Thoughts of a minibus traveller

  (This has been inspired by the image of a big man hugging up a bigger man allegedly at midnight on a moonlight night when they went fishing )   The phone rang and Baba P reached over and saw that it was Papa P calling. He watched the time and cursed.  What the hell he want now? Is 10pm. He was feeling nice and comfy in the matching pajamas that he liked to wear with his family.   All day he had been sitting in an air conditioned room wearing a heavy suit and watching faces on TV screens from other lands and listening to people from other lands who wanted to invest in the company he and PapaP were running, Gudyana.  Papa P had managed to find a way to take over the company and the shareholders. The condition was that Baba P had to become CEO.  Baba P did not mind.  There had been an attempt at a hostile takeover from some shareholders but that did not work out and now Papa P was working to make sure that no more take overs or so. At least  t...

L - from photo by Keno George, R - from photo by Amanda Richards Rat hole "Oh , dat is what we does call de rat hole". .. the women laughed. They were selling on the road. I had the notes from Visions 2018 in my hand and I showed them. I  asked them if they knew about Oxygen Arts Gallery . They said that people had been asking for directions. I explained where it was, on the road over the bridge. The first time I visited , I did not listen to the curator , Karran Sahadeo. Or rather, I did not read the notes properly. I have been preoccupied with encounters where I did not listen , and which I wish I could go back and do over. I am also feeling bad at a mess I created for a client who is a poet and artist , as I have to do over the work for her and pay attention to composition, and lines and spaces though not for photography.  So even though it is raining, I am making the second visit. The photographs are arranged in clusters which are not in genres of portraits, bi...

Oxygen I jumped out of the minibus at the Arch for Industry Road and started walking down. Nice breeze, the road is narrow.  People walking. Three girls pass me and they tell me good afternoon. I pass a man walking his two dogs and he didn't answer me when I said good afternoon. I am looking at some of the houses, old style houses in Industry, there is concrete. Some nice flower gardens. I am looking forward to visiting  the bottom house which Karen Budhram and Michael Griffith have converted into Oxygen Arts Gallery .  The last few days have been rough. This gallery is the nearest art space to where I live, it has good energy. Oxygen Visions  The gallery is the site for Visions 2018. The website describes Visions 2018 as "..the second curated exhibition of its kind organised through independent Guyanese photographers to exhibit works that showcase the unique and diverse people and landscapes of Guyana while using the medium to address important social t...

Night is humid and I wake up sweating when I wish I could just sleep deep forever. Get up to sort out windows, fan. Small moth flies in the net. I am too tired to chase it out the net.. it is not a mosquito or a cockroach. Night is fitful.. have to switch speed on fan, then turn it off.. Sleep comes sometimes.. and I start thinking of the things I will do when I wake up. Night cools down a bit. Moth sits on the same place in the net. I envy the moth, it seems to be asleep. 5am and I am up, relieved the night is over . Moth is still there. Time to get up. I move the net and start shaking it a bit.. lying on the bed and hoping the moth would fly out. I feel a breeze on my the side of my palm. The moth is on my hand. It is not a mosquito , which I could slap.. or a cockroach to chase away and go and run and wash my hands. I lie down and move my hand and the moth walks across the palm. It is a nice few minutes.. I forget everything else and look at the moth.  I turn...

The nude woman looks like she is running away from the photographer in one image - on a bridge which is ruined  , so escape as so many women have found to their detriment in Guyana.  The anonymity a brutal reminder of the judgement passed on women .. you too fat, you too ugly, you too dark, you too tall, you too hairy.. . In another other print at the end of my walk around the island of beautiful photographs on black cloth , the two women at the bottom of the stairway to heaven are positioned in ways that remind me of the pictures of ship holds and the position of bodies imprisoned as slaves. This is perhaps Guyanese culture where heterosexuality and 'natural attraction to females' involves subjugation and domination, and where objectification is constantly reinforced, and where men with 'unnatural attractions to women' remain silent when those use 'natural attraction' to defend violence against women. Visions 2016 is a curated exhibition of photographs...