Pat Ramsay Director, Art and Culture

“The Central and seminal value of the creative imagination is that it functions as a civilizing and a humanizing force.” - George Lamming

Accordingly, The Centre for the Arts focuses on becoming a nurturing and dynamic centre of excellence that promotes individuals to unleash their creative energy towards living as the highest and the best of who they are.

The Centre itself is surrounded by an ever-unfolding creative Caribbean dream - The Caribbean Sculpture Park. The Caribbean Sculpture Park is a tangible showpiece that demonstrates our ideal that Art should not be considered a vacuum, but must come together with science, to extend into the community.

Included in our wide range of excellent cultural programmes, we offer Music, Dance and Drama Electives to University students for credit through the Faculty of Education and Liberal Studies towards a degree programme. Outstanding students from our cultural courses form the UTech Art and Theatre Ensemble and Instrumental Band, which at present, are being trained for professional off-campus performances.

Our major community outreach project is in the form of an educational programme for children called “Tomorrow’s Children”. It is co-sponsored by The Environmental Foundation of Jamaica (EFJ) and is in collaboration with The Institute of Jamaica. Throughout the Programme we encourage the children to learn about their rich environment and cultural heritage.

To this effect, we also utilize a gallery space cum theatre, where we exhibit the works of prominent and upcoming artists throughout the Caribbean, and host activities in the Sculpture Park, showcasing talents of professional artists intermingling with students.

Presently, we are concentrating on the building of a New Caribbean Cultural Centre. The complex will be laboratory, incubator and showcase Jamaican creativity at its best; it will incorporate our established ideals and contribute to the strengthening of the nation’s social capital. It will undoubtedly be of significant benefit to members of the UTech community, neighbouring groups, and indeed, Artists in general.

The Centre for the Arts shall continue to foster an environment in which young adults, students, leaders, and visionaries intermingle with the sages, the scholars, maestros, and the ordinary folk, with ease, compassion, and sincerity, moving into the 21st Century and beyond.