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Drawing on African spiritualism in which nature itself is sacred, and West African cultures where women are traditional leaders and the female-form is commonly ecologically deified, the “Reimagining
Nanny” Project retelling of the story of Queen Nanny, national heroine of Jamaica, as a shaman of the forests, healer, priestess and protector of the springs and watersheds, and commander of energies of the earth, creatures, mountains and valleys of the Blue and John Crow Mountains of Jamaica. This work centers the untold herstories of this iconic African-born woman who emerges as a central 17th century anti-colonial abolitionist freedom fighter, and more importantly as protector of Jamaica’s globally significant native biodiversity, ecosystems and mountains. The project illuminates significant African eco-cultural retentions that are largely unrecognized by positioning Queen Nanny as one of the island’s first ecologists. The work further uses this retelling as an opportunity to situate the eco-cultural knowledge of the Caribbean’s formerly enslaved Afro-indigenous peoples as crucial to the support of sustainable forest management practices, given the growing concerns and interests in climate resilience, environmental protection, and more diverse voices and cultural interest within and for the tropical biodiversity conservation movement. |
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Director Biography - Udemba Mclean, Leo R DouglasUdemba McLean is a Jamaican filmmaker who considers himself a Visual Storyteller. His journey into Visual Storytelling began as a photographer. Udemba has worked with the Kingston Creative and several Jamaican creatives seeking the power of documentarymaking for social change. In this project Udemba and Leo Douglas (writer/producer/codirector) sees the Reimagining Nanny: Her Sword, A Seed project as a fresh and compelling retelling of Afro-Caribbean ancestral cultural preservation and as a fundamental means of deepening regional appreciation of the contribution of the Jamaican
black women on whose shoulders we stand as social change activists and as members of the environmental movement. Leo Douglas is a Clinical Associate Professor at New York University (NYU). He is also the 2023-2024 Director of the Caribbean Initiative within NYU's Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS). He received his Ph.D., a Masters of Ecology and Environmental Biology, and an Advanced Environmental Policy Certificate from Columbia University. He also holds a Masters of Philosophy degree in Zoology from the University of the West Indies, Jamaica. He is a past-president of BirdsCaribbean, the largest single international NGO focusing on the flora and fauna of the greater Caribbean region. He is a Government of Jamaica Millennium Scholar, Musgrave Medal Winner - for Distinguished Eminence in the Field of Science, a Partners in Flight (PIF) Leadership Award Winner - for Outstanding Contribution to Bird Conservation, a 2021 NYU Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Faculty Award Recipient. |
Director Statement
Multiple PhDs in Art History, Black Studies, Post-Colonial Studies, Ornithology, Botany, Conservation Biology, and Geography – along with the spiritual leaders of the Windward Maroons of Jamaica, came together to both develop and carefully interrogate the materials used in this project. We are thrilled to have this journey rooted in these rare collaborations, and in partnership with the Natural History Museum of the Institute of Jamaica (IOJ), the Jamaica Conservation and Development Trust (JCDT), and BirdLife Jamaica. We also left no stone unturned at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH – New York City) and Cornell Lab of Ornithology (Cornell University) to uncover the ecological experiences and interests of our Afro-Jamaican fore parents. Thanks to all those who came together to help us tell our own story of relationship to the natural world.
