Born and bred in Arima, Kevon Foderingham is an Arts for Social Change Advocate; Founder of Caribbean Fashion and Arts Feature Festival and EAST YARD; Designer of the Green Violet line of men’s accessories and a Personal Brand Visioning Coach.

A former restaurant manager and publicist while in the UK, Mr Foderingham became immersed in development work upon his return to Trinidad in 2005 and has since functioned as a youth career enhancement facilitator at the Youth Training and Employment Partnership Programme, Program Administrator at the Trinidad and Tobago Insurance Institute and served for over six years as Regional Marketing and Communications Manager at PSI-Caribbean, the regional headquarters of global public health non-profit PSI where he oversaw marketing of the organization’s HIV, Non-communicable Disease and Gender-based violence prevention programming in 11 Caribbean countries.  

An avid supporter of local culture and all things youth, Mr Foderingham has been involved with and led several projects in Trinidad that have provided a platform for young local talent such as R.A.S.H. Magazine (2008-2011), the talent showcase, Euphorum (2009-2010) and sat on the board of the Trinidad chapter of the YMCA (2005). He recently sat for three years on the board of the Indigenous Creative Arts Network (ICAN), part of the IDAKEDA Group which is responsible for the Kambule Reenactment during Trinidad’s Carnival and currently sits on the board of the Trinidad and Tobago Bridge Initiative, the entity responsible for the Caribbean’s premier transformational festival, NEW FIRE Festival.

In 2016 Foderingham founded and currently serves as Executive Director of Caribbean Fashion & Arts Feature Festival (CFAFF), a non-profit arts education and promotion organization, incorporated with the mission to utilize the arts to directly address social issues affecting young people and retirees primarily, in Arima and East Trinidad. Thus far, CFAFF has successfully engaged over 100 youth with it’s Art Enrichment program that focuses on visual arts education and gender-based violence prevention training.    

Each year CFAFF also hosts its multifaceted fashion-film and arts festival in Arima, which has screened and honoured the best fashion related films from the region and beyond and has been featured in Vogue Italia (Italian Vogue).Through CFAFF Foderingham has been able to spearhead East Trinidad based community rejuvenation initiatives through large scale mural projects at the Arima Velodrome, Clayton Ince Football Field in Maloney, Dahlia Crescent Park in Maloney, the Arima Amphitheatre, St Mary’s Children’s Home and most recently Maloney Government Primary School, bringing together artists such as Sarah Burrows, AJ Rogers, Kevin Vincent, Nadya Shah, Danielle Boodoo Fortune, Sheldon Warner, Ken Reyes and Turunesh Raymond to name a few. In 2018, CFAFF partnered with the Ministry of Community Development Culture and the Arts on its Technical Camp initiative successfully hosting a 6 week visual arts technical camp for East based adults, which went on to be the largest camp that year and culminated in an art exhibition covered in the local press.  

Foderingham is also founder of EAST YARD, East Trinidad’s premiere arts space, founded in 2017 and located on Prince Street Arima. Conceptualized to serve as a physical creative hub to connect and engage the local community through the arts on a regular and ongoing basis, the space serves as the home for several CFAFF arts education programs as well as exhibitions and various creative events. Through EAST YARD, Foderingham has been able to bring traditionally Port-of-Spain based cultural events to audiences in Arima for the first time, namely Animae Caribe, Bocas Lit Fest’s National Poetry Slam’s East Auditions and Gillian Moore’s long standing Songshine Open Mic series. The venue has been graced with performances from such local stalwarts as Earl Lovelace, Ozy Merrique, Rubadiri Victor, Lisa Allen-Agostini, Marge Blackman and Nickolai Salcedo to name a few.

Visual art remains centre stage at EAST YARD and the space has attracted international creatives to Arima. Among international visitors were, three American artists, namely Christopher Paul Jordan the recipient of Neddy Artist Award in painting, the James W Ray Venture Project Award, the Jon Imber Fellowship and the GTCF Foundation of Art Award; Allana Morris-Van Tassel, a Juilliard trained  choreographer, educator, and producer, named in 2018 as one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch!”; and Fulbright alumnus Tammy Kremmer. Other visitors have included British artist Jacob V Joyce, currently working as an illustrator for Global Justice Now, and creates the artwork for international human rights campaigns; British based performance artist Jamal Gerald, who was commissioned by Leeds based Transform and Theatre in the Mill, to make a new show called ‘Idol’, which premiered at Transform 19 in Leeds; and most recently Italian cultural anthropologist, Maica Gugolati. All of these cultural practitioners have either been resident on-site at EAST YARD, or have facilitated public learning sessions for Arimians.

In 2019, Foderingham was an Associate Producer and the Production Designer for local feature film, Queen of Soca, for which he lobbied scenes to be shot at the Arima Townhall and EAST YARD. The film went on to open the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival 2019.

Also in 2019 he served as curator of ‘Lived In,’ Trinidad and Tobago’s host country contemporary art exhibition for CARIFESTA XIV, which was showcased throughout the festival in NAPA’s downstairs foyer. At CARIFESTA XIV, Foderingham was a presenter at the Journey Round Myself Symposium, facilitating a session entitled, The Art of YOU, focusing on personal branding for creatives.   

In September 2019, Foderingham participated in the sought after International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP), which is the U.S. Department of State’s premier professional exchange program that allows current and emerging foreign leaders in a variety of fields to experience the US firsthand and cultivate lasting relationships with their American counterparts. The theme of the program was “Promoting Social Change through the Arts.”

Most recently, Foderingham was elected to the Executive of the Arima Community Council and was a speaker on The Thread | Conversations Beyond The Return, Presented by Tastemakers Africa, which is a monthly-ish series of conversations unpacking the potential for Pan-Africanism in a post-“Year of Return” moment for the culture. Since its inception as an in-person event in Washington, DC The Thread has gone virtual reaching nearly 7,000 people from 50+ countries.