Un | Fixed Homeland
Artists Explore the Guyanese Experience of Migration
Grace Aneiza Ali , Guest Curator
One of the most defining movements of our time is global migration . Few of us remain untouched by its sweeping narrative . For those who have left one place for another , fueled by choice or trauma , sustaining the vulnerable threads to homeland is at once beautiful , fraught , disruptive , and evolving .
Guyana is a country of migrations . In 1995 , my family emigrated from Guyana to the United States . We became part of what seemed like a mythical diaspora — an estimated one million Guyanese citizens living around the globe while the country itself has a population of around 760,000 . 1 In other words , my homeland is one where more people live outside its borders than within it .
Making the journey with us were a handful of photographs chronicling our life . Owning photographs was an act of privilege ; they stood among our most valuable possessions . There were no negatives , no jpegs , no double copies — just originals . Decades later , these photographs serve as a tangible connection to a homeland left behind . Many of them are taken at Guyana ’ s airport during the 1980s and 1990s when we often bade farewell to yet another emigrating family member . Guyana , the only English-speaking country in South America , celebrates its fiftieth anniversary of independence from the British this year . Yet , the last five decades have been defined by an extraordinary ebb and flow of its citizens .
What then does it mean to have a homeland that is no longer home ? This question underscores Un | Fixed Homeland . The thirteen artists of Guyanese heritage explore how a homeland can be both fixed and unfixed , a constantly shifting idea and memory , a physical place and a psychic space .
The photographic medium has historically played a critical role in how as a society we see and editorialize narratives of migration . To explore this relationship between photography and migration , the artists employ innovative use of several photographic mediums — the archival image of British Guiana , contemporary photography on present-day Guyana , self-portraiture , studio portraiture , painted photographs , passport photos , family albums , selfies , photography in video installations , and the documentary format , among others . Through their engagement with these photographic mediums , the artists
Hew Locke Rose Hall ( detail ), 2014 ( see page 61 )
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