By Alim Hosein
Alim A. Hosein is Dean of Education and Humanities at the University of Guyana; a linguist, literary and art critic, artist, member of the Management Committee of the Guyana Prize for Literature and Coordinator of the Guyana Visual Arts Competition and Exhibition (GVACE)
The Awards ceremony held on December 17 at the National Cultural Centre brought an end to the public events in the 2014 Guyana Visual Arts Competition and Exhibition. This ceremony was followed on the same evening by the opening of the exhibition of entries, which will continue until January 31, 2015 at Castellani House.
While the GVACE sees itself as part of the long history of national art competitions and exhibitions in Guyana dating back to the start of the 1930s, it is also a very new competition in the sense that it is taking place in a new era and so faces new challenges. For one thing, the national climate for art is much different today. The social conditions are also different, and artists have different expectations. There is a wider range of artists: professionals, pot-boilers, students, teachers, art lovers, persons creating art at home, artistically-inclined people, among others. There is a very different economic environment and
