29/05/2026
As part of a broader effort to reimagine how the Virgin Islands of the United States visually represents itself, Three Islands Media was commissioned through its director, Chalana Brown, to photograph the cover of the Virgin Islands phone book. The initiative reflected a growing desire to center the people, traditions, and cultural memory of the territory rather than relying solely on tourist-facing imagery.
Photographed at the Whim Museum on St. Croix were cultural bearers Eldred “Edgie” Christian and Gilbert “Gilly” Hendricks,both longstanding stewards of Quelbe music through the Ten Sleepless Knights. Since the creation of the photograph, Edgie has passed, transforming the image into both documentation and memorial.
The setting of the photograph carries its own historical gravity. The Whim Museum, preserved within the landscape of a former plantation estate, holds layered stories of African endurance, labor, subjugation, humor, artistry, and survival. Within those grounds, the photograph connected living Virgin Islands traditions to the historical spaces where Afro-Caribbean communities preserved culture despite colonial violence and economic exploitation.
The image also arrived during an important period of public recognition for the Ten Sleepless Knights, whose members have since been honored through legislation designating a space in Limpricht Park in their name. For decades, the group has safeguarded Quelbe, the national music of the Virgin Islands, carrying forward a tradition rooted in oral storytelling, satire, community gathering, and the lived experiences of Crucian people.
Through this commission, the photograph became part of a larger cultural archive. It documented artists whose work helped preserve Virgin Islands identity across generations while asserting that the territory’s image should be shaped by the people who continue to carry its memory, sound, and stories forward.
