Peter Minshall

Born 1941, Georgetown, Guyana (once British Guiana)
Lives and works in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago

White Bay Power Station

Documentation of The Adoration of Hiroshima at anti-nuclear peace march on the 40th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, Washington, D.C. August, 1985, 1985 video, 6:41 mins.
Film footage and accompanying audio by: Karen Morell. Re-edited in 2024 by: Mandela Gregoire (Editor) and Todd Gulick (Assistant Editor).
Courtesy University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, PH1557, Video 52, Eddie Becker, Washington, D.C.

Documentation of Mancrab as presented in River by P. Minshall; a 2,000-member mas presentation in the Trinidad Carnival, February 1983, 1983
video, 3:52 mins.
Video footage by: Trinidad & Tobago Television

Documentation of The Adoration of Hiroshima as presented in The Golden Calabash: Princes of Darkness and Lords of Light by P. Minshall; a 3,000-member mas presentation in the Trinidad Carnival, February 1985, 1985
video, 3:28 mins
Video footage by: Trinidad & Tobago Television

Peter Minshall’s principal practice has been in the art form known as mas; a performance art developed for the Carnival of Trinidad combining costume, masque, wearable-kinetic-sculpture, and dance. From the late 1970s into the 2000’s Minshall and his collaborators produced a masband, a carnival ensemble, for participation in the annual Carnival of Trinidad. Over the years thousands of band members have been involved in Minshall’s especially vital and narrative presentations. Minshall was the Artistic Director for the opening ceremonies of three Olympic Games: Barcelona (1992), Atlanta (1996), and Salt Lake City (2002)

Bedecked in ostrich feathers and garish golden glitter, Adoration of Hiroshima, a character in the masband The Golden Calabash: Princes of Darkness and Lords of Light, was created by Minshall for the 1985 Carnival of Trinidad. Referencing a Balinese devil mask and the halos of religious European iconography, the work combines the spectacular with the grotesque in an admonishment of the monstrosity of the nuclear bomb, both feared and coveted by nations for its destructive power. In the summer of the same year Minshall presented the Adoration of Hiroshima as part of an anti-nuclear march in Washington D.C. marking the 40th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Mancrab, featured in the centre screen, is a character from the masband River, first presented by Minshall at the Carnival of Trinidad in 1983. In the story of River the character of Mancrab, empowered by technology, embodies humankind’s greed and lust for dominance. Coveting a river as the site for his factories, Mancrab seduces the river’s people and their ruler, Washerwoman, by using colours that he spreads upon the water – the “colours” being a metaphor for the materialistic fruits of industrial progress.

Read more about the 24th Biennale of Sydney, Ten Thousand Suns, by purchasing the catalogue here.