Four Antiguan creators who built their careers and lives across different parts of the world are coming home to launch a groundbreaking multidisciplinary arts collective, centered on reanimating ancestral memory for contemporary Caribbean communities. Named Rootz Krokus, the collective brings together artists Afreekan Southwell, Iyaba Ibo Mandingo, Makŏ S. Williams, and Zucan Bandélé for their official debut, headlined by the immersive eight-day event *Out of the Krokus Bag*, running November 11–18, 2026 as a centerpiece of Antigua and Barbuda Art Week 2026. The event is hosted by St. John’s Makŏ Fine Art Gallery on Cross Street.
Each of the four artists brings a unique set of skills, lived experiences, and creative perspectives shaped by years of work outside Antigua, spanning disciplines from painting and sculpture to dance, spoken word, ritual performance, and cultural storytelling. United by the core philosophy “Making Ancestral Memories Meaningful,” the collective explores a timely question: how can connection to ancestral heritage help modern people better understand their current identities and shape their future paths? Instead of erasing individual artistic voices to fit a single collective style, Rootz Krokus intentionally creates space for differing perspectives to interact, challenge one another, and spawn entirely new creative works that no single artist could produce alone.
The collective draws intentional links between modern daily life in Antigua and enduring ancestral African traditions, which remain woven into the fabric of Caribbean culture through Carnival, masquerade, folklore, rhythm, movement, spiritual practice, and community gatherings. Rejecting the framing of these traditions as static relics of a distant past, Rootz Krokus argues that ancestral knowledge has a vital role to play today, fostering self-acceptance, strong personal and communal identity, and emotional resilience for contemporary Caribbean people.
As collective members explain, “Rootz Krokus is not just a name. It is a philosophy. We are grounded in ancestral knowledge while looking toward the future. Our work creates space for people to remember, question, celebrate, and rebuild connections to the stories and memories that shaped us.”
For Art Week 2026, *Out of the Krokus Bag* will reimagine the Makŏ Fine Art Gallery as a dynamic, living creative space, breaking down traditional barriers between art and audience. The packed schedule of daily programming goes far beyond static gallery exhibitions, including live dance and spoken word performances, sculptural painting demonstrations, traditional drumming, interactive mask workshops inspired by Moko Jumbie and Jam Bull traditions, chair yoga and midday meditation sessions, and collaborative community art projects. The full week of events will also feature an opening celebration, open mic nights, live painting sessions, poetry theatre, cultural lectures and conversations, a special project titled *Memories of Wadadli*, and a closing presentation to wrap the gathering.
At its core, the project is built on a simple but powerful belief: cultural memory is not a passive inheritance passed down through generations. It is a living practice that requires active exploration, deliberate preservation, creative reinterpretation, and intentional sharing with future communities. Rejecting rigid boundaries between artistic disciplines, Rootz Krokus centers collaboration as its core operating principle, allowing each medium—from visual art to performance to storytelling—to shape and respond to the others.
The 2026 Antigua and Barbuda Art Week marks just the starting point for the collective. Rootz Krokus is already building long-term partnerships with independent artists, cultural institutions, community organizations, independent venues, and creative partners across Antigua and Barbuda and the wider Caribbean region, with plans for future projects and collaborations down the line. The collective extends an open invitation to all members of the public, local and visiting artists, potential collaborators, educators, and cultural partners to attend *Out of the Krokus Bag* and contribute to shaping the collective’s future work.
A closer look at the four founding members highlights the range of perspectives they bring to the project. Iyaba Ibo Mandingo’s multidisciplinary practice is rooted in spoken word, performance, storytelling, and visual art, drawing on language, rhythm, and lived experience to explore identity, history, collective memory, and the modern Caribbean experience. Afreekan Southwell works across movement, performance, dance, and cultural practice, centering the continued legacy of African and Caribbean traditions through bodily expression, masquerade, rhythm, ritual, and contemporary performance. Makŏ S. Williams, an Antiguan-American multidisciplinary visual artist, maintains a practice spanning painting, mixed media, technology, design, and cultural storytelling; after developing her craft at leading New York institutions including FIT, Empire State University, Teachers College Columbia University, and SVA, she returned to Antigua, where her work now focuses on themes of home, memory, identity, Caribbean landscape, spirituality, and the layered cultural textures of Antiguan life. Rounding out the collective, Zucan Bandélé is an Antiguan artist and storyteller whose work combines visual art, sculpture, and narrative exploration of cultural memory; his research into the ways Caribbean people understand themselves through objects, language, and shared experience was a core inspiration for the *Out of the Krokus Bag* project.
Bound by their shared Antiguan roots, their journeys away and return home, and their commitment to honoring the past while building for the future, the four artists have built a collective that reimagines what cultural art can do for modern communities.
