Ghosting is an interactive digital artwork created by feminist Roshini Kempadoo, which was first shown at the City Art Gallery and the Peepul Centre, Leicester, UK on 27 February 2004. This "contemporary interpretation in motion" is about the period 1838-1948 in Trinidad after the dismantling of the plantation system and the abolition of slavery. The viewer of the artwork is "invited to remove and place stones in a board-a variation of the pit and pebble game warri."
Kempadoo is a digital artist and lecturer who exhibited in the UK, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and Trinidad. She is a Senior Lecturer at the University of East London in digital media.
Melville Jean Herskovits found some indications in 1941 that the game was still played on Trinidad at that time:
"Certain almost involuntary reactions of Trinidad Negroes who had seen a board collected in Guiana indicated that they were not entirely unacqainted with the game, despite the fact that none of them would admit knowing it."
Later he was told at St. Vincent:
"Oh, you mean wari! (...) They plays (sic!) it strong in Trinidad."
Trinidad War(ri) is probably similar to Antiguan Warri, a variant of Oware, or to Barbados Rounders, also known as "French Wari".
External Links
References
- Herskovits, M. J.
- The Myth of the Negro Past. Harper & Brothers Publishers, London (UK) & New York (USA) 1941.
- Kempadoo, R.
- 'ghosting' (in)visibility and absence of racialized Caribbean landscapes. In: feminist review 2004; 77: 125-129.
Copyright
© Ralf Gering
Under the CC by-sa 2.5 license.