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| Caribbean Cultural Center (CCCADI) | |
|---|---|
| Name | Caribbean Cultural Center (CCCADI) |
| Formation | 1976 |
| Founder | "Notable founders include artistic and community leaders from Caribbean diasporic communities" |
| Location | New York City |
| Type | Cultural center |
| Purpose | Promotion of Caribbean and African diaspora arts and culture |
Caribbean Cultural Center (CCCADI) The Caribbean Cultural Center (CCCADI) is a New York–based cultural institution dedicated to preserving, presenting, and promoting Caribbean and African diasporic arts and cultural heritage. The center operates at the intersection of museum practice, performing arts, and community organizing, engaging audiences through exhibitions, performances, publications, and educational programs.
The organization's origins trace to grassroots activism and Pan-Africanist dialogues that involved figures and movements associated with Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, Black Panther Party, Pan-African Congress, United Nations General Assembly delegations from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, and Guyana. Early supporters and collaborators included artists and intellectuals linked to Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, Claude McKay's contemporaries, Edna Manley, Aimé Césaire, and Derek Walcott, while networks extended to institutions such as Museum of Modern Art, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Brooklyn Museum, New-York Historical Society, Apollo Theater, and Studio Museum in Harlem. Over the decades the center established connections with Caribbean governments including delegations from Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, and Saint Lucia and with diasporic organizations like National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Congress of Racial Equality, Caribbean Tourism Organization, and Association of Caribbean Historians.
CCCADI’s mission builds on cultural diplomacy models used by Smithsonian Institution, British Museum, UNESCO, OAS cultural programs, and community arts frameworks practiced by Creative Time, New York Foundation for the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Ford Foundation. Programmatic emphases align with curatorial practices at Whitney Museum of American Art, Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, and advocacy approaches used by Black Lives Matter, Museum of the African Diaspora, and African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund. CCCADI runs artist residencies modeled like those at Yaddo, MacDowell Colony, and Radcliffe Institute while hosting lecture series reminiscent of The New School, Columbia University, City University of New York, and Pratt Institute public programs.
The center curates rotating exhibitions and long-term collections that document visual arts, folk traditions, and performance histories linked to artists and movements such as Haitian Revolution influences, Santería rituals, Maroons, and practitioners including Hector Hyppolite, Edna Manley, Kehinde Wiley, Basquiat, Wifredo Lam, Amiri Baraka, Jean-Michel Basquiat's contemporaries, Kara Walker, Faith Ringgold, Alvin Ailey, Bill T. Jones, and Caribbean carnival traditions from Trinidad Carnival, Junkanoo, Notting Hill Carnival, São João Festival, and Crop Over. Exhibitions often engage archives and collections related to Pan-African Congresses, Harlem Renaissance, Negritude, Black Arts Movement, and material from archives like New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Archivo General de la Nación (Dominican Republic), and national libraries of Jamaica and Barbados.
Educational initiatives draw on models used by Teachers College, Columbia University, Museum of Natural History education programs, National Museum of African American History and Culture outreach, and summer programs like City Parks Foundation and Lincoln Center Education. CCCADI partners with community groups similar to Make the Road New York, El Museo del Barrio, Henry Street Settlement, Harlem Children’s Zone, Red Hook Initiative, and diaspora organizations in Miami, Toronto, London, Paris, Kingston, Bridgetown, and Port-au-Prince to deliver workshops on traditional crafts, oral histories, and dance forms like calypso, soca, reggae, dancehall, mento, kompa, and zouk.
Facilities reflect adaptive reuse practices seen at cultural venues such as Chelsea Market, Pace Gallery, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and Grand Central Terminal conversion projects. Exhibition spaces accommodate multimedia installations, archives, performance stages, and classrooms; conservation practices reference standards from International Council of Museums, American Alliance of Museums, and preservation work by Landmarks Preservation Commission in New York. Site-specific programming has engaged nearby landmarks like Harlem River, East River, Central Park, and neighborhood institutions such as Columbia University Teachers College and John Jay College.
Governance structures reflect nonprofit models used by Arts Council England, National Endowment for the Arts, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grantee institutions, and board governance frameworks similar to Metropolitan Museum of Art and Brooklyn Museum. Funding sources historically include grants and partnerships with foundations including Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and municipal support from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and state arts councils. Fiscal partnerships and sponsorships have also involved corporate entities and philanthropic donors associated with initiatives by Bloomberg Philanthropies, Con Edison, and JP Morgan Chase Foundation.
CCCADI has hosted or collaborated on events and festivals with artists, scholars, and institutions tied to Derek Walcott Prize contexts, dramaturgs engaged with Broadway, collaborations with Lincoln Center Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Carnegie Hall, and international partnerships with cultural ministries of Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Suriname, and networks including Cariforum, Caribbean Tourism Organization, Association of Caribbean States, and university programs at SOAS University of London, University of the West Indies, Yale University, Harvard University, Princeton University, New York University, and Rutgers University. Notable visiting artists and thinkers associated with CCCADI-like programming include Derek Walcott, Edwidge Danticat, Michelle Cliff, Aimé Césaire, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Buju Banton, Miriam Makeba, Harry Belafonte, and scholars from Howard University, Spelman College, and Morehouse College.
Category:Cultural centers in New York City