In the summer of 1994, Dr. Arturo Lindsay , an artist, cultural investigator, and then professor of art and art history at Spelman College, received a prestigious Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest International Artist Residency Award to return to his home country of Panama to establish a studio and create a new body of art. Lindsay’s work led him to the coastal town of Portobelo, known for its rich history and traditions.

Lindsay’s cultural investigations led him to meet and begin collaborating with artists Sandra Eleta and Yaneca Esquina.  Their encounter of art, culture, and history birthed "Congo art", a new Afro-Panamanian visual art tradition grounded in centuries of Congo rituals, language, and aesthetics. As a result, Taller Portobelo – the Portobelo Workshop, was born.

Through painting, murals, installations, and objets d’art, the Congo artists of Taller Portobelo have sought to imbue their community with pride in their Congo heritage and to share the beauty of their village – its flora, fauna, people, and culture – with the world.

Like so many African diasporic art collectives before them – for example, the Oshogbo School in Nigeria and AfriCOBRA in Chicago – Taller Portobelo has created art with a mission to reject the narrative that outsiders would create of their lives and to tell their own stories in their own voice, all while creating a sustainable income stream for a culturally and historically rich yet economically disenfranchised community.

In an effort to share the story of the Taller; continue its movement of cultural self-determination; and recognize its increasing prominence as a source of indigenous creative genius, Lindsay is turning his treasure trove of research interviews, archival footage, and images into a documentary film, Artists’ Journey on the Congo Coast of Panama.

Artists’ Journey on the Congo Coast of Panama will show how the power of art helped a community celebrate the intrinsic beauty of its people and culture as it built community pride and economic opportunity in spite of horrific conditions of poverty and denigration.

This is an important effort, and you can help.

In a relatively short time, we have made significant progress: we have assembled a core production team that includes experienced filmmakers and project managers, we have a treatment and a working script, and we have confirmed the participation of the people who will be featured. Perhaps most exciting, we have commissioned two original Congo songs for the film.

We are now fundraising for the next phase of the project – production. In this phase, a crew will travel to Panama to film on location. Filming will include in-depth interviews with the artists of the Taller, cultural ethnographers, historians, arts professionals of La Fundación Bahía de Portobelo, and government officials. There will also be footage that captures the juego de Congo as well as the people, landscape, and everyday life of Portobelo. The goal is to give the film’s viewers as complete and intimate a feel for the village as possible.

Although the total budget for the film exceeds $50,000, our current fundraising goal to complete this phase of production is $15,000. Your donation is especially important at this point because reaching this goal will give other potential funders confidence in our vision. The latter, post-production phase involves editing, adding still images and music, subtitling, and a myriad of other often expensive tasks. Your help now gets us closer to meeting our total budget.

We are asking you to support Artists’ Journey on the Congo Coast of Panama in order to give the Congo art and artists of Taller Portobelo the documentation and global recognition that they deserve.

We thank you in advance for your help in realizing this vision.