The Orishas, the sea and the forest on a Saturday afternoon

Microsoft Designer AI Image 'the sea and the jungle'

 

The Orishas

Saturday afternoon and clouds have promise of rain. Minibus man asks if I going right down as he swing on Lamaha Street and I said yes no problem because I getting drop close to Fresh, the 'lil cafe shed place next to the bank ' as the taxi dispatcher later described.

The woman in the painting looks at me , I am her equal. There are iron implements around her. She is young, strong and assertive - not fearsome.  

I keep coming back to the painting as I am early and I can move around the room. 

Later on, I am helping out a bit and in between helping, I feel as though Ogun as woman is looking at me, in a kind way. 

Alyce Cameron's Ogun formed part of the Art Exhibition  hosted by the Alliance Française of Guyana and members of the Guyana Women Artists Association. The exhibition was curated by Pekahiah James. The artists who displayed their work are Alyce Cameron, Elodie Cage Smith, Jennifer Gibbson
Lisa Thompson (Scarlet Ibis Pottery) and Sheliza Rampersaud . 

Next to Ogun, there are Alyce Cameron's paintings of 'Lady of Gold' - Oshun; the young handsome Ershu in colourful shadows and Obatalá on bright blue and white. The positioning of the four make me think of an altar. Spirituality on my mind as it is the day after Phagwah; and hours after a Bhagvad Gita class in which issues around capitalism and colonialism surfaced briefly

The exhibition formed part of the events for Mois de la Francophonie and International Women's Day.

 The sea

 Francophonie - is about the places who use French for private and public purposes. I learned some French in school and since we hear it is good to have a foreign language to keep the brain active, I stay part of the Francophonie. Francophonie is a legacy of colonialism though, French colonialism. 

The altar of the Orisha spirits in Fresh, located not far from the Parade Ground where some of the enslaved who rebelled in 1823 were executed by a different language coloniser.

Elodie Cage-Smith had explained in an interview about her first solo exhibition that the works in that exhibition payed homage to Caribbean ancestors. I imagine the sea is in some of her beautiful paintings, the sea which was used to transport the enslaved who came with the Orishas. And the sea which laps against all the 'countries' where the spirits are manifested in different ways.. Santería, Candomblé and the Voudoun of  Haiti and the Voodoo of Louisiana.

Louisiana where the USA has detained Palestine born Mahmoud Khalil, and Guyana born Melissa Atwell who have both been protesting in different ways against colonialism and the legacies of  colonialism, detained with others who have had to endure the other legacies of colonialism and capitalism which found them in the USA.

There is a warm, blue ceramic piece from Lisa Thompson , a vessel with waves, the Ocean across from the paintings which inspire the spirits and the complexities of the sea.

Thinking of it , where sea and waves can be calming, rejuvenating. Where Ocean in its power can be all accepting, but also rejecting.

The forest , jungle

The man says he is drawn to one of the works depicting the forest. There are different pieces which show the animals, falls and plants of the forest/jungle.  The man explains he is interested in some art piece which will depict his mixed-race family. We did not talk about whether in that search, that the forest , the jungle , painted by someone who looked to be of a different race from him, might be that piece.

And even as we talk about languages amidst the paintings and other works, close to Ogun, me in awe of the woman who in addition to English, knows Spanish, Portuguese and French and does so in a quiet way. We know that in this former land turned forest, all of us here, legacies of colonialism trying to figure out how we be together. 

And that the young man looking for a representation of his mixed-race family and drawn to the forest, maybe we need to start looking outside ourselves as well in this place, around us, and recognise not only our connection to each other but the environment - physical and spiritual around us. One of the legacies of colonialism has been the rejection of the spiritual beliefs of our ancestors, and forming new divisions on colonial spiritual beliefs.

I use my few credits left in the Microsoft Designer AI image generator 'the Orishas, the sea and the jungle' . The AI returns images which have Hindu imagery on them. I check google to see if there are any connections between the  Orisha and Hindus and could not find any which would feed into AI

 

 The credits have run out, and there are so many questions to ask about how the AI algorithms would return. While our deities are different, I  can imagine Alyce Cameron's Ogun as Shakti; and Oshun as Laxmi and  Obatalá as Brahma and Ershu in the mischievous form of Krishna..  But there should be no need in our diverse world to erase any belief or try to superimpose any belief over  another.

And as the Hindu leader tells me again about the One Guyana Phagwah dance up event at the National Stadium, which is far from the Hindu beliefs which many playing with the powder, water and so on do not know about;  

And wondering how that desecration could be replaced instead of the celebration of the young man who seeking his own version of 'oneness' and being drawn to the forest; and the gaze of the woman Ogun.