Opening Note
A year after Hurricane Melissa came ashore as a Category 5, Montego Bay has put the storm’s wreckage on a pedestal. Together We Rise, a 62-foot monument by Jamaican sculptor Scheed Cole, was unveiled on the Hip Strip on October 28, the anniversary of landfall. Two giant hands lift a tree while people climb and build around it, and the whole thing is made from recycled material, including a light pole Melissa knocked down. Hotelier Christopher Issa of S Hotels commissioned it. Cole says the piece was already in progress when the storm hit, and he changed course after. The recovery it honors is uneven. Power, water and schools are largely restored, and the tourism ministry counts about 90% of room stock back open. In St. Elizabeth, the parish hit hardest, singer Mawga Don, who rode out the storm with his 71-year-old father, told the Observer that people there still have it rough, and that music is how he rebuilt his own house. The monument went up first. The rest of the island is still building.
The Pulse
- Barbados enters its Diamond Jubilee month: The island marks 60 years of independence and five as a republic on November 30 under the theme “Gathering as One Nation,” with the NIFCA arts festival building toward the parade at the Garrison Savannah, and Prime Minister Mia Mottley has declared every Friday until then Barbados Day. businessbarbados.com
- Billboard’s Reggae Albums chart grows back to 15: The chart dated October 31 returns to the 15 slots it launched with in 1994, after Billboard cut it to 10 in 2020, with Bob Marley’s Legend still on top at 355 non-consecutive weeks. jamaicaobserver.com
- Poets take over Jamaica’s classrooms: About 30 poets visit schools across the island November 2 to 13 for the ninth Jamaica Poets Nomadic College and School Tour. jamaicaobserver.com
- Guadeloupe brings its screens to Montreal: At CINEMANIA, November 4 to 15, Festival Nouveaux Regards director Priscilla Delannay leads a November 12 roundtable on how Francophone Caribbean cinema travels, and two series shot in Guadeloupe screen November 14, including the world premiere of Fabrice Pierre’s Harmony, while the gwoka VR piece Gwo Ka Odyssey runs November 7 to 14. karibinfo.com
- Miami Book Fair programs in three languages: Nearly 500 authors come to Miami Dade College’s Wolfson Campus November 15 to 22, with sessions in English, Spanish and Haitian Creole and National Book Award finalist Edwidge Danticat on the bill. wlrn.org
- Reparative Encounters opens in St. Croix: CMCArts opens SILA / DEMSELF / AGBETEGBÉE / EFTERLIV on November 21, the largest show yet from an artist network linking the US Virgin Islands, Greenland, Ghana and Denmark, places shaped in different ways by Danish colonialism; it runs through January 9 before traveling to Denmark, Ghana, Greenland and the Faroe Islands. repeatingislands.com
Market & Opportunities
Cove Park Awarded Residencies 2027–2028. Fully funded stays of two weeks to three months on Scotland’s west coast, scheduled between May 2027 and December 2028, for artists, writers and researchers in any form and at any career stage. Residents get £775 a week, £65 to £1,250 toward travel, up to £150 for materials, and help with visas. The call is open to people based in the UK and in Central and South America, plus that region’s diaspora in Europe and North America, which puts Belize, Panama, Guyana, Suriname and Colombia’s Caribbean coast in range. Island-based artists should check the eligible-locations list in the application form before writing. The deadline is December 11; access bursary requests by November 30. covepark.org/awarded-residencies-2027-2028
Miami Film Festival 2027. The 44th edition runs April 1 to 11, 2027, and remains the main US launch pad for Ibero-American and Caribbean features in the diaspora’s biggest market. Submissions go through FilmFreeway. The extended deadline is January 8, 2027, with notifications on February 19; listings show short-film fees at $60 early and $70 standard. Earlier deadline dates were not confirmed, and fees climb at each one, so file before the holidays. miamifilmfestival.com
Release Radar
Daddy Yankee’s La Postal arrived October 30 on his DY Music label, a 15-track concept album about romantic, family and self-love, with Cardi B, Myke Towers, Bizarrap and Danny Ocean among the guests, two weeks before the Latin Recording Academy honors him as Person of the Year. Otherwise, a quiet week. Reggae and dancehall are waiting on Grammy nominations, due November 16.
Creator Spotlight: Scheed Cole (Sculptor)
What are you telling now? Cole grew up in Trench Town and works as both a sculptor and an educator, and his public work reads like a map of Jamaican memory: the Bob Marley statue at the Trench Town Culture Yard, a life-size Sir Alexander Bustamante in Hanover, and life-size Marley and Vybz Kartel figures unveiled in Montego Bay in 2024 that set off a debate between fan bases. In 2025, he mounted a 46-foot Doctor Bird on the side of S Hotel. Together We Rise, which the Gleaner reported would be the tallest sculpted monument in Jamaica, turns storm salvage into his central argument: nobody on the island rises alone.
Where can we follow / support you? See the work at 5 Jimmy Cliff Boulevard, Montego Bay | jamaicaobserver.com | jamaica-gleaner.com
On the Circuit
November
- Divali Nagar | now through November 7, Chaguanas, Trinidad
- Havana Ballet Festival | now through November 6, Havana
- Jamaica Poets Nomadic College and School Tour | November 2 – 13, islandwide, Jamaica
- Dominica Independence Day | November 3, Dominica
- CINEMANIA | November 4 – 15, Montreal | festivalcinemania.com
- Cayman Pirates Fest | November 6 – 21, Cayman Islands
- Diwali Motorcade | November 7, East Coast Demerara, Guyana
- Divali | November 8, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Suriname
- Booker Prize winner announced | November 9, London. Marlon James’s The Disappearers is shortlisted | thebookerprizes.com
- Musée Kréyol | November 10, Château des ducs de Bretagne, Nantes
- International Puerto Rican Heritage Film Festival, 16th edition | November 10 – 15, New York | iprhff.org
- DOC NYC | November 11 – 19, New York | docnyc.net
- Antigua and Barbuda Art Week | November 11 – 18, St. John’s, Antigua | visitantiguabarbuda.com/artweek
- Latin Grammy Awards | November 12, Las Vegas. Daddy Yankee is Person of the Year | latingrammy.com
- Miami Book Fair | November 15 – 22, Miami Dade College, Wolfson Campus | miamibookfair.com
- Édouard Duval-Carrié, From Venice with Love | through November 15, The Betsy, Miami | https://www.thebetsyhotel.com/explore/exhibitions/edouard-duval-carrie
- Grammy nominations announced | November 16
- National Book Awards | November 18, New York. Edwidge Danticat’s Dèy is a fiction finalist | nationalbook.org
- CaFA Fair, first New York edition | November 20 – 22, 208 East 126th Street, Harlem | cafafair.com
- SILA / DEMSELF / AGBETEGBÉE / EFTERLIV | opens November 21, CMCArts, Frederiksted, St. Croix | cmcarts.org
- Venice Biennale: Bahamas, Grenada and Haiti pavilions | through November 22, Venice | labiennale.org
- Rafael Trelles, Caliban | November 26 – January 16, October Gallery, London | octobergallery.co.uk
- SounDown Music & Arts Festival | November 28 – 29, Guyana Marriott, Georgetown | guyanago.org/events/371
- Barbados 60th Anniversary of Independence | November 30, Garrison Savannah, Barbados
December
- Havana Film Festival | December 3 – 13, Havana
- Mois Kréyol | through December 6, France, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Guyane
- Bahamas International Film Festival | December 7 – 9 Harbour Island, December 10 – 14 Nassau | bintlfilmfest.com
- KESmas | December 18 Toronto, December 19 Brooklyn | kestheband.com
Long runs
- Laas / Absan / Peldía: Caribbean Cinema Cultures | through January 31, 2027, Broad Art Museum, East Lansing, MI | broadmuseum.msu.edu
- After the Island: Caribbean Canadian Ceramics | through April 25, 2027, Gardiner Museum, Toronto | gardinermuseum.on.ca
- Joiri Minaya, To Hell with Hibiscus | through May 2, 2027, Henry Art Gallery, Seattle | henryart.org/exhibitions/joiri-minaya
- An Introduction to Van Lévé | through June 5, 2027, Alain Locke Gallery, Cambridge, MA | lockegallery.fas.harvard.edu
Deadlines
- OCM Bocas Prize, first deadline | November 6 | bocaslitfest.com
- Est-Nord-Est Residency 2027 – 2028 | November 8 | artrabbit.com
- Groupe Ouest Annual Selection 2027 | November 12 | legroupeouest.com
- CaribbeanTales International Film Festival, early-bird | November 30 | filmfreeway.com/CaribbeanTales
- Cove Park Awarded Residencies 2027 – 2028 | December 11 | covepark.org
- Sony Future Filmmaker Awards | December 15 | sonyfuturefilmmakerawards.com
- OCM Bocas Prize, second deadline (books published November to December) | January 4, 2027 | bocaslitfest.com
- Miami Film Festival 2027, extended | January 8, 2027 | miamifilmfestival.com
Opening soon
- Sundance Institute 2027 Producers Track | applications open November 17 | sundance.org
Last Look
On the Hip Strip, what Melissa tore down now holds up a tree.
