The 2022 exhibition Patri Artism: A National Treasure brought 25 works from major institutional collections to White Hall in Port of Spain for Trinidad and Tobago’s 60th anniversary of independence.
The display was organised by the Office of the Prime Minister with the Central Bank Museum and drew from works collected by the Central Bank and First Citizens Bank over approximately 65 years.
Several generations of national art
The exhibition included mixed media, watercolour, acrylic and oil painting on canvas and board. Artists represented included Peter Minshall, Boscoe Holder and Leo Glasgow.
Bringing the works together created a compact survey of artistic production across the six decades following independence, while also revealing material that was usually kept within institutional collections.
The setting at White Hall gave the exhibition a civic character and connected the works directly with the national commemoration.
Access for students and the diaspora
Prime Minister Keith Rowley encouraged teachers to bring children, particularly art students, to see the exhibition. He argued that the works formed part of a national inheritance that younger citizens should be able to encounter directly.
He also proposed books and virtual displays so that people outside Trinidad and Tobago could access the collection.
Patri Artism therefore addressed a common problem in public collecting: significant works may be preserved by institutions while remaining largely invisible to the people whose history they represent.
By temporarily opening those collections at White Hall, the exhibition turned an independence anniversary into an opportunity to reconsider who has access to national cultural memory.