RNAC 2025

About the Conference 

Our 8th Biennial Rex Nettleford Arts Conference (RNAC 2025) marks a proud milestone as we approach our golden jubilee here at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts — the Caribbean’s leading institution for arts education. RNAC 2025 signals a cultural awakening at the intersection of tradition and possibility.

Inspired by Professor Rex Nettleford’s transformative philosophy of “Inward Stretch, Outward Reach,” we embrace culture not as a static subject for scholarly study, but as a living, breathing force — one that simultaneously preserves, disrupts, and reimagines our collective experience.

Caribbean artists and intellectuals continue to offer bold, innovative responses to the world’s rapid transformations — from international conflict to the rise of artificial intelligence. RNAC 2025 invites artists, scholars, performers, educators, policymakers and activists from across the region and diaspora to gather in dialogue, celebration and action.

This year’s theme, “Inward Stretch, Outward Reach – Arts, Culture and the (Re)Imagining of Our Humanism,” calls us to look inward — to our cultural roots, ancestral wisdom and indigenous knowledge systems — and outward to the global conversations that are reshaping what it means to be human.

The Rex Nettleford Arts Conference isn’t just about discussing culture — it’s about creating it. Through performances, panels, workshops, exhibitions and networking sessions, the conference becomes a space where new ideas take root, collaborations are sparked, and the real AI — artistic intelligence — is celebrated as essential to our shared future.

Whether you’re an emerging artist, seasoned academic, cultural worker, or simply passionate about the transformative power of the arts — RNAC 2025 is your invitation to be part of something bigger.

Join us as we honour our heritage, amplify our voices, and reimagine what’s possible — from the Caribbean to the world.