C|Art 2025

C|Art, the Caribbean Art Meet up, is dedicated to promoting a contemporary visual arts movement across the 26 plus countries in the region. C|Art is a multi day, visual art event focused on facilitating and fostering connections between artists, curators, collectors dealers, academics and cultural workers in the Caribbean, UK, North America, Africa and the larger African Diaspora.

The third edition of C|Art will take place from January 30th to February 2nd, 2025, in Montego Bay and Kingston, Jamaica. We’re excited to announce that renowned photographers Vanley Burke and Ronnie Carrington will be joining us for C|Art 2025! In addition, special guests Dr. Deborah Willis and Dr. Christine Checinska will engage in an insightful conversation, promising an unforgettable exchange of ideas and perspectives. It would be wonderful to have you be a part of this incredible gathering of thought leaders and cultural influencers.

  • Dr Christine Checinska is a British artist, designer, curator & storyteller. Her work explores the relationship between cloth, culture and race.

    Her PhD, Colonizin’ in Reverse! (Goldsmiths, London, 2009), examines the impact of creolised Caribbean culture on English male dress, and questions the relative absence of culturally diverse voices within Global North fashion and textiles studies. Through such work she invokes an interconnected and equitable art and design world where Black creativity, with all its nuances and contradictions, is nurtured and respected.

    She has built on these themes in her role as Senior Curator Africa and Diaspora: Textiles and Fashion, and Lead Curator of V&A Museum’s international touring show Africa Fashion , and as Research Associate at the Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre (VIAD), University of Johannesburg. Christine has exhibited her work in the group show The Missing Thread, Somerset House, London, September 2023-January 2024, and Folded Life, Johanne Jacobs Museum, Zurich, February 2021.In 2016, she delivered the TEDxTalk Disobedient Dress: Fashion as Everyday Activism examining the fascinating cultural exchanges that occur beyond borders as a result of movement and migration expressed through the clothes we wear, the objects we collect and the art that we make.

    Christine is a board member of the British Textile Biennial and the Karun Thakar Fund, Director-at-Large for the Textile Society of America, and serves on the St Paul’s Cathedral, London, Visual Arts Committee.

    Headshot by Kayvan Michael Bazergan

  • Deborah Willis, Ph.D. is University Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. She has affiliated appointments with the College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Social & Cultural Analysis, and the Institute of Fine Arts, where she teaches courses on Photography & Imaging, iconicity, and cultural histories visualizing the black body, women, and gender. She is the director of NYU’s Center for Black Visual Culture/Institute of African American Affairs. Her research examines photography’s multifaceted histories, visual culture, the photographic history of Slavery and Emancipation, contemporary women photographers, and beauty. She is the author of The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship and Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present, among others. Dr. Willis’ curated exhibitions include: “Framing Moments in the” Kalamazoo Institute of the Arts, and “Free as they want to be: Artists Committed to Memory” FotoFocus.

    Dr. Willis was awarded the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship and was a Richard D. Cohen Fellow in African and African American Art, Hutchins Center, Harvard University; a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, and an Alphonse Fletcher, Jr. Fellow. She was the Robert Mapplethorpe Photographer in Residence of the American Academy in Rome and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is a recipient of the Don Tyson Prize for the Advancement of American Art by the Crystal Bridges Museum in 2022; was named the Mary Lucille Dauray Artist-in-Residence by the Norton Museum of Art and taught her a Master Class titled Home, Reimagining Interiority at Anderson Ranch in 2023.

    Headshot by Laylah Amatullah Barrayn of DW

C|Art Programming (TBC)

Thursday, January 30th – Saturday, February 2nd 2025

Thursday: Montego Bay

  • 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM: Cocktail Reception

  • 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM: Opening Talk – Dr. Debora Willis in Dialogue with Dr. Christine Checinska Senior Curator Victoria and Albert Museum

  • 8:00 PM – 10:00 PM: DJ Lounge Liming with Cocktails

 

Friday: Montego Bay

  • 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM: Breakfast and Book Talk with Gaëtane Verna and author Malene
    Barnett – Crafted Kinship: Inside The Creative Practices of Contemporary Black Caribbean Makers

  • 12:00 PM – 5:00 PM: Free Time to Explore Montego Bay

  • 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM: Curatorial Talk – Dr. Julie Crooks in Dialogue with Vanley Burke and Christina Leslie: Hosted by National Gallery of Jamaica

  • 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM: Dinner

  • 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM: Talk – Ronnie Carrington in dialouge with Josephine Denis

  • 8:00 PM – 10:00 PM: Music and Cocktails by the Pool

Saturday: Kingston

  • 9:00 AM: Bus Trip to Kingston

  • 12:30 PM – 4:30 PM: Pop-Up Exhibition, Gallery & Studio Visits, and Mural Walk in Downtown Kingston – hosted by Blaq Mango Collective

  • 5:00 PM: Dinner

  • 7:00 PM: Bus to Montego Bay

 

Sunday: Montego Bay 

11:00 AM – 2:00 PM: Brunch with 6 Lightning Presentations and a Moderated Q&A, Hosted by Blaq Mango Curatorial Collective and Shelley Falconer

Hotel Partner

 We’re excited to share that we have partnered with a locally owned hotel in Jamaica Tobys Resort for your upcoming four-day special event. Supporting local businesses is something we truly believe in, and we pride ourselves on giving back to the Jamaican community. Tobys Resort  offers an authentic Jamaican experience, with a strong focus on cultural immersion, sustainability, and warm, local hospitality. We’ve reserved rooms at a special rate, available until November 8th. If you’d like to take advantage of this offer, please use the reference code GALLERY and mention #108229 when making your booking.

C|Art Meet Up Ticket