Poinciana Paper Press is a Center for Writing, Book Arts, and Publishing located in Nassau, The Bahamas. Founded by Sonia Farmer, Poinciana Paper Press creates opportunities for engaging with books and their allied crafts in order to advance the diversity of voices in Caribbean art and literature and empower cultural ownership and voice.
We offer classes and workshops, programming and community events, calls for work and other publishing opportunities, and will launch our residency programme in 2024.
Our center includes a shop, a gallery, a library, letterpress and printmaking studio, bindery, paper making studio, digital support room, dark room, and shared studio space.
Keep up with Poinciana Paper Press on Instagram and Facebook and sign up for our newsletter to find out about any opportunities, classes, and special projects.
Contact us at sonia [at] poincianapaperpress.com
Our Core Values
1. Everyone has a story to share. We value all stories and experiences, providing a creative, collaborative, accessible and inclusive space to find your voice.
2. We understand that all art is political, and that we have a responsibility to uphold freedom of the press and freedom of expression with care. The press is not a tool for hate speech. We align our advocacy with progressive, subversive, intellectual, and humanistic motivations.
3. We uphold cultural safety, rejecting racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, and other acts of violence perpetuated by colonialism, heteropatriarchy, and white supremacy. We respect and welcome all community voices and languages.
4. We privilege the voice of the contemporary Caribbean person sharing complex lived experiences, rejecting the colonial bibliophilic past with its hierarchization and homogenization of cultures, erasure of marginalized voices, and outsider’s gaze.
5. Books are dynamic sites of performance. We publish and promote work in the format that best serves the narratives of our writers and artists, making the book an active part of its dialogue. We actively build and make available diverse collections, progressive materials, educational models, and critical resources in our library, gallery, and store.
6. Publishing is an empowering and educational social practice that is available to anyone. We provide guidance and resources for critical and reflective engagement in self-publishing.
7. We honor heritage through operation not presentation, recognizing that informed and respectful interaction with artifacts is a valid method of preservation that gives us a powerful opportunity to celebrate the lineage and historical impact of the equipment and books in our care. We share and make visible these historical contributions.
8. We support honing our craft through traditional and modified techniques and materials, recognizing there is no hierarchy of form or medium. While we strive to uphold excellence in craft and intentionality in our creative practice, we reject the oppressive lens of coloniality and embrace building new forms of knowledge in an innovative, adaptive, sustainable, and experimental art practice to build a critical cultural dialogue with our environment and resources.
9. Collaboration provides powerful experiences to learn from one another. We value the knowledge and skills each individual brings to the studio and classroom in shared artistic production. We provide opportunities for creative dialogue across disciplines and cultures.
10. The press is a community tool for socially-engaged art practice. We seek outreach opportunities in partnerships with other individuals, organizations, and institutions that align with our core values to support their initiatives.
11. The press is an active, collective space that requires communication, self-awareness, and taking personal responsibility for individual artistic processes. We respect the shared studio space through considerate actions and dialogue, informed use of equipment, and adherence to all safety protocols, organizational standards, and cleanliness expectations.