‘Mas’ in a time of mourning: How the spirit of Trinidad and Tobago Carnival shines through · Global Voices
A costume from the Carnival band Vulgar Fraction‘s 2022 presentation, ‘Mas Mourning—Becoming Wreaths,’ by designer <PERSON>. Photo by <PERSON>, used with permission.
With its irresistible soca rhythms, colourful masquerade, fetes and steel pan competitions leading up to the two-day street festival preceding Ash Wednesday, Trinidad and Tobago Carnival is typically a joyous celebration — and one that was born out of deep pain.
The 1881 Canboulay Riots, which are reenacted each year, are a startling reminder that Carnival's freedom of expression, its refreshingly wanton bacchanalia, its imagination and creativity, were hard won. Derived from the Latin carne vale — literally translated as “farewell to the flesh,” meaning a last wild frolic before the deprivation of the Christian Lenten season — Carnival's very name points to the fact that life and death, joy and sadness are inextricably intertwined.
For this year's Carnival, which, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, will be stripped down to a basic display that the government has dubbed “A Taste of Carnival,” designer <PERSON>, who brings out a “mas” (masquerade) band called Vulgar Fraction, has chosen to examine the presence of death in what is arguably the country's most life-affirming festival.
“Mas Mourning — Becoming Wreaths” was launched on February 17 at <PERSON>'s atelier in the heart of Belmont, a neighbourhood on the fringes of the Queen's Park Savannah that is famous for producing outstanding Carnival designers, musicians and photographers.
In a departure from most Carnival band launches, where the focus is on costume presentation and sales, a panel that included cultural studies scholar <PERSON>, rapso artist <PERSON>, singer/songwriter <PERSON> and art therapist <PERSON>, discussed how “the mas explores remembering, commemorating, celebrating,” particularly during this time of pandemic, when so many have lost so much.
The theme of the mas is certainly timely; it feels like the world has been trapped in a state of collective mourning for the past two years, whether it be for loved ones struck down by coronavirus, for connection, or in the case of Carnival lovers, for the festival itself, which was cancelled in 2021 because of the pandemic.
<PERSON>, whose student cohort at the University of the West Indies (UWI) will participate in the band, was careful to explain that revellers can “become wreaths” either instinctively or by intention. Both, she said, are “future-oriented acts,” but one leads to closure; the other to connection and community.
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It is an idea expertly bought into existence through the lens of photographer <PERSON>, who is passionate about preserving the legacy of Trinidad and Tobago's traditional mas through portraiture. In a series of photographs shared on <PERSON> Instagram page, the costumes, which are predominantly constructed out of dried banana leaves and tropical flowers in keeping with the funereal wreath theme, come to beautifully stark and uncomfortably compelling life.
As <PERSON> pointed out, the word “wreath” is linked to “writhe”: twisting around in mental anguish or physical pain, emotionally closed off. “What would happen,” she asked, “if we opened ourselves up?” Growth would take place, she imagines. 264
Healing. New beginnings. Movement, as opposed to the “going nowhereness” the pandemic has thrust upon us. A celebration of life. It is what Carnival is all about, and seemingly can be again — even with health protocols in place; even with no physical street parade — once we think of “self as a community through the art of mas.”
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Making a distinction between grief (an internal process with no fixed timeline) and mourning (the externalisation of that grief), <PERSON> believes that Carnival has always offered participants the tools with which to process and transform. She has started thinking of art, she explained, as an expressive behaviour rather than a skill.
<PERSON>, as a prolific rapso artist and theatre performer, can probably attest to it being both, but in the Carnival space, he stresses, art is much more than just celebration; it also offers the opportunity to commemorate loss. 495