Montserrat must resist cultural erasure by actively preserving memory and engaging its artists and educators in the reimagining of the island’s identity. This was the central message delivered by writer and academic Dr Yvonne Weekes during the 20th Dr George Irish Memorial Lecture, a signature event of the 2025 Calabash Festival.
In a compelling address delivered virtually, Dr Weekes challenged Montserratians at home and across the diaspora to reclaim their memories and transform them into art that reflects both the pain and pride of the island’s past, while imagining its future.
“I truly believe that artists need to play a much more significant role, along with our educators, to ensure that these past stories, both personal and collective, can be made real and visible for our children through our creative imagination,” Weekes said in her keynote titled Memory or Erasure: The Role of Artists in Reimagining Montserrat.
Reflecting on her early memories of Dr George Irish, she recalled his influence at Montserrat Secondary School through the Emerald Community Singers and folk song group led by Edith Allen: “She taught us these songs as a response to Dr Irish’s call for us young people at the time to know their past. In fact, I think it was called Know Your Past. And these songs will be forever etched in my memory.”
Weekes, who has written extensively about displacement and disaster, said memory must be treated as a creative and cultural resource: “It is a poor sort of memory that only works backwards. Memory is something that I think about a lot. For me, as a writer, it is a sustainable resource… a swarm of memories that can sometimes overwhelm, bring us joy, nostalgia.”
She added: “Memories… even though they may not be perfectly accurate, can also be a starting point for imaginative creations and interpretations of art.”
Dr Weekes warned that Montserrat’s cultural identity is at risk due to demographic decline, migration, and the erasure of key traditions. “In 1991, Montserrat had a population of 12,215 people. In 2023, the population was 4,294. Another fact is that two-thirds of Montserrat is buried by ash. Erasure.”
Referencing global and historical examples of erasure from the burning of the sacred books of the Mayans in 1562 to the disappearance of Indigenous tribes in North America, she made a stark comparison: “Our people are everywhere, scattered like diasporic seeds which land all over the world.”
She questioned the absence of artists in Montserrat’s post-volcano development: “All 30 years later, we haven’t gone any further. But my thesis tonight is where are the artists in this role of rebuilding? What exactly is our role?”
Weekes acknowledged the trauma that many prefer to forget but argued it must be recorded: “While we may not necessarily want to go back to anything that deals with trauma, displacement… one of the important roles of the artist is to journal memories. Those journals will become art… will become sculpture… will become music… will become choreography.”
She read several original poems to illustrate how memory transforms into art, including “The Smell of Sulphur” and “Wake,” the latter inspired by a childhood memory of a funeral: “I don’t even know how accurate this memory is… it came to me in a dream. But it’s not something I want to have erased.”
Weekes called for urgent investment in arts education: “Every single art form should be taught in schools. Students must be given the space to experiment, to dream, to imagine, and to research the cultural icons… to write poems, contribute their work, draw paintings.”
She emphasised that children must learn about their own icons: “Every primary child should know the work of Dr Irish, Edith Allen, and Arrow… they should imagine the landscape of the 40s… capture our cotton fields and our plantations as they were and as they would be.”
During the Q&A session, educator Dr Clarice Barnes shared concerns that schools prioritise performance on exams over cultural learning. Weekes responded, “That’s a question of pedagogy… but my point is I used pedagogy rooted in a respect for Montserrat’s culture and identity.”
Another participant asked whether Weekes was advocating for a return to outdated traditions. “I am not suggesting we go back to dancing Junkanoo. I am saying that to avoid erasure, we must be creating… If we’re not creating new ways of work… new ways of painting… new ways of theatre… then it’s erasure.”
She added, “We can’t just have one kind of art, one kind of poetry, one kind of theatre. When that person who is singing that note is gone, no new note is sung.”
Weekes also addressed the role of teachers: “Teachers have to be encouraged to continue to read, research, reflect, recollect and grow… Professional development cannot be optional.”
On the question of using social media to preserve culture, she said, “If we don’t use social media, then we’re shooting ourselves in the foot. Children should be building virtual galleries… writing verses… posting short stories… and schools can create platforms where these can be shared.”
Weekes concluded with a powerful charge: “If the writers must rise, then the dancers must choreograph stories around our burning, our loss, our grief, our rising, our hopes. Otherwise, what is left will be erasure.”
Listen to the full lecture here.
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