Calypso 2022 is a ground-breaking music and arts project designed to unite and empower the Deaf community in Barbados. Multi-faceted & international this project featured the following elements:
Calypso 2022 will bring together deaf and hearing musicians, artists, film makers, and writers from across the UK, USA and Barbados. Music is a powerful expressive tool in society and in our digital age often attracts and inspires people from all corners of the world. This project will draw on the vibrant history of Calypso music on the island of Barbados, blending it with Hip-Hop and digital music, to emphasise the island’s culture as well as looking at deafness and the world at large.
The message will be loud and clear: deaf people can do anything, except hear perfectly, and deaf Barbadians demand their voices are heard. It is society – not deafness – that disables, and Calypso 2022 will raise awareness of this across the community, inspiring a new generation of deaf Barbadians. We want to create, support, and preserve new networks that integrate deaf and hearing professionals and audiences.
Visual Arts have a major role in showing our existence in society and shall be harnessed through the exhibition. Workshops will be held across schools and community centres on the island, not only to introduce and promote music and art within the deaf and hearing communities, but to also positively raise the profile of what it really means to be deaf.
Calypso 2022 is a collaboration between the Barbados Council for the Disabled, Audiovisability, The Maria Holder Memorial Trust, Decibels International, Peter & Jan Boos Family Foundation, SpecialKidz International and other local partners.
Find out more on the Calypso website here