The unknown at the art exhibition in Guyana 2026..

Section of Birth of Kaieteur by Ohene Koama (2024)

 

Unknown 

The entrance to the gallery frames a piece with orange overtones and some bright circles. There is no label. I thought maybe that it was a deliberate act of the artist.

I asked and it seems the organisers of the Burrowes School of Art 50th Anniversary exhibition at Castellani House could not find the information. 

Was the information lost in the web created by the insecurity of the leaders who cannot trust their technical staff ?  

There is no catalog, and nothing really which says anything about the story of the ER Burrowes School of Art, which perhaps says a lot about Guyana 2026. (The linked news article has more information)

Unknown here probably linked to the oil flowing over the past, seeming to wipe out history and limiting how history and culture are important as we actually move through this unknown future created by oily wealth derived from killing girls and adults in Iran and which is going to fuel wars and to survive wars.. 

Metropolis

Section of Nostalgia by Beverly Reynolds

 

Section of From Roots to Metropolis by Elodie Cage-Smith (2023)

"Be kind' was the mantra from an event in the National Library talking about recovering from child sexual abuse and helping to break the silence of boys (and men) who have survived.

Kindness though reducing in the oiliness though ,  as cars and motorbikes push pedestrians to the sand (or mud) on pavement less roads and road rage escalates and as a visitor asks.. 'why is there so much anger here?"

So thinking of the artists and the teachers and the others in the Burrowes History.. are the organisers kind to them in the way they have organised the exhibition? 

Does the oil richness mean suppressing the labels and catalogues for the art exhibitions, unless people fight to assert themselves and their place in the present and future of Guyana?  

It is nice to wander among the paintings and other pieces of work and imagine the names for those without work. Some of the paintings have a kind of path, inviting you in and so I imagine the walk into the future of tall buildings shown in two pieces ..

 And see an ordinary wooden fence separating me and watching out at what could be tall wooden uildings .. and sometimes in Guyana that is how you feel now, excluded from the 'development' ...  

 

Section of Structure III by Ohene Koama

Pathways

 

Section of Another Pathway by Nicole Bissoo-Williams

Section of  Veins of the Forest by Dahlia Peters (1991) - Clay and Glaze

The forest is in the exhibition and there is another piece which invites you to move into a forest , paths which could take you anywhere unless the trees are destroyed. A ceramic shows the veins of the forest, part of the forest, imagining vines as veins which connect. (even as I think of the vines which strangle in my yard)

Ohene Koama's piece about the Birth of Kaieteur.. whistled into being by Makonaima .. there is a presentation about the creation, the imagination of the water crashing to the rocks but not dying as happens with the stories of Old Kaie and others, but reforming, to keep moving.. finding its way

Imagining myself like water.. not crashing and dying on rocks or in making space for tall buildings and big vehicles .. but finding a way..

finding a way..