Jodee Brown
The Ministry of Europe Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Government in France that handles French Foreign Affairs and Foreign Relations is this week, reporting that it’s “Integrate French as a Language of Exchanges” (IFLE); which ends December 2020… has successfully met and is meeting its objectives despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Begun in 2019 the CARICOM focused program, is a vast international co-operation project aimed at integrating French into the English-speaking Caribbean. This with the view to heightening co-operation of all types, through greater understanding between the multilingual territories that make up CARICOM.
The main goal, of the officially titled IFLE VAPA program, is growing Pluralinguism in all CARICOM territories.
The two-year challenge began in 2019, seeing several of the CARICOM’s top artists selected for the interview and assessment process, to become IFLE/VAPA (Visual and Performing Arts)
laureates.
The two areas where the artists are now being developed are French Art Training for 6 modules, with 13 weeks of work and Technical Training for 12 weeks with 9 artist fields represented.
Larry Lamartiniere Director of the Jamaican Alliance Francaise indicated that Jamaica is the most successful group, in the IFLE/VAPA CARICOM initiative. He said the nation yielded 17 laureates in both areas, adjudicated. The most within CARICOM.
The Jamaican laureates were allocated approximately 100 thousand JMD, to facilitate their training for development in the areas chosen.
Mr. Lamartiniere explained further, the program is seeking to push more exploration and appreciation of diverse concepts and applications of the arts, through individual development. The breaking of language barriers may increase technical exchanges, to improve the Caribbean’s presence and credibility in the global art conversation.
With language barriers broken or minimised, it follows that there can be an increased understanding between CARICOM artists which should pair nicely with the other part of the IFLE VAPA project, upskilling artists by upgrading their technical disciplines.
He added that the necessary COVID-19 adaptation of training/teaching of the artists, especially in 2020, received immensely positive feedback from artists.
The multiple artists seemed quite open to the learning methodology adaptation needed, in order not to stop their career development… for what some of them termed a ” world emergency.”
Several said while being willing to rise to the occasion of the COVID-19 way of art training, it was still at first challenging to adapt to the new paradigm.
However, a high percentage say they have increased their proficiency in the areas they were selected for, which they feel is a good harbinger for this new art world… as determined by COVID-19.
Quite a few of the artists are hopeful that continuing to train and work should help them, keep, and earn from their careers despite the harrowing COVID-19 fallout.
Maia Chung, Jamaican visual artist, is one of the laureates being trained currently, she indicated she has an exhibition confirmed for December 2020, when the program ends, to specifically incorporate her work with IFLE VAPA.
The exhibition will be her first under the COVID protocol and will incorporate all the new paradigm elements such an undertaking will require.
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