Women, Art, and Activism in Guyana

Abstract:This curatorial essay explores the dynamic role of Guyanese women artists and their persistence in using the arts to counter dangerous single stories of Guyana. These are women who have labored for their country, women who are in service to a larger vision of what Guyana is, can, and ought to be in the world. While honoring an older generation of Guyanese women, the essay simultaneously highlights a younger generation of Guyanese women across various stages in their artistic practices who have gained newfound power and an emancipatory vision through the arts. As a whole, this younger generation uses their artistic practices to resist a legacy of absence and invisibility of Guyanese women, even while the cadre of contemporary women artists of Guyanese heritage remains relatively under the radar—to both Guyanese people and on the world stage.