As we bid farewell to 2023, on behalf of the CNCF Board and Staff I extend my warmest wishes for a prosperous New Year. It has been a game changing year for the Cayman National Cultural Foundation as we’ve completed Phase One of our Strategic Revisioning Exercise, welcomed many new partnerships, carried out facility and organizational upgrades, and hosted CNCF’s much-loved annual community schedule.

Together, we have experienced a year filled with vibrant programming that has resonated with our local community, as well as visitors from around the world. Your support has ensured our success, allowing us to deliver engaging projects and diverse productions that connect with culture at home, and abroad.

Highlights of our past 12 months, include hosting such noteworthy productions as the inaugural Wha Happening written and directed by the extraordinary Matt Brown (born out of the legacy of our much-loved Rundown), the Red Boat Experience (Randy Chollette and friends), Oh Cayman Islands by Stuart Wilson and friends – each funded and produced through CNCF’s grants programme – as well as numerous creative partnerships with both leading and smaller community-based initiatives including: Cayman Islands National Dance Company, Floetry, Cayman Arts Festival, Cayman National Choir and Orchestra, Cayman Talent Expo, the National Gallery, UCCI, the Cayman Music and Entertainment Association, the National Children’s Festival of the Arts, Cayman carnivals, to name a few….

We’ve welcomed more than 25,000 patrons through our doors to enjoy a programme of theatre, performing arts, music, literature, visual arts, that seek to foster a vibrant cultural community across our FJ Harquail Cultural Centre and Mind Eye Centre sites as well as in all six of Cayman’s districts.

We’ve also focused on the expansion of grants and residency opportunities, as well as developmental workshops in 2023, designed to expand support for the creative sector and to widen impact. We are excited to share all this year’s Grants for the Arts recipients and their projects here, as well as news about our newly launched Creative Residency and Research Programme, piloted by award-winning poet and artist Nasaria Suckoo Chollette.

Other highlights include hosting our much-loved annual festivals Red Sky at Night (April) and Gimistory (November), welcoming 65+ creative students to our annual Summer Camp in collaboration with Pan n’ Riddim (July), introducing our new Teacher Social quarterly gatherings, holding workshops in drama, folk music, dance, steel pan, and other creative genres, carrying out conservation work on Miss Lassie’s Collection and cottage, and launching our expanded Christmas of Yesteryear (December) initiative at the Minds Eye Centre.

Simultaneously, throughout 2023 we’ve carried out our institutional-wide Strategic Revisioning Project, which begin in 2022, that seeks revitalize CNCF into a cultural management organization that is responsive to At the end of 2023 we formally welcomed the Cayman National Choir and Orchestra as CNCF’s second official Resident Company, after the Cayman Islands Folk Singers, the first ‘step’ in our expanded Cultural Campus.

We are incredibly grateful for the 100+ stakeholder groups and individuals who have contributed to our focus groups and one-on-one interviews, and well as all of you who took time to complete our online surveys. We’ve listened to your input and incorporated it into our new mission, vision, and Strategic Plan which we will launch publicly February.

As we welcome in 2024, we are excited about the prospects and partnership that lie ahead. These kicked off in January with a Cayman Arts Festival concert partnership, in advance of their wider February festival at the Harquail, and grants workshop, Black History Month programmes (February), Red Sky at Night (March), and many more workshops and productions. Whether you visit us in person here at CNCF or connect with us online via our new website (scheduled to launch in February) from any corner of the world, we invite you to be part of the next chapter of CNCF’s journey. Your continued support has been pivotal, and we hope you will consider extending your commitment to help us bring even more extraordinary experiences to life.

Thank you for being an essential part of CNCF’s success, and here’s to the many creative opportunities awaiting us in the coming year!

Natalie Urquhart

Chief Executive Officer