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Contact:
Claudia Monlouis
Tuesday, January 21, 2003 - Governor General Her Excellency Dame Pearlette
Louisy has appealed to St. Lucians to utilize the arts as a means of
self-definition as well as an economic product.
Reflecting on the achievements of St. Lucia’s two Noble Laureates - Sir Arthur
Lewis and Hon. Derek Walcott, as examples to guide fellow countrymen on a path
of artistic exploration, Dame Pearlette said “it is in the area of aesthetics
that we hope to find scope for variation, and therefore it is in music, in
literature, in art that our achievement can be clearly distinguishable from one
another. We can have our own schools of painting and music and poetry and drama
and the rest. This is the essential and most valuable sense in which we must be
different from other peoples.”
The Governor General, who was at the time speaking during the official opening
of Nobel Laureate Week on Monday January 30, 2003, says current world economic
trends are a manifestation of Sir Arthur Lewis’ prediction that the unique
elements of a peoples’ culture need to be translated into products for
consumption in the global market.
She noted that over the years both corporate citizens and individuals have
attempted to promote Saint Lucia’s artistic and cultural development. She
stressed however that more needs to be done now, by providing the arts with the
kind of attention and support that other areas of national development
traditionally receive.
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