Dear Editor,

Over the past 15 years, members of the Guyana United Artists have promoted art exhibitions to develop Guyanese awareness of our history and appreciation for Guyana’s cultural diversity under the most difficult circumstances.

In celebrating 15 years since the founding of the organization, the Guyana United Artists has mounted an exhibition at the Museum of African Heritage, located in Barima Avenue, Bel Air Park from January 24 to February 3, 2012. (The museum will be open to visitors from 10am to 3.30pm today.)

The theme of our exhibition is ‘Visions of Freedom,’ and it retraces our history within the region from the destruction of Indigenous civilizations, the introduction of the North Atlantic Slave Trade, resistance against slavery, Emancipation and the struggle against the plantocracy for internal self-government and independence, and the post-Independence struggle.

It is only by way of a comprehensive understanding of the events and the social forces at work that we will be enabled to take our destiny in our hands, and responsibly become the agents of change in the movement towards national unity, and the promotion of the regional integration process.

As creative artists, what we have done is to give our people and leaders a visual image of the past, and have illustrated important dates in Guyanese history that need to be re-examined in charting the way forward.

In recounting the history of the Guyanese struggle, the pre and post-colonial periods, though separated in time and space, have been fused into one to show the interrelationship of events in a society deeply entrenched in the morass of political struggle, economic anarchy, fraud, flight and dissent.

‘Visions of Freedom‘ is an exhibition of cultural resistance, and is guided by the fundamental tenet that the glory and good of art is that it remains an instrument of truth.

Yours faithfully,
Desmond Alli
General Secretary
Guyana United Artists