Voices Without Borders: Big Conversations Are About to Rewire the Caribbean Imagination

Dr Marielle Barrow-Maignan - Symposia Coordinator

Something electric is gathering over Barbados. In a region famed for cadence and colour, a different kind of spectacle is taking centre stage: ideas at full volume, thinking as performance, strategy as culture. This year at CARIFESTA XV, the Caribbean is stepping into the light not only with dance, fashion and film, but with its brightest minds and boldest questions gathered for Big Conversations and the Symposia. This a new architecture for unity that treats intellect as a headline act. It feels like a springboard, the beginning of deeper cooperation and a catalyst for the kind of future building the region has dreamed about for decades.

At its heart, Big Conversations is a flagship forum where culture thinks, speaks, dreams and acts. It convenes voices from the arts, civil society, politics, business and academia, placing them in the same room to wrestle with the urgent issues of our time: the climate emergency, digital transformation, identity, wellness, economic resilience and the unfinished project of Caribbean unity. The pitch is simple and irresistible: not just talk, but discourse that seeds action, frameworks and outcomes.

The curatorial vision is explicit. Under the banner “Architecture of Innovation: Resilience, Cultural Identity and Sustainability,” CARIFESTA’s Symposia and Big Conversations press beyond inspiration to real-world transformation. They aim to broker trust across sectors, codify knowledge, and channel momentum into policy, practice and investment so that creative industries become an engine for growth rather than a list of talent waiting to be discovered. It is a model designed for a small, agile region that has long punched above its weight in artistry and now intends to do the same in intellectual leadership.

Dr Marielle Barrow-Maignan, who is the lead of the programme, frames the moment with clarity: if the region is to thrive, it must cultivate cultural confidence, a deep regard for its own voice on local and world stages, and bring that confidence to climate, education, technology and the transversal spaces where culture meets policy and enterprise. That is the spine of these gatherings.

Barbados’ Ambassador to  CARICOM, David Comissiong also anchors the public mood: CARIFESTA is developmental. It unites the arts with purpose, inviting teachers, public servants, young people and faith leaders to step into conversations that sharpen our self-understanding and our sense of direction as a Caribbean family. These are not narrow panels for insiders, but large, open-air dialogues for people who want to help steer the region’s course.

The geography of the festival mirrors its ambition. Big Conversations unfold in community spaces like Golden Square Freedom Park and the Marcus Garvey Amphitheatre among them, while the Symposia are rooted at The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, with a wider constellation of fringe events. The split is deliberate: Big Conversations are public-facing and participatory; the Symposia are where the deep dives, masterclasses and research exchanges live.

The format refuses to sit still. Think TED-style provocations, storytelling circles, AMA sessions, business spotlights and restorative dialogues. Sessions open with The Reel — short, in-situ video vignettes that seed debate, before moving into The Convo, where moderators push and participants respond. Crucially, each gathering lands with The Outro: a call to action, living documentation, toolkits or a pathway to funding and partnerships. The promise is that you will not only listen; you will do.

Since we are from the Caribbean, the conversation is embodied. Audiences are invited to speak, yes, but also to paint, sing, dance and tell stories. Thought is not quarantined from expression; it is amplified by it. That is one of the ways these open forums distinguish themselves from the campus-based Symposia.

The curtain-raiser is a statement of intent. On the Idea of Barbados meets at Golden Square on Saturday, 23 August, with Prime Ministers Mia Amor Mottley (BAR) and Ralph Gonsalves (SVG) joined by Professor Sir Hilary Beckles and Dr June Soomer, under the moderation of CARICOM Secretary-General, Dr Carla Barnett. It revisits history to ask a contemporary question: what does four centuries of Barbados mean for Caribbean civilisation now, and what futures can we claim together? Expect gravity, pride and a very Caribbean honesty.

The following day, the lens swings to Cuba, which will be a reminder that this festival is a regional mirror and a bridge to the wider Caribbean world. From there the programme branches across an atlas of concerns and possibilities.

Conversations shaping the horizon

• Open De Playing Field: AI, Access & Open Source Futures. With Maxine Williams of META in the mix, this session interrogates who benefits from the next wave of technology and how the Caribbean can design for equity, not dependency.

• Freedom Isn’t Finished. A frank reckoning with decolonisation and the work still to do to convert sovereignty into shared prosperity.

• Bush Tea & Big Talk. Wellness is not a fad here; it is ancestral knowledge refitted for modern life by voices from Jamaica, Guyana, Ghana and Grenada.

• Mek it Make Sense/Cents. Creative entrepreneurship without the grant treadmill, with Caymanian designer Jawara Alleyne spotlighting sustainable practice and ownership.

• Yard Riddim. The soundscape as archive and laboratory, reconnecting roots with innovation from Ghana to St Lucia.

• Power, Paint and Politics. The role of culture and artists in an age of disorder, gathering at Golden Square on Tuesday, 26 August at 4.30 p.m. — a forum that treats art as a form of leadership in troubled times.

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This breadth is matched by depth. The curation welcomes Haitian thinkers and creatives from the diaspora, fashion voices from Belize and beyond, and the Rastafarian community, whose models of community, business and resistance hold lessons for a region seeking to rebuild on its own terms.

From 25–28 August, UWI Cave Hill hosts the Symposia — the structured, strategic counterpart to the public plaza. Here, sectoral panels, masterclasses, workshops and competitive papers map a practical agenda under seven pillars of innovation: from arts heritage and cross-disciplinary practice, to transversality with tourism and urban planning, to resilience through technology and data, to cultural diplomacy, branding, funding models and creative infrastructure. It is as if the region’s “to do” list has finally been organised and resourced.

The aim is not only to talk but to produce: sub-sector action points, policy recommendations, industry toolkits, masterclasses, case studies and a regional directory and funding map that make collaboration and investment easier. By design, the hybrid model connects Caribbean rooms with African and global counterparts online, extending reach while capturing the data needed to track impact and inform the next wave of policy and programming.

Big Conversations runs across the festival week, with daily sessions in public spaces and special anchor events signposted in the calendar. Expect multiple conversations each day and plan for the late-afternoon set pieces, including the Tuesday 26 August forum at 4.30 p.m. at Golden Square. The Symposia’s working day follows a clear cadence, with morning plenaries, two mid-day slots, a late-afternoon plenary or keynote, and closing keynotes around 4.30–5.30 p.m. It is structured to let you dive deep and still catch the evening’s performances across the island.

If the Caribbean’s artistry has long been our passport, these convenings turn it into a strategy. The organisers are explicit about legacy: this is intended to outlive the festival with outputs that shift institutions, markets and mindsets, from peer-reviewed publications and a coffee-table chronicle of innovation, to masterclasses, case studies and the incubation of high-impact regional projects. The aspiration is measurable: strengthened networks, informed policy, better market access, data-driven decision making and a globally competitive creative economy that remains unmistakably Caribbean.

Dr Barrow Maignan’s call echoes through the programme: love our voice, trust our imagination, and let culture lead where scale alone cannot. Ambassador Comissiong’s invitation is equally clear: come for the conversations, not only the concerts, and help shape the clarity of vision that carries us forward. This is how smallness becomes nimbleness; how nimbleness becomes advantage; how advantage becomes a shared future.

In cricket, greats in the region like Sir Garfield Sobers and Brian Lara taught the world that sometimes, timing beats brute force. Big Conversations and the Symposia are that same intelligence, moved from the field into the forum. We will not only celebrate who we are; we will design who we are becoming.

So bring your questions, your scepticism, your big, brave hopes. Come ready to listen and to speak, to learn and to build. The Caribbean has dazzled the world with its rhythm; now it intends to challenge it with its reasoning. History is gathering at Golden Square, at Cave Hill, and in amphitheatres across Barbados. Do not just watch it happen. Be part of it.