In this report first published on Global Voices, The Bridge, Bynoe asks critical questions of island communities across the Grenadines: can they co-visualise positive changes as disaster capitalism, land grab, and the threats of gentrification, ‘organised abandonment’ and ‘Build Back Better’ loom?

Bynoe shares on her experience at the recently convened Commonwealth Association of Museums (CAM) 2024 Triennial Conference whose theme ‘The View From Here: Sustainability, Community and Knowledge Systems,’ welcomed delegates from the four corners of the globe. Hosted in Auckland, Aotearoa, from March 3rd to 8th, under the radical hospitality and care of the Auckland War Memorial Museum and the Waikato Museum, these observations summarise important questions raised during the gathering around the possibility of decolonisation, aspects of collaboration, guardianship and community engagement.

Victoria Lee writes about my PhD Research for the University of St. Andrews’ Research and Impact in ‘Sacred Space and Social Memory’: lessons from the land in the Grenadines and the Isle of Skye.

Can scarcities and climate vulnerabilities offer us other ways of being and imagining? How are government-accessed funds, initiatives and projects being implemented and communicated to the public? How are these actions impacting community-based organisations and grassroots initiatives that have historically engaged in change-making work in their locales? Are there sufficient incubation projects accommodating habitat creation, ecological education, or invasive species management?

This is the first instalment of a two-part post under the Shared Island Stories initiative, supported by the School of Art History at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, which explores ways in which to build collaborative tools to inform case studies in support of the project “Sacred Space and Social Memory: Interrogating Co-becoming in Community-Based Practices in the Grenadines and the Isle of Skye.” Funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) with project reference: EP/X023036/1. Many thanks to Janine Mendes Franco and Skye Hernandez for the editing assistance and publishing on Global Voices ‘The Bridge.’

Healing and self-healing thematics are emerging frequently in the creations and reflections of artists. Many thanks to Dominique Brebion of AICA-South Caribbean for offering the space to expand on how the thematics of healing operates in my eco-social art practice.