Celebrating women & tradition

She’s a pioneer in Cayman’s creative community, an inspiring poet, storyteller, actor, advocate, teacher and visual artist.

Nasaria Suckoo-Chollette’s work embraces the islands’ history, people, culture and traditions, as well as themes of female strength and empowerment – an influence stemming from the strong women in her family and Cayman’s earlier days.

“That is a theme that runs throughout a lot of my work,” she says. “It is very important to me because Caymanian women had no choice but to become strong women of innovation when the men were out to sea.”

Indeed, the history of the Cayman Islands put women in a unique – though difficult – position. When the men went to sea to earn a living, often for months on end, it was left to the women to oversee family, financial and civic affairs.

“That shows up in my work a lot as artistic conversation about making do, and the magic of making a beautiful life out of extremely poor conditions,” says Nasaria. “These Caymanian women made beds of plantain trash (dried leaves), sewed clothing out of old flour sacks, could spell any word and calculate quickly without a calculator, ran fundraisers for the church, oversaw births and funerals, used bush medicine to heal, made colourful rugs and quilts out of scraps and were really the first environmentalists and upcyclers – they made use of every part of any resource they had.

“This ingenuity is what I want to honour in my artworks.”

INTERNATIONAL IMPACT

It also comes into play in her poetry and storytelling. Nasaria recently took part in ‘The Open Boat’, hosted by Atlantic Arthouse, a curated group show held in Miami’s Little Haiti.

She performed her poem, “Just Long Celia”, the story of a woman enslaved in the Cayman Islands, who learned freedom had come but the news had been kept quiet.

“The performance was so powerful that by the end of it, the audience was visibly affected, and I was emotionally exhausted; it felt as if the spirit of Long Celia had told her story through me,” says Nasaria.

She recently showed her work in New York City, along with her husband Randy Chollette, an artist and musician. They were among nearly 600 artists from 60 countries to present their works on a giant digital billboard in Times Square.

She presented her work, “Carnival Duppy VII – Alice in the Islands of the Blessed (2022)”, which explores mental health issues. It was a memorable moment for Nasaria, who studied theatre in the Big Apple.

“I had always jokingly said, “Oh, I can’t wait to be on Broadway.’,” she says. “Well, even though I was not physically on Broadway, a piece of my work was and that’s a fun achievement for me.”

ARTISTIC ACCOLADES

Nasaria earned her bachelor’s degree in theatre from Howard University, and later her master’s degree in theatre education from New York University. She taught at John Gray High School and served as education coordinator at the Cayman Islands National Museum before focusing her talents on her artwork.

A member of the artist collective, Native Sons, Nasaria has exhibited widely in group and solo shows, earning many accolades along the way, among them the McCoy Prize (2006), the inaugural Cayman Islands Biennial Bendel Hydes Award (2019) and the Gold Star for Creativity at the National Arts and Culture Awards (2021).

Her solo exhibition at the National Gallery “All the Coals We Left in the Fire” in 2022, focused on themes of yesteryear, the role of women in society and the history of slavery in Cayman, and its impact.

Her work is included in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of the Cayman Islands, including her acclaimed piece “The Women Have Become the Truth; for Madiba.”

The inspiration for the work came from the Truth and Reconciliation hearings after the atrocities of apartheid in South Africa. She was profoundly affected by the women who survived, many rendered mute after the trauma.

“I consider myself an intuitive artist and, as such, my work usually begins from an extraordinarily strong emotional reaction,” she says. “I have always used art and poetry as a way of expressing my emotions and working through difficult times.”

COMMUNITY CREATION

She recently finished a community quilt depicting midwifery and home births in the Cayman Islands with a group of artisans and traditional crafters, called Friends and Needles.

“I really enjoyed working as a community of women coming together to create, share their stories, share their fears, share their dreams, share their past, and share their future plans,” she says. “It reminded me of the way women gathered in the past to help each other and, in so doing, became community.”

Nasaria is looking to do more collaborative artwork down the road. “Right now, I am taking some time to consider what projects I could plan that would bring women together in that way again to create something beautiful,” she says. “

JUST LONG CELIA

It was long Celia they called me
Not Ntozake
Or Mamma Zulu
Or even Nanny

Just Long Celia

Just Long Celia longing for freedom?
Just Long Celia hoping for home
Just Long Celia free?

Unna hear dem drums?

Naseberry sweet dem words was
Just like to bite in
And let dem run sticky down my chin
free free free

Unna hear dem drums?

Dis my Sunday offering
Dis my boxin day dinner
Dis my candle wood

It’s in the wind that’s fidlin through the wattle
where the daub has worn away
It’s runnin mad like ants across the table where heavy cake has just been cut
It’s spillin out of hushed lips like drunken men pouring another cup of sea grape wine

Start a revolution…?
Take a puff and pass it around

Unna hear dem drums?

You can’t kraal my spirit but for a little time
I feel the light you cannot see
And I will swim back home to lay my clutch
Where I began to be

And iron wood don’t sink
Unna hear dem drums?

Sarah, you gyapseedin duppy
You a blackgyardin tell-tale dead woman

You lie

And 12 white ghosts are fighting over
my pickins in fifty lashes

I a woman
I a free woman
I a naked woman
I a torn an tattered woman

Buy you still cyant break open
my cockspur thorny shell
And memba what happen when
ya rub a “nicka” wrong.

Wake up its morning

You still tied to that dock
One knot away from
Walking on water

You still taking lashes from
That raging monster
Whose rib you took

You still fighting the reflection
You see in your basin
That is me
Wake up!

Lick dem drums Julia,
Lick dem drums

GLOSSARY

Unna: Caymanian word coming from the Gullah language of the Ibo people wunna meaning “you people”.

Naseberry- Fruit Heavy Cake: Pudding-like cake made from root starches like cassava

Kraal: Caymanian term for a pen in the water where turtles were kept, coming from the South African word meaning “dwelling place”.

Iron wood: Very hard wood Caymanians used to make the frame for their wattle-and-daub houses.

Gyapseedin’: Catching news

Blackgyardin’: Maligning someone’s character.

Cockspur: Prickly vine with very thorny brown shells that hold nicker nuts. The vine is often called lion bush in Africa because it’s so thorny it keeps lions out of the tribal villages.

Julia: Aunt Julia, Caymanian icon, 103-year-old female drummer with her own unique style of drumming and homemade drum. She wrote many of Cayman’s traditional folk songs.

This article originally appeared in Compass Media’s CayWoman newspaper supplement.