A band on stage playing music, a crowd gathered round the stage waving flags.

When the Caribbean Festival of Arts (CARIFESTA XV) ended in Barbados this summer, it left behind more than a trail of vibrant performances and cultural exchange - it also marked a defining moment for one of UofG’s own. 

Michelle Hinkson-Cox, a PhD student with the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities based at UofG, served as Artistic Director for the festival, orchestrating one of the most ambitious cultural events in the region. 

Under her artistic leadership, the 2025 festival honoured Caribbean heritage while also looking to the future. Michelle’s role was not simply administrative and one of her greatest lessons she took away from CARIFESTA was the art of cultural diplomacy. 

“Everyone is, understandably, concerned about their specific contribution to the festival,” she explained. “I had to carefully balance everyone’s expectations, find the best possible solutions and then respond in a way that reassured those concerned that decisions were made with their best interest at heart, while maintaining my own personal and professional integrity. It was a steep learning curve, but I think I did pretty well.” 

Her low-key reflections belie the scale of her achievement. CARIFESTA XV welcomed thousands of delegates and artists from across the Caribbean and beyond and Michelle, as Artistic Director, was at the heart of it all. She said the opening parade where she watched the culmination of months of planning unfold was a “quite triumph” for her. 

“That was when reality hit me,” she recalled. “This is what I had been working on for all these months. Rumour has it I might have shed a tear and had to be consoled by my dear friend Nikita.” 

A crowd of people wearing blue and yellow holding puppets as they walk through a street

Michelle’s work at CARIFESTA XV shows the kind of global impact University of Glasgow students can have. It’s a great example of how the university supports students to make a real difference in the world. 

As a PhD student in Theatre and Archaeology, supervised by UofG’s School of Culture & Creative Arts Dr Michael Bachmann and Dr Graham Eatough along with the School of Humanities | Sgoil nan Daonnachdan Dr Peggy Brunache, her academic grounding in cultural heritage and storytelling found a natural home in the festival’s celebration of Caribbean identity and artistic expression. 

Dr Peggy Brunache, Director of the Beniba Centre for Slavery Studies, also spoke at CARIFESTA XV, sharing her expertise in Caribbean archaeology, heritage and food. Her presence added depth to the festival’s conversations around history, identity and cultural resilience. 

CARIFESTA itself is a cornerstone of regional unity, founded in 1972 to celebrate the diversity and creativity of the Caribbean. This year’s theme, Caribbean Roots; Global Excellence. Under Michelle’s artistic direction, the festival embraced a five-year Legacy Programme aimed at building sustainable growth for Caribbean artists and cultural industries. 

About Michelle Hinkson-Cox Artistic Director – CARIFESTA XV  

Michelle Hinkson-Cox is the Coordinator for the Associate Degree programme in Theatre Arts at the Barbados Community College. Since 2014, she has been focusing on using oral and written narratives to write and produce plays that focus on Barbadian history and heritage, leading to her writing and staging nearly 30 original Bajan theatrical productions over the last 10 years. Her work reflects and experiments with Caribbean language, movement and aesthetic, while sharing lesser-known narratives from our history, with an aim to use Theatre as a medium of building national identity in post-colonial Barbados. In 2023, she received a full scholarship from the Scottish Graduate School of the Arts and Humanities to pursue her PhD in Theatre and Archaeology with the University of Glasgow. 

First published: 11 September 2025

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