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<figure class="wp-block-image"><img src="https://buzz-caribbean.com/app/uploads/2019/07/andrea-dempster-chung-kingston-creative.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-477" /><figcaption>Co-Founder of the Kingston Creative movement Andrea Dempster-Chung (right) addressing the media at the ever-growing artwalk in June (Photo: HautePeople.net)</figcaption></figure>
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<p>After years of asking, art lovers and culture enthusiasts in Kingston will finally have something to celebrate come 2020, as an inaugural festival is set to put the downtown business and shopping districts on a dazzling showcase.</p>
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<p>This is according to Executive Director of the Kingston Creative Andrea Dempster-Chung, who in an interview with <strong>BUZZ</strong> on Sunday, June 30, gave us the scoop on what’s to come.</p>
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<p>Dempster-Chung assured that the creative fanfare artists and citizens have been yearning for will be fed through the inaugural Kingston International Festival.</p>
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<p>“[We are] bringing everybody to Kingston to see our culture. Ten days of film, visual art, dance; put on [in] collaboration with Calabash, GATFFEST, JAFTA. We’re doing a showcase collectively and that will all be in downtown Kingston to stimulate the economy,” Dempster-Chung told <strong>BUZZ</strong>.</p>
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<p>Young artists also get more love from the Kingston Creative as Dempster-Chung indicated that a creative hub, as well as incubator and business accelerator programmes are also set to be launched in the coming months.</p>
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<p>“Now
we’re at a stage where we really can start making moves. What does the creative
ecosystem [in Jamaica] need? What training, development, spaces, loans, venture
capital do they need?” Dempster-Chung asked.</p>
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<p>The
Kingston Creative will be launching the hub at its headquarters and the
birthplace of the movement, F&amp;B Downtown on Harbour Street – with satellite
studios for dancers, podcasters and other talents to be set up across the lower
districts of the city.</p>
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<p>“So there’s a co-working space that's going to open right upstairs and then there are other additional spaces that are going to be leased. An up-and-coming creative should be able to get access to everything they need to get their [creative] game from here to here,” she explained. </p>
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<p>“There’s also a business accelerator, where a selected cohort of creatives is going to be run through a series of educational and development workshops so that they get the training they need to go global,” Dempster-Chung also told <strong>BUZZ</strong>.</p>
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<p>To
this end, by driving entrepreneurship and training activities, Dempster-Chung,
and the wider Kingston Creative aim for downtown to rightfully become an
artistic and cultural hub.</p>
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<p>Speaking with <strong>BUZZ</strong>, Dempster-Chung said as the global creative industry generates an eye-watering US$2.25 trillion every year, the Kingston Creative is making the necessary steps to foster growth and training locally.</p>
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<p>“We can’t just paint the walls, we can’t just paint the surface, we have to deal with our own creatives; getting them to level up and that’s what Kingston Creative is about,” the Kingston Creative co-founder posited.</p>
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