Converging ties in a Diverging Guyana 2024..

 

"Converging Ties" is an exhibition of works by Kwesi Bovell, Dominique Hunter, Roberto Teekah and Morag Williams. The exhibition continues until 17 July, 2024 at Castellani House. 

Art in French 

I check Akima McPherson's articles in Stabroek News on Elements and Principles of art again. 

Reminding myself of what to look for, then I go find an article in French because we are supposed to talk in French about the work. Yeah, I am a nerd like that.

I learned French at the Bishops' High School, with other things. I have forgotten some of the other things.

I like to think I attended Bishops' twice - from 1981 to 1986 as a student, and then from around 1995 to 2006 as an old student engaging with a different school, revitalised, under the administration of Ms Massiah followed by Ms Walcott and Ms Daly. 

After passing the soldier with the gun at the gate of Castellani House, I meet and talk with Ms Massiah - now Reverend Massiah -who had visited the exhibition.

Common entrance and gangs.

This week , there is the Bishops' reunion. I am not a reunion person and I brush off the comments of 'we thought we would have seen you.. '

A  classmate who I have not seen the last days of school wants to see me. On the day the results of the miserable common entrance exam come out, we meet at the sports event.. last time I had been there with school things, Bishops had beat QC at inter-schools.

I had chosen Bishops' .. our mother, aunt , cousins had attended.  A few years ago I watched some children cry because they got Bishops, and did not get QC.  

It is painful to watch the hypocrisy of celebrating a 1% .. legacy of the colonial masters.

And the colonial legacy, the Bougie Bishops', even as so many of the old students who were involved in education in Guyana and elsewhere worked to equalize opportunities and to dismantle the barriers.

[Edited to remove an incorrect reference to one of the paintings]

Reunions, reconciliations?

As I embrace and hug up people at the sports day, including a few whose names I could not remember at the time.. , I am thinking of the woman who told me when I shared an article celebrating an 'old student'.. 'you know she was a bully in school, made my life miserable', Thinking of the other other parents who transferred their children from Bishops because of the classism, racism, bullying they experienced .  

Thinking of the two drug addicts from Bishops', who connected with me because I was at school with them, one of them brilliant and charming still, and in this weirdness of reunion, what about those

My mind on the brilliant woman I met at Bishops' who died this week after cancer.

 and the other woman who includes me in the celebration after a medical procedure she thought would take longer to happen, has happened.

 So in this joyous memory of 'good times'.. and there are many, wondering about those who didn't make it, or who struggled, or who were excluded from the good times.

Converging Ties..

The first impression of colour everywhere on the white walls shifts my mind from Bishops to thinking of how to describe in French what I might not understand in English even.

Hilton Chan, an amazing photographer , is in the middle of the space with his camera. One of my colleagues says as she manipulates her phone camera " these are beautiful paintings, I don't think photographs can do them justice."  Yep, as I had realised that sometimes we look at different parts of a painting or other work, in addition to the whole. The photos of the work could be 'derivative works'. And thinking of the young man walking around with a guitar looking at the work, wondering how his music could connect with the work.

The four artists are connected through their occupation as artists, and that they attended Bishops'.

I like watching art , and I see a lot of amazing difference and diversity in the exhibits.. I don't see the connection to the theme 'converging ties'. (There will be an artist talk on Wednesday 10th July , 2024 at 5pm )

Another old student who has been a French teacher for 40 years comes up and we start talking.. not about the art really, but about the connections. "your mother taught me Maths in first form'.. 

There is this opportunity for a conversation across many differences , mostly in stumbling French on my part, a kind of convergence in a way, which is part of this old school thing.  

I am grateful for all opportunities to talk across some of our differences in Guyana, and this perhaps includes across the differences in our experiences of being connected to Bishops' and Guyana.

And that reuniting might mean some healing and reconciliation.

Inside and outside

Dominique Hunter's works have brilliant colour - I think I see indigo in some of the pieces and I think of the Jamaican woman who tells me of her complex relationship with indigo - healing for some, disturbing for others. There are butterflies and leaves, and figures.  I am glad to see again Roberto Teekah's Just a Koker., in this rainy season.  

Morag Williams' work seems to feature portraits of persons considered 'mixed race' , and as we imagine 'six peoples' in Guyana, there is another discussion of convergence around where 'mixedness' fits in.

One of Dominique Hunter's pieces is next to a window. I mean no disrespect to the artists for not recording the names of their works.

The work is three dimensional with varied light on leaves and some leaves coming out of the frame.  There is a framing of the window outside with some wood chopped up, and there is the light outside as well. 

I think the painting on the inside and the window outside in combination could be 'another work'.,

But I am not an artist.