Winslow Craig, The Forest Keeper

Poustinia aims to provide an environmental project in which art and nature interact. Having visited and worked in this rainforest environment we thought it deserved a wider audience and therefore organised an exhibition of photographs documenting the various Poustinia artworks and their temporal transformations, choosing non-gallery venues in which to exhibit them: the Belize High Commission in London hosted ‘made in belize’ in May which will also be shown at the Environment Centre Swansea during September and October.

The park – a former cattle ranch – covers an area of 270 tarantula, snake and scorpion-infested acres of rainforest, and is situated just inside the border with Guatemala. Poustinia Art Foundation was established in 1997 by architect Luis Ruiz, whose family donated sixty acres to the foundation, the remainder being allowed to return to the jungle. The land had been widely de-forested to create pasture land, but has been replanted with native trees during the last fifteen years.

Every two years local and international visual artists are invited to stay in basic cabins in the jungle and create site-specific works. Belizean artists have worked alongside those from Norway, England, Trinidad, Barbados, Wales, Brazil and the USA. Exchange and interaction between artists of different cultures and aesthetic traditions, as well as between the artworks and the natural landscape, is promoted. The clash of aesthetics which artists of different cultures bring to the project is fascinating and one of the most interesting aspects of the project for us. However, this was probably a stumbling block when it came to applying for funding for the exhibition in the UK as awarding bodies steeped in the Western artistic tradition failed to see the merits of work originating in a Caribbean aesthetic. We had to raise private sponsorship for the London exhibition, but at the time of writing, we are hopeful that the Arts Council of Wales will assist with the costs of staging the show in Wales.

As regards our own work, Adrian Barron, of mixed Belizean and English descent, has visited Poustinia several times. The Cathedral Project was conceived eight years ago and consists of planting a variety of indigenous tree species using a cathedral’s shape and dimensions as a blueprint, alluding to Catholicism and colonialism. Tim Davies – who often works site-specifically and co-curates Locws International in Swansea – made Llawr Fforestfach/Returned Parquet for Poustinia. This involved shipping slave-logged mahogany parquet found in a reclamation yard in the Fforestfach area of Swansea back to the rainforest. The Welsh title is thus a pun on its origins and destinations, meaning both ‘floor from Fforestfach’ and ‘little forest floor’.

Guyanese sculptor Winslow Craig carved The Forest Keeper into a living Sapodilla tree. This figurative piece of an axe and a human face references the relationship between the forest and human exploitation and derives from the Caribbean visual aesthetic, fusing Amerindian and African cultures and mythology. Christine Warrington, from Trinidad, explored commonalities between the histories of Belize and her homeland. She wrapped a monumental statue of the first Belizean Education Minister in locally found materials, referring to heritage, independence, preservation and succour.

For us, curating the ‘made in belize’ exhibition emphasised the diversity of work produced at Poustinia and how international site-specific collaborations can defy Eurocentric aesthetic conventions.

ADRIAN BARRON IS AN ARTIST BASED IN LONDON. TIM DAVIES IS AN ARTIST AND CURATOR BASED IN SWANSEA.

For further information about the ‘made in belize’ exhibition contact E: barronadrian@hotmail.com or timdavies.mumbles@virgin.net. For more information on Poustinia visit http://www.poustiniaonline.org/