Kingston On The Edge 2009
Kingston On The Edge Urban Art Festival (KOTE) is a nine day celebration of creativity that has quickly become a much anticipated fixture on the Jamaican art calendar.
By providing a forum outside of traditional exhibition spaces, KOTE encourages artists to express themselves while pushing the boundaries and definitions of their art. KOTE offers an opportunity for artists, venues and the general public to interact creatively with the view to showcase, develop and harness the incredible artistic potential of Jamaica.
The Festival allows for opportunities to discover not only Kingston's vibrant art, but also the city itself, as the upwards of twenty-two individual events are held in disparate locations from the surrounding city hills to the downtown harbour front.
KOTE is a non-profit group, and relies heavily on sponsorship, donations and goodwill to finance its activities.
Kingston On the Edge Urban Art Festival is the brainchild of five young art enthusiasts and friends who wanted to showcase Jamaican artists in a noncommercial manner. It is a celebration of art and the artists who live, work and/or are inspired by Kingston. More than 100 artists and performers, from as afar as Georgia and Brazil, have participated. Beginning near the summer solstice, the capital's parks, galleries, restaurants, bars, even the city's synagogue are among a plethora of venues that transform the largest English speaking city south of Miami into the art capital of the Caribbean.
The Festival features both Studio and Performing Arts by encompassing painting, sculpture, installation art, ceramics, textiles, jewelry, furniture design, graphic design, photography, film, animation, poetry, dance, theater, live music and anything else the artist can conceptualize. This environment motivates and inspires the artist to experiment with their craft, often leading to the birth of new and exciting movements in the local scene.
KOTE is the largest Studio & Performing Arts festival in the English-speaking Caribbean.
Below are a few events that are part of KOTE, giving a better understanding of the wide ranging impact of Kingston On The Edge:
Artist Open House and Studio: This event allows the general public to enter into the domain of the Artist where one can experience first hand the environment in which their art is created. We have found that those who attend this event have a better appreciation for the creative process, and are inclined to support the artist through purchasing their work after connecting with them on a more personal level.
The National Gallery: The National Gallery charts the growth and development of Jamaica's greatest artistic endeavours. During KOTE, the Gallery opens its doors free to the public and provides free-guided tours of its permanent collection. As part of this event the public also has access to current exhibitions and open discussions with the participating artists. This event is an incentive for those who might not normally visit the Gallery to be exposed to Jamaica's rich art history and allows interaction with contemporary artists exhibiting there.
Edna Manley School of Visual & Performing Arts: The future of Jamaican Art grows here. KOTE highlights the talent found at the college by publicizing the best of their Final Year Studio Art Show and the Jamaica Poetry Society. This gives the students exposure to a new viewing public and has resulted in some of them not only selling their work but also kick starting their artistic careers.
Red Rubberband Mural Project: This is an on-going project organized by a KOTE artist/art teacher based in the inner-city who gathers both non-artist and artist together to work on the beautification of our communities through murals.
The Gallery Hop: The concept of the Hop is to have the public move between 3-4 galleries on a gallery circuit over the period of an evening. Although mounted in conventional exhibition spaces, each of the venues incorporates a unique blend of Performing and Studio art to create a single show.
The great economic potential of art has been widely documented, and this is an area of focus for KOTE. From the beginning, the Festival's stated intention has been to waken the “sleeping giant” which is the Jamaican art scene. It has begun, and will continue, to stimulate not only the local market, but also the international. Internationally, we have been made aware of KOTE's great potential for exposing Jamaican Art through interest that has been voiced from abroad.
The relative dearth, in Kingston, of outlets for creative and innovative artists, combined with the huge surfeit of talent and ideas, mean that this Festival is both necessary and inevitable.
Perhaps the most powerful feature of the Festival has been the consistent and relentless positive feedback associated with it. People of all backgrounds, ethnicities and nationalities have not only supported the Festival, but have also freely given of their time, effort, and occasionally money, to make KOTE a reality. The togetherness which has been evident during the Festival's two years is very much a Jamaican characteristic, if one that is not always readily evident. As such, KOTE has been said to provide at least a partial antidote to the negativity often associated with Kingston. In a city that was listed 31st most dangerous city in the world in 2008, KOTE hopes that through innovative visual and performing art we will be able to, “signal to the broader culture that there is an appreciation for the Jamaica that is extraordinary”.
KOTE 2009 “Metamorphose” continued with the idea of bringing about radical social change in Kingston through art.
