Help Build an Artist Residency in Trinidad and Tobago

After almost a decade of ideation, research, and waiting, Kearra Amaya Gopee is ready to create an artists' residency in Carapichaima, Trinidad and Tobago, tentatively named a small place. Help them clear the path.

What makes a good residency? Why are they important?

I have been exploring these questions for the past 8 years through research methods such as think tanks, peer-to-peer interaction, designing and implementing residencies for other artists, and participating in 15+ residencies and fellowships myself. Through the intellectual generosity of my peers and mentors, I have been able to devise the concept for a residency in Trinidad and Tobago. The only barrier thus far has been financial. I have tried all the more measured and strategic methods towards achieving this goal, but if you are not monied, it is incredibly difficult to create a fully autonomous residency from scratch.

The ask

I have been fortunate enough to locate a plot of land near my family home in Carapichaima. My initial ask is for $35,000 USD by October 31st, 2024. This will serve as a downpayment and move us to contract.

Once this goal is achieved, this GoFundMe will move to its stretch goal of $100,000 USD/$625,000 TTD, which will constitute the remainder of the costs. The deadline for this goal is March 2025.

Why Carapichaima?

It is important to me that this residency is grounded in a place that makes sense to me, and Carapichaima is my home. It informs my work extensively.

This residency will be a node in a larger, regional network of similar projects, an exercise in [re-]establishing archipelagic thought in the tradition of the pre- and post-independence movements of the region.

Where else would I do this work?

The structure

Residencies can be conceptualized in endless ways—a site for relaxation or productivity. For me, a small space is a site for maroonage and study.

Study of the place and the region will account for half of the residency. Four artists (ideally two local, and two diasporic) will spend one year (remotely, but together) learning about and engaging with the history of Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean region at large; our labor and resistance movements; existing organizers; and the people already working to make alternative futures possible.

Once they have a solid understanding of their roles as artists within this vibrant network of changework, they will spend a year living and working on-site in Carapichaima.

Why now?

Why not now? I’ve tried waiting, but sometimes you need to take the plunge. If I keep waiting for the right time, I might keep waiting forever.

How can I help?

Before you commit to helping, please understand that giving will not make you a shareholder in the classical sense. This is your residency as much as it is mine, but I am aiming to make this as autonomous as possible within this capitalist hellscape.

That said, you can help by donating money, time, labor, and your work! Please join my street team! I plan to host exhibitions of donated work, among other activities to raise additional funds in the upcoming months. If you would like to run your own donation drives within your communities in service of this vision, send me an email and I will provide you with the relevant assets to share on social media and amongst your network.

Together, we will clear a path <3