Un|Fixed Homeland, Aljira Center for Contemporary Art, 2016 Catalog: Un|Fixed Homeland | Page 27

commonwealth countries , and full rights of entry and settlement in Britain . Throughout the 1950s and 1960s , many ambitious dreamers took advantage of the 1948 Act and began making their way to England , becoming part of what was known as the “ Windrush Generation ” ( the first significant group of Caribbean immigrants to arrive in Britain in the 1950s ).
At the time , there was no university in the colony . A desire for professional and economic advancement inevitably meant emigration . The early 1950s would become a period rife with intense political unrest as the movement towards gaining independence became more forceful . In April , 1953 the colony had undergone its first democratic election and yet it would take another thirteen volatile years , marked by highly oppressive policies by the elected government , before gaining independence in 1966 . Many did not wait and orchestrated their own independence . In the 1970s and 1980s , another movement of emigration unfolded as Guyanese began shifting to Canada and the United States . In fact , by 2001 , Toronto emerged as a prominent node in the Caribbean diaspora as one of the largest and oldest Guyanese populations outside of Guyana . Similarly , in New York City , Guyanese immigrants make up the city ’ s fifth largest immigrant population .
through their parents ’ migration narratives . These thirteen artists reflect the reality of the country ’ s diaspora ; artists working in Guyana , as well as those living in five metropolitan cities — Boston , Los Angeles , New York , London , and Toronto . Together , they bring to bear diverse and inter-generational perspectives of Guyanese experiences of migration .
Yet , the exhibition does not rest solely on artists gazing back from an outsider distance . It is instead a dynamic exploration of the artists ’ encounters , departures , returns , absences , and reunions . Un | Fixed Homeland also examines the other side of the spectrum of the migration story , and perhaps one of the more lesser told narratives — the points of view of those who are left behind . Like my family who made frequent trips to the airport to bid farewell to loved ones , the Guyanese citizen is a witness to constant acts of emigration — friends and family leaving for “ another land , for gain and training … good dollars and education ,” as the artist Kwesi Abbensetts poignantly puts it . With an intimate understanding of this liminal space of leaving and returning , through their work the artists represent the ones who leave and the ones who are left .
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