Trinidad and Tobago is helping to re-define the role of Caribbean museums, positioning them as active contributors to social development.
That focus took centre stage on Thursday as the National Museum and Art Gallery hosted the Museum Association of the Caribbean Conference for the first time in 14 years on Thursday evening.
Caribbean museums are being reimagined as more than repositories of history, emerging instead as powerful tools for education, cultural preservation and social progress.
Speaking at the closing reception of the Museum Association of the Caribbean Conference on Thursday, Chairman of the National Museum and Art Gallery of Trinidad and Tobago, Richard Rampersad, said museums must move beyond preserving the past and become spaces that help shape the future.
“A museum must be more than a repository of objects. It must be a civic square, a trusted democratic space where our societies can gather to have difficult but necessary conversations that we often avoid.”
He noted that museums play a crucial role in bridging the geographical, linguistic and generational divides of the region.
“When a young student from Laventille, Kingston or Bridgetown walk into our galleries and see their own face, their own dialect and their own ancestral resilience reflected back at them. A vital circuit is completed. We are connecting our people, not just to who they are, but who they have the power to become.”
He also highlighted the museum’s commitment to supporting artists.
“Tonight we also have a collection of artworks from our national collection as well as from upcoming and emerging artists. So the museum is providing a safe place and space for upcoming, emerging and even the established artists to showcase and tell their works through paint, sculpture, photography, etc.”
Mr. Rampersad added that while the National Museum remains temporarily closed for extensive refurbishment, plans are underway to launch a virtual museum.