural landmarks in the Caribbean. The1980s were particularly tough on the Hall's board. Whilst there was a Government subvention  for the basic running of the Hall--salaries for staff, utility bills and the like--there was no money for development or necessary refurbishment. Necessities such as the changing of stage lights or the repairing of broken-down equipment were never budgeted for. Former Chairman, Val Rogers, in a history of the Hall at its website, noted, “there was so much that needed to be done to the Hall, but we never had enough money, so all we could do was a sort of band-aid treatment.”

And what about a home for the contemporary arts, like the now defunct CCA7, which was once housed at the Fernandes Industrial Centre? Now, a spanking new arts academy has emerged. And this is something that should be welcomed. Artists should be happy, right? That's not necessarily the entire story.

The new academy was designed without any real consultation with the local artist community whatsoever, according to artists. The design was done by a Chinese firm, built by a Chinese contractor in accordance with Chinese building codes and specifications.

The building was supposedly inspired by the national flower, the Chaconia. But that is a loose association; the structure looks more like an imitation of the Sydney Opera House. Or a kind of sophisticated alien space-craft. How it fits into its environment also seems to have been an oversight by the designers, as the building looks away from the green of the Savannah and its environs, instead of paying tribute to them. This week, as preparations for tomorrow's opening continued with curious members of the public strolling around the academy, Chinese workers who will never be afforded the luxury of attending the swanky performances inside worked overtime to the sound of Chinese techno music playing from speakers housed in large wrought-iron boxes around the building's perimeter.

Little Carib Theatre, Roberts Street, Woodbrook.

Questions have been raised about the adequacy of the steel used to build the structure, as well as the suitability of the design for performance. One Government minister has even pubically admitted, at the hearings of the Uff Commission of Inquiry, that some aspects of the building may be unsuitable to "performance" and more suitable to "training". And the myriad of concerns over top-level  corruption looming over Udecott, the State company that handled the project, go without saying.

So do we now have a Performing Arts Academy that cannot perform? That remains to be seen. Only a State serious about the arts will find a way to make it work, especially with Queen's Hall, which thanks to its own restoration is now the most technologically advanced facility in the Caribbean, just across the road.

Still, there are those who will note that it is better to have something than nothing. Yet, with the academy set to be run by the University of Trinidad and Tobago, it remains to be seen just what will be the role of organisations like the TTW and how the academy will relate to other cultural strands in the country. It is a little late in the game to be only now figuring these things out, especially after spending millions of taxpayers' money which could have supported worthy artistic projects throughout the decades.

Alice Yard Space, Roberts Street, Woodbrook.

It is a crowning irony that throughout all of this, some have managed to find fertile places for art in the most unexpected of places. For instance, the million-dollar, shimmery structure that will open tomorrow may be an audacious sight, but it may never compare to what is happening at smaller spaces like Alice Yard, which is a few blocks away from the neglected Little Carib Theatre on Roberts Street.

At Alice Yard, a simple backyard has, over the last three years, done more for contemporary arts and discourse in this country than any $518 million mega-project can hope to do. Could it be that the State's neglect has actually engineered the conditions for true artistic creativity? Whatever the answer, we must wait and see if the academy will truly deserve to be called "national" after all.

We committed larceny at Alice Yard last night

Two coins, valued 26¢, went missing by our hands. They slipped away like forgotten words, unfinished phrases, stopped conversations. One 1¢ coin, unceremoniously wrapped in a small plastic zip-lock bag bearing the label 'Proyecto Capital', was pocketed by this blogger from off the floor of Alice Yard, Port of Spain. Another, a worn looking 25¢ piece, was snatched from blogger Richard Bolai's heavy bag, as dancer Dave Williams (feet caught on camera above) aided and abetted the enterprise. We left behind some, though, and were left behind, too. There were witnesses.

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WHO?

Who inspired me? When you are young you do not think about who inspired you; you are just busy doing. After a while you understand you did not do it alone. I stumbled into dance. But my mother, Florence Williams (deceased) and Noble Douglas have always been there.

WHAT?

I am trying to figure out what the ass it is I am doing - still.

WHEN + WHERE?

I have a piece I have started working on and I have one performance in the US early next year and hopefully one in Cuba around the same time. Working on an opening performance for the Youth Forum of the CHOGM (Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting).

WHY?

Trying to figure it out - still.

PLEASE SAY SOMETHING DEEP (ABOUT ART):

I was in a mad meeting yesterday and wasn't the least bit excited about any of it. Just then I wrote in my blank notepaper, "Art is presenting the familiar in an unfamiliar way or vice versa". This was in stark contradiction to the brilliant ideas that were being presented.

ASK AND ANSWER THE QUESTION YOU WANTED US TO ASK (STATE SAID QUESTION, TOO):

Is any of this at all interesting?

***

(BTW, WE SHOULD ALSO ADD:)

Dave Williams is a senior member of the Noble Douglas Dance company. He performed a piece entitled 'SCAN' at the 2009 CoCo Dance Festival at Queen's Hall in October. He's also a part of the multi-media team INDIgroove. This is what he looks like:

Dave Williams performing 'Waiting' at Alice Yard, Port of Spain, November 23, 2007, courtesy Nicholas Laughlin. Header photo:

Queen's Hall stage, by Andre Bagoo.

READ commentary on one of Williams' most famous pieces, entitled 'Waiting', here. BROWSE a review of Dave Williams' 'SCAN' here. This/discourse/has/no/start(middle)nd is an interview series for Trinidad artists. Find out MORE about it here.

Laura Ferreira all month

 

From 'July Shoots' by Laura Ferreira.

According to her website, Laura Ferreira is a 23 year old self-taught photographer, graphic artist, web designer and painter from Trinidad and Tobago. She specializes in "fashion, surrealism, and portraiture". She's got an exhibition on this month at More Vino, O'Conner Street, Woodbrook.

Measuring Embah's 'Measuring Tape'

From 'Inner Glory' (2009, mixed media)

If, as Embah says, art is measuring life, then how do we measure art? Or the artist's engagement with his art, over the years? Can we even measure art at all? Can we measure life at all? What does it mean to say that life is measurable? Do we even have to measure life? Shouldn't we just be living it?

These were not the questions that were, at first, at the forefront of my mind as I strolled through Embah's current exhibition 'Measuring Tape' which is enjoying an extended run at the Fernandes Industrial Estate. I'd left work early to stop by before 6pm when the exhibition normally closes. I had decided to convince my dad to come along. He and Embah hit it off instantly, beginning a very long, intense conversation at the front space of what used to house CCA7. As they chatted, I took a look at the work.

'Measuring Tape' is like a retrospective of the artist and his life. There is a deliberate blend of old and new pieces, each coming from a moment in Embah's career. For me, Embah's work is a sophisticated hodge podge of different elements that work on different levels. Some of the older pieces, with their intricately observed elements, have the capacity to tell a narrative tale, like odes to medieval or renaissance painting (think of the triptychs of Matthias Grünewald or Biagio d'Antonio's 'Story of Joseph', for instance).

From 'Monument II'(2008, collage, 51" x 69"). It is as though each element of each composition has the capacity to tell its own narrative.

Embah, too, has another thing in common with the renaissance painters. Whilst they were deeply concerned with Christianity, he is concerned, to some extent, with issues of spirituality. For instance, the installation piece 'Inner Glory' confronts you as you enter the exhibition space. It is an audacious work of assemblage, complete with a miniature spire and what may well be pews; two mismatched tree trunks which act as table/alter legs, but are not; a glass half-full with stones, another water, but both almost overflowing.

In terms of the painting, Embah's most recent pieces in the exhibition show a movement away from symmetrically ordered narrative pieces with sophisticated motifs, to smaller canvasses which look as though they could be landscapes but are not. These pieces appear more intuitive but are as carefully felt through as the earlier work; with almost mythic narratives. We sense that the personal is becoming epic.

In the end, as Embah and my dad continued to chat, more and more questions popped into my mind. Clearly, the work provokes thought, and, apparently, it also literally provokes discussion. This is a key to what Embah aims to do, I imagine. Here is an artist expressing a deeply personal, still unfolding story. And we, too, become a part of that story when encountering his work.

My dad and Embah (right) in deep conversation.

READ an interview with Embah here. FIND out more about the exhibition here. CHECK a profile on Embah here.

When you click, it becomes a vote!

We were home on Sunday with nothing much to do, so we entered the above in DazedDigital's album cover design competition. Vote for our design here!

The Harder They Come

Is screening today at Campus Film Classics at the University of the West Indies.

FROM THE ORGANISERS:

"In The Harder They Come reggae star Jimmy Cliff plays Ivan O. Martin, a Jamaican country boy who heads for Kingston in search of fame and fortune as a singer. Faced with the harsh reality of city life, Ivan ends up taking work with a local preacher, and is later jailed for participating in a knife fight.

Upon his release, Ivan finally gets to record his song “The Harder They Come”, but is then exploited by a dishonest record company executive. Ivan turns his back on the establishment, and slides into crime and the drug trade. He keeps the police at arm's length by offering them a slice of the action, but ultimately finds himself in the middle of a bloody raid. Ivan kills several cops and escapes, whereupon "The Harder They Come" is released, elevating the fugitive to the status of folk hero.

Adopting a take-no-prisoners approach to its material and presenting an unadorned view of Jamaican ghetto life, The Harder They Come is the first true classic of Caribbean cinema, packing an emotional impact that is undeniable. And it features one of the all-time great music soundtracks, including unforgettable songs from Desmond Dekker, Toots and the Maytals, and of course Jimmy Cliff himself.

The screening will be introduced by Dr Chris Meir of the Film Programme, UWI and followed by a discussion." MORE INFO at Campus Film Classics blog here.

Nigel Rojas is a blue emperor (butterfly)

 Poster for Blue Emperor launch

Nigel Rojas of the band Orange Sky tonight launches a NEW CD entitled "Blue Emperor" at Woodford Cafe, MovieTowne. No charge, but they are asking for a "donation" of $40 to assist "the under-privileged" for Christmas. Starts 9pm.

This/discourse/has/no/start(middle)nd

 

WHO?

'Who am I?' You getting trapped. I not telling you your business but everybody try that in the school system and it flopped. You talking about work, and while you talking work something happens in the work. From the time you ask them kinda questions, is stereotype. You understand what I telling you?

The ministry fool people. In fact, they didn't like me because I used to mash it up. When the children used to come for them interviews--what you call it? Umm, to do an illustrated essay on a local artist; that was the early CXC people--I used to tell them point blank, 'Don't tell me dat chupidness. Ask questions about the art. We talking artwork. In the process of talking if those questions come up fine.' Because where you born ain't have nothing to do with what you become, to that extent. Who your parents were most of the time don't hold up, because the circumstances are frequently beyond their control.

If it was up to my parents, I would never be doing this. My parents knew what they make and one of the things that was difficult was when you tell me don't do that, I will find a way to do it because that is what I want to do.

Waldron. My parents' names were Mrs and Mrs William Waldron. I'm number 9 in 10 children, you understand? The process was knowing how to manipulate and the first training a child got in them days was how to get round the parent without being rude. You're being damned disobedient but you not being rude about it. And if you get caught you take the cutass and call that George. You don't get vex with them. I know what I'm saying. But if they catch you, you take your licks and it ain't nothing.

WHAT?

I do painting and what you can call assemblage. I frequently don't draw. I just walk up to the thing and start to work. I came out of the self-taught art area. I was a book binder at the Government Printery. After a while, you know you reach to work and you tired? The bell ring and it's time for you to leave?

I taught myself how to do things that was frequently not related. I started off as a writer, seeing drama and them kind of things. In my late teens I had already written about two small plays, and been part of putting them on the stage. So I understood this generating of structure. I'm the audience and that is the stage. Using that as a guideline, you come up with your own ideas. Then, according to Geoffrey MacLean, I use art as a story-teller does use words.

You arrive at colours when something in your head arrives at conclusions which you begin to play with until you find the balance. Sometimes it's one colour starts it, and then the next colour is either an opposing or complimentary colour or sometimes it's a juxtapox where there is two strong things at pull. I ain't boasting, but I am the guy that started a revolution in Trinidad. People used to always think of blends, they never wanted contradictions. I started to pull a black with a yellow and a red and maybe blue.

WHEN+WHERE?

I have a studio here (at the Fernandes Industrial Estate). I work when I want. This is the beauty of being an artist. For the past 15 years I work when I want, sleep when I want. In other words, I ain't have no hours. And then that, even on occasion, was beneficial because I end up being a caretaker in a building. I come out and I gone round the corner and in five minutes I reach back. I come out and you ain't see me for a whole day but you don't know where and when I'm going to turn up. So I am not a reliable study because you have no idea what my activity is. All you know is he does be there painting 2 o'clock in the morning. Any hour of the day, any hour of the night.

The only thing that does slow you down is if you going to work heavy tools, you don't want to work that three o'clock in the morning with a neighbour nearby. And if a neighbour have a baby, you don't want to be working like that 8 o'clock in the night, because it have some lil children if you wake them up after they go to sleep half past seven, by nine o'clock if you wake them up dem ain't going back to sleep til two o'clock in the morning.

WHY?

I am painting because art is my measuring tape. I can measure what I did all my life. It's about what I did with my lifetime. To me, art was like discovering myself, like discovering freedom. You can't reverse that decision. Any attempt to reverse that is going to destroy you so I stayed with it. Believe me it had more downs than ups in the start and I was an upstart who walked into the people place with no training. They used to call us primitives. Then David Boxor coined a phrase. He called us 'intuitives'.

All this is about that lifetime of art. So this is my own history talking. I am fortunate that I could use that to demonstrate what history in the making really is. Is to generate an interest in measuring what you're doing. We are outcome, input and results.

PLEASE SAY SOMETHING DEEP (ABOUT ART):

As I say, art is a way of measuring what you have accomplished or what you are trying to accomplish. It is a way or measuring what a whole community accomplished. So Trinidadians on a high for a long time from the time George Chambers mention to world that their inventorship was an instrument. That was a reflection of every Trinidadian like everything else. But with art, you also have to add something to it or establish new facets of it to the point where people keep reaching to you for it.

ANSWER THE QUESTION YOU WANTED US TO ASK (STATE SAID QUESTION TOO):

The question is, 'How do you look at the future of Trinidad and Tobago?'

It's kinda dismal, but we're a bright people. Now I know its a global thing that almost every country utilises foreign labour, but I am saying that Trinidad carried it a little too far. Because you have people here who, with the right kind of regimentation, it could work. But we have this problem-too much friendliness and the educated people wrong.

We came out of colonialism. Colonialism was, 'oh is dem white people in England doing we dat.' So anything you could do then, you did it because the employer was the enemy and the British government was your largest employer. And we still living with that. The employer is not your enemy. He may never be your friend but he is definitely not your enemy. You have to learn how to live with it. You have to know who he is because he is not there for your benefit, he is there for his benefit.

***

(BTW, WE SHOULD ALSO ADD:)

Embah (also known as Ancil Waldron and Emheyo Bahabba) has had twenty exhibitions. His latest, 'Measuring Tape', is currently enjoying an extended run at the Fernandes Industrial Centre, Laventille, Trinidad. This is what he looks like:

Paris, 2008. Photo courtesy the artist. Header photo of a Tragarete Road, Port of Spain, rum shop interior by Andre Bagoo.

FIND out more about Embah and see some of his paintings here. This/discourse/has/no/start(middle)nd is an interview series for Trinidad artists. Find out MORE about it here.

We are all wearing costumes

WHAT: Poolside Halloween party at the YMCA, Port of Spain, November 1, 2009. What costume did your trusty blogger wear? Why me, of course.

A mausoleum in Lapeyrouse cemetery

Photo by Erin Caner from the Trinity at Alice Yard blog.

A mausoleum in Lapeyrouse cemetery in Port of Spain is juxtaposed against the PowerGen energy plant, which provides electrical power to Trinidad and Tobago in this photograph by Erin Caner from the Trinity at Alice Yard blog. The image appears as part of a discussion of the role of religion in Trinidad life. READ MORE here.

Michael Jackson comes back from the dead

FILM REVIEW: This is It

Since his death in June, the image we've had in our minds of Michael Jackson is of a man overwhelmed by drugs, with a frail body, enduring a rapid and undignified decline; reeling in the aftereffects of plastic surgery. Jackson's personal life, soft voice, bizarre behaviour, as well as the reported details of the state of his corpse, did not help. We heard of the phantom needle marks all over the King of Pop's body, black marks on his legs, his peach fuzz of hair which he constantly covered with wigs, the state of his skin and his nose, claims that he penciled in his eyebrows and lips.

But This is It, which I saw this week, brings to the forefront another aspect of the story. The film is based on rehersal footage for a planned series of concerts (called 'This is It') which was to be held at London's O2 arena. The series was scheduled to begin in July 2009 and continue through March 2010. But less than three weeks before the curtain came up, and with all concerts being sold out, Jackson died from cardiac arrest in the wake of a drug overdose.

This is It is a compilation of interviews, rehearsals and backstage footage of Jackson and his crew as he prepared for the series. The film, directed by Jackson's long-time collaborator Kenny Ortega, is actually a touching and, ultimately, tremendously entertaining documentary featuring candid footage which, more than anything in recent decades, reminds us of the genius of the most important pop icon of the century. And if you thought that Jackson would not have been able to endure a 50-stint concert series, this makes you think again. If you are searching for the closest substitute you could have gotten for the O2 series, this this is it. Jackson performs song after song from his classic catalog of hits.

We see a side of Jackson that has rarely been seen: that of the artist in rehearsal as he painstakingly hones his craft and works with those around him to get them to the standard that he required. Here was an artist who was on form, whatever the state of his health. Although he was just in rehearsal, Jackson's voice sounds perfect, for example, when he at one point belts out 'Human Nature' with a kind of effortless, alien grace. Even the normally quite wooden audience at Movietowne broke out in cheers and applause almost at the end of each performance.

We come away feeling like we got a better glimpse of the man's talent. For instance, during sound checks he stops to correct a single wrong note, saying wryly: "That's why we have rehearsal." He warns a guitarist at one stage to "funk it up" more. For a complicated sequence in which he is expected to give a cue with a giant video screen behind him, he tells the directors that he will have "to feel" the image on the screen behind him before giving the cue. At another stage, he implores the band to let a pause "simmer" before resuming in order to achieve the full effect.

This was a man, then, who in his last days remained utterly attuned to his craft. His music was so familiar to him; so integral, that we feel that seeing him on stage was like seeing the man entirely, even though questions over his private life remain.

Going into the film, many voiced concerns over whether or not the film simply represents commercial exploitation; another chance to make money off Jackson's death. For sure this is true. But the film is to an extent redeemed because it is actually a fitting (if not final) tribute to genius. It focuses on one thing: the music and nothing else. And perhaps that approach, in showing this pure rehersal footage complete with only personal glowing tributes to the man from his crew, is correct. For only through the very things that may have contributed to his decline could Jackson have lived and sustained his peculiar art. And it is the art that lives.

In the end what we come away with is an even deeper sense of tragedy; a sense that we were robbed of something great. Jackson may have stepped off the concert stage decades ago, but in this film, it is as though he never left.