Fermín Ceballos is a multidisciplinary artist from the Dominican Republic working mainly with painting and performance, and occasionally with sculpture, installations, and video art. A native from San Cristóbal, a province in the south-west of the country, Fermín is an alumnus of the National School of Fine Arts of Santo Domingo. He later studied ceramics in Talleres Igneri. Presently, he lives and works in Cabrera, in the María Trinidad Sánchez province, on the north coast of our island.

Any serious research on the multiple streams of contemporary Dominican music will inevitably lead you to the central figure of Luis “El Terror” Días. Beyond the international recognition that other Dominican musicians have amassed, with genres like merengue or bachata, the overwhelming influence of Luis Días prolific and eclectic musical journey is undisputed.

“Caribbean arti-facts: Santo Domingo and Kolkata in a backpack?” was written after a trip to Kolkata in 2007. Landing in the capital of West Bengal to participate in the Kolkata Book Fair, Miguel D. Mena was informed that the book fair had been postponed. A court decision had banned organizers from holding the fair in its historical location in the maidan and no alternative venue had been found. Not the least disappointed by the sudden change of plans, Miguel D. Mena jumped into the streets of the city. During a week, he walked, met with students of the Jadavpur University where he held a workshop on self-publishing, exchanged with fellow writers and publishers from Bengal.

Nana is a documentary film that follows three Dominican women who work as live-in nannies. Leidy, Fina and Clara have left behind their small towns in the rural countryside and now live in big cities where they are paid to take care of the kids of well to do families. As we become acquainted with them and we listen to their stories, we understand how each navigates between those worlds. Joy and sorrow, attachment and separation, hope and dreams constitute the emotional landscape of their bitter sweet journeys.

For over three decades, Jorge Pineda has been one of the main figures from the Dominican Republic present in the international art scene. A native from Barahona, a province in the South-West region of our country, Jorge graduated in architecture from the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo, in the 80’s. He then studied lithography, xylography and serigraphy at the Atelier Bordas in Paris, where he held his first solo exhibition in 1985. Presently, he lives and work in Santo Domingo.

One cannot speak of contemporary music from the Dominican Republic without uttering the name Bachata, which has become a global music phenomenon. Emerging from rural social gatherings, Bachata is a danceable genre that has taken by storm the radio stations from all over the world and has inspired people from the most diverse cultural backgrounds to move their hips to its unique cadence. Today, Bachateros, the name given to those who interpret this music, are world renowned musicians selling out stadiums, winning international musical awards and achieving pop-icon status.

Josefina Báez has engaged like no other contemporary dominican writer with the present and the rich legacy of indian cultures. A long time New-York resident, she claims to feel equally at ease in her birth town, La Romana, Dominican Republic, and in the hills of Andhra Pradesh. In her books, she has fleshed out the migrating experience of working class black women, affirming that despite the hardships of those journeys, identity is a powerful spiritual resource. Open to change, it redefines and expands itself through the encounters with new cultures.