#sexypink/Vulgar Fraction

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The UWI Department of Creative and Festival Arts and Vulgar Fraction Mas Band are pleased to share an online catalogue of costumes designed by the University's students.

View the catalogue here: https://bit.ly/397FhYh

Mas Mourning—Becoming Wreaths is a University of the West Indies (UWI) Department of Creative and Festival Arts (DCFA) undergraduate course assignment designed by Dr. Marsha Pearce in collaboration with Vulgar Fraction, an Independent Carnival Masquerade band based in Trinidad and Tobago, and led by Robert Young.

 In 2022, Vulgar Fraction conceived the idea of a masquerade presentation that embraces carnival, or mas, as memorial—to address ideas of life and loss in the pandemic. Students taking the UWI DCFA course titled Critical Readings in Caribbean Arts and Culture, facilitated by Dr. Pearce and teaching assistants Omari Ashby and Brendon Lacaille, were asked to consider what it means to “become wreaths” and translate their interpretation in the form of a costume made primarily with dried leaves. See costume designs by 35 students in the online catalogue.Image:

"Rise of Phoenix" costume by Shakira Burton.

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Vulgar Fraction c/o The Cloth

via Sexypink on Tumblr

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                                       Vulgar Fraction 2022

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Vulgar Fraction will present Mas Mourning–Becoming Wreaths for Carnival 2022.  person @markymark_82 .Image by @jason.c.audain Carnival scholar and doer of things @drbrowne Kevin Adonis Browne on Mas Mourning--Becoming Wreaths: This concept—which will unfold into a band—falls squarely within the notion of Carnival as an opportunity for public expression. Not just mourning, obviously, but expression that spans the spectrum of public feeling, and (more importantly) of intensely private feeling that may be publicly aired.

Such public airings are typically inconvenient, often disconcerting, and almost always exactly what we need. They are intended to do things with us, for us—but especially _to_ us. And if we're paying attention, we feel it. Call it spirit, if you like, but it moves us, inspires us to act. So we see, in plain terms, how the spirit of _Mas_ is contained in a concept of a band, then we see (or hope to see) how that concept will burst into the public for the rest of us to feel. And why is this important right now? Because, lately, everyday life has eclipsed public rituals of mourning in the sense that everyday life in this pandemic moment _is_ a ritual of mourning. We're mired in death news daily as a matter of public policy, forced in a way to receive death as a matter of protocol.

Wreaths are more than a superficial reminder of this—that we live and will die, losing but may yet win, struggling but may still get through. They show, as an undercurrent of all those preoccupations, that what connects us is not merely what the wreath becomes, but the desire to become wreaths in the first place. By pointing us toward "becoming," Young seems to yearn (and we, with him) for that aspect of ourselves that precedes even the language to describe what we have felt and have needed to feel. By going back to "becoming," Young brings us along, one chip-step at a time. And, as our momentum grows and turns to a familiar pace, he propels us—conceptually, at first, then in practice—into a future that will welcome and celebrate us, as we so desperately hope to celebrate it. A _Jouvay Mourning_ indeed.

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~Sexypink * Vulgar Fraction  - 50/70

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~Sexypink~ Excellent effort.

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“What if we take the energy of the 70s and use it to think about climate change?” he says. “There’s a type of grief we haven’t processed on 1970, and grief for our climate crisis. It’s a holy call, because the environmental D-Day is supposed to be coming in 2030.”

Robert Young - Designer

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~Sexypink~ Robert Young/Vulgar Fraction Carnival 2019

On our way to the launch.

24 Erthig Rd Belmont. Panel Discussion. Speakers... Winston Suite is a civil engineer and educator who was detained by the State during the Black Power Revolt. Peter Weller is a psychologist and the president of the Caribbean Male Action Network (CariMAN). Environmental activist Gillian Goddard is a director of the Alliance of Rural Communities and is one of the pioneers of the burgeoning TT artisanal chocolate movement. The panel will be chaired by spoken word artist Arielle John. Choreographer Makeda Thomas' Carnival mini band New Waves! and the moko jumbie band Moko Somokow will also launch their 2019 presentations at the event. The Egbe Omo Oni Isese Traditional African drummers will perform at the launch. For more information on Vulgar Fraction and Nothing, WhatsApp 1-868-774-9368, email vulgarfraction@thecloth.com.