The School of Visual Arts at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts (EMCVPA/Edna) has been celebrating 75 years of innovation and impact with its 2024/25 Final-Year Student Exhibition. 

The exhibition, themed ‘Social Reconstruction: Reimagining the Carib[BE]an‘, opened to the public on June 7, and reached a major highlight last Thursday (June 19), with the highly anticipated corporate evening—a private showcase for members of the corporate sector, media, diplomatic corps, and distinguished art patrons.

This year’s exhibition has been more than a celebration —it is a call to consciousness.

Thirty-one graduating students from disciplines including fashion design, textiles and fibre arts, animation, visual communication, ceramics, photography, painting, sculpture, and art education presented works that boldly interrogate and reimagine the Caribbean we know— and the Caribbean we long for.

The works on display have been described as a ‘collective invocation.’ The students’ work addresses complex themes such as inclusivity, positive masculinity, spirituality, mental health, memory, and resistance. From brush to clay, thread to code, the exhibition carved out spaces of reflection, discomfort, and deep affirmation.

At the official opening ceremony held at the Vera Moody Concert Hall, acclaimed author and academic, Dr Opal Palmer Adisa, delivered a stirring keynote address. Her words echoed the spirit of the exhibition, emphasising art’s essential role in dismantling inherited narratives and building new cultural futures.

“Through brush, thread, lens, clay, and code, these emerging artists unfurl visions that both wound and heal, question and af firm, disturb and inspire. They do not flinch. Instead, they lean into distortion, into the holy mess of identity, of faith, of home,” said interim principal Dorrett Campbell.

Among the standout pieces were:

• Kobi Bailey’s reimagining of Nanny as a symbol of intimate resistance and ancestral strength.

• Venice Black’s spiritual ceramic installations, echoing the legacy of Everald Brown with sacred geometry and meditative musical form.

• Marquis Watt’s fractured wood sculptures, challenging the multiplicity of Caribbean identity through masked abstraction.

• Winston Howell’s poignant commentary on sugar and slavery, using mixed media to unveil buried truths of labour and legacy.

• Lee McLean’s boundary-pushing fashion collection, which fluidly challenged gender, history, and form with unapologetic expression.

Miriam Hinds Smith, dean of the School of Visual Arts, shared during her corporate evening address: “What is the significance of the School of Visual Arts after 75 years? This is the melting pot of the Caribbean creative mind. This [exhibition] is a true reflection of the Caribbean…Our students— emerging thought leaders—continue to set the pace in the manifestation of seminal visual arts representation, engaging critical themes of their own becoming, and what it means to be in an evolving space in the Caribbean. The students can attest that this exhibition can sit anywhere outside of the Caribbean; they are indeed honing and holding their own.”

The Corporate Evening event allowed stakeholders an intimate encounter with the works and conversations shaping Caribbean art today. It also affirmed the role of creative education in driving social dialogue, cultural innovation, and national development.

“This exhibition is a celebration of vision, purpose, and the artistic voices that are shaping the Caribbean. These students are not simply artists—they are cultural cartographers, mapping pathways forward through ancestral memory, scholarly inquiry, and radical imagination. They are already reshaping the present and defining the creative future of our region,” the interim principal noted

As curtains closed on the exhibition on June 21, the School of Visual Arts celebrated not only the achievements of its graduating class but also its continued legacy as the region’s premier incubator of artistic excellence, now 75 years strong.

And, as the principal puts it, provides an opportunity to “engage with bold ideas, rich identities and urgent questions arising from our region’s next generation of creative thinkers.”