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EXPLORE |

ART + DESIGN

Look closer.
For better or worse...
everything is designed.

For SIIM design is a way of life.

Architecture, interiors, art, objects and visual culture...

and the people and ideas behind them.

This is where we look at the creative choices that shape the spaces we inhabit and the things with which we surround ourselves.

ONE BAGGA TINGS [FEATURED CONTENT]

After returning to Jamaica in 2000 with a dozen unconventional, self-sewn pieces, the designer asked a simple architectural question: what can I do with a square of fabric? The answer became the Butterflies, versatile, convertible garments that have stayed evergreen at SIIM for over 25 years. The statement argues that they were never about trends but about creating a standard, much as Levi’s did with blue jeans and Chanel with the little black dress. Their Jamaican identity comes not from colours or motifs but from their dualities: revealing and covering, formal and casual, restrained and expressive. At WIFAX 2026 the designer presents them not as a collection or retrospective but as a proposal that a single garment can symbolise a country, and claims them as a contribution to Jamaican culture.

ESSAY

JAMAICAN DESIGN

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Towards A Jamaican Design Standard

Born from one question — What can I do with a square of fabric? — the SIIM Butterflies are put forward at WIFAX 2026 as a Jamaican cultural artefact.

4 min read

884 words

Drawing on her experience across architecture, fashion, film, events and production, SiiM examines how working in deadline-driven environments reshaped her approach to design. Beginning with a Jamaica Gleaner editorial on the gap between policy and implementation, she argues that successful design must begin with the realities of execution: who will do the work, what resources they have, what human limitations exist and how systems can be structured to succeed despite them. From builders on construction sites to public-sector inspectors implementing policy, the essay makes the case that the space between intention and outcome is not just administration, but an essential part of the design itself.

ESSAY

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When the Lights Go Up: Designing from the Point of Execution

From architecture to film, events and policy, SiiM explores why good design must account for the people, tools and systems that turn ideas into action.

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Adapted from a talk, this piece expands art beyond galleries and traditional disciplines. From science and architecture to gardening, customer service and waste collection, it argues that creativity lives wherever people improve the world, solve a problem or make something where nothing existed before.

TALK

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EXHIBIT: BEYOND FASHION, NATIONAL GALLERY OF JAMAICA

ART Is a 3 Letter Word

Art is not only drawing or painting. It is the human impulse to make, improve and transform—to create something where before there was nothing.

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Recorded in Kingston on May 27, 2009, this conversation introduces siblings and creative collaborators SiiM and Stefan “Stef” Clarke. They explain the thinking behind BUY ART: take art beyond galleries, make original work accessible to ordinary people, and create new social spaces where artists and audiences can meet. Stef also retraces his development as a sculptor, from childhood classes at Edna Manley to public commissions and the National Gallery.

CONVERSATION

BUY ART

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The Usual Suspects: SiiM and Stef

A 2009 conversation with siblings SiiM and Stef Clarke about BUY ART, affordable collecting, creative collaboration and Kingston’s art scene.

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KEEP EXPLORING

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