A DESIGN SCHOOLING IN THE CARIBBEAN
Not long ago I attended a design colloquium at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, that gave me an extra shot of hope for the future of Caribbean design. The Colloquium featured presenters from across the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe, and beyond. We were all sharing research, ideas, theories and knowledge around the opportunities and benefits of prioritizing design at a national level, through a government Ministry of Design. It was an exciting and new approach to sparking conversation and education about design and actively pushing for positive change so I was eager to get involved. It was at this conference that I met Lesley-Ann Noel, a grasshopper connoisseur (Uganda), reggae band backup singer (Brazil) and now a Design PhD scholar (USA). She was the one of the organizers and masterminds behind the Ministry of Design Colloquium.
Since then, Lesley-Ann has become the first Caribbean lecturer to be awarded a Fulbright scholarship to do a PhD in Design. While she currently lives in the USA, where she is pursuing her studies at North Carolina University, she is back in Trinidad for a short break. Of course, we took opportunity to chat with her!
