Constraints to the growth of Guyana’s art and craft industry have, over the years, included lack of access to funding for capacity building, scarcity of raw materials and weak and largely ineffective international marketing. In 2007 the staging of matches in the Cricket World Cup in Guyana raised hopes for increased sales and, more significantly, the creation of a global platform for the marketing of local craft through the elaborate media mechanisms afforded by the event. Cricket World Cup came and went without the local art and craft industry securing any meaningful gains.
There are several reasons why the promise afforded by Cricket World Cup failed to materialize. First, the industry itself, lacking as it is any structure and organization, was really in no position to respond adequately to the opportunity. Secondly, such opportunity as existed was heavily constrained by the conditionalities imposed on local art and craft producers seeking to have their creations designated official CWC souvenirs. In fact, one of the criticisms leveled at those conditionalities by local art and craft producers was that they were too expensive and cumbersome and that they discriminated against the mostly small producers in the sector who were really not equipped either to produce the quantities of items – and in some cases to offer the quality – to meet the demands of Cricket World Cup Inc. or to meet the costs associated with having their work designated official CWC souvenirs.
In the end the limitations of the local (and regional) art and craft industry were cruelly exploited by a profusion of imports, mostly from China which circumvented the thicket of regulations imposed by Cricket World Cup Inc and were simply tagged with faked official tags and sold in Guyana and elsewhere. The upshot was that an opportunity that ought correctly to have worked to the advantage of producers in the industry served to benefit a handful of traders who knew little and cared even less about Cricket World Cup Inc. and its regulations.
Had there been any serious post-event assessment of the outcomes of Cricket World Cup from the standpoint of this missed opportunity it would have been discovered that here in Guyana neither the government nor the art and craft industry itself ever took the trouble to undertake any purposeful advance planning designed to ensure that the industry secure the benefits afforded by Cricket World Cup. Indeed, long before the event even began the vast majority of local producers had lost whatever faith they may have had in the opportunity and written it off as yet another disappointment. The craftspeople had pinned their hopes on the local CWC Secretariat for various forms of institutional backing and on the commercial banking sector for some measure of financial support. Neither option materialized to any significant degree. Few locally produced items made the grade as official CWC souvenirs and as far as we are aware none of the producers secured any significant financial returns for their efforts.
The story, of course, is a familiar one. With a handful of exceptions, the local art and craft sector has remained anchored firmly at cottage industry status, a circumstance that has robbed the industry as a whole and indigenous craftsmen and women, particularly, of the opportunity to reap meaningful material rewards or to enable the international popularization of their culture through the marketing of their handiwork.
Marketing, of course, has been one of the primary problems of the industry. Most producers admit that they possess neither the competence nor the funding to undertake effective marketing and efforts by government to support the international marketing of art and craft have been limited mostly to sporadic support for visits by individuals and groups of craftspeople to some international trade fairs. In those cases only a handful of items have been on display while the relevant persistent and costly follow-up necessary to create real demand for these products has not materialized.
There is no questioning the exceptional talent that has emerged from the local art and craft industry. Indigenous art and craft, particularly, is highly regarded both in the region and in North America and Europe and there are a few examples of producers of indigenous craft who continue to benefit from limited external market opportunities. At the local level the benefits for the industry have been limited to the accolades bestowed on the quality of the products rather than from any real sales success. At GuyExpo, for example, local craft never fails to secure salutary public reviews. Ask any producer, however, about their financial gains from the event and you are unlikely to get a single response that reports meaningful success.
The announcement that President Bharrat Jagdeo has agreed to a ‘summit’ with local art and craft producers on September 18 is welcome news for an industry that has received far less official support over the years than it has merited. Add to that the fact that the Guyana Art and Craft Producers Association has now secured the ‘go ahead’ from government to utilize a state building as a secretariat and display centre and it appears that government may at last have decided to commit itself with a greater measure of enthusiasm to the growth and development of the art and craft industry. These recent developments represent a belated nonetheless welcome recognition on the part of government of the nexus between building a viable art and craft industry and creating a worthwhile tourist industry.
Understandably, the GACPA regards these developments as perhaps the single biggest breakthrough for the sector since it provides local producers with the opportunity to engage the various stakeholders – banks, hotels, airlines et al – and, crucially, the President and other government officials on issues that have bearing on the enhancement of the sector. Issues like marketing, training and technology related to the qualitative improvement of the industry and to the multiple production of high quality creations that can secure and maintain a place on the international market are likely to arise and it is up to the craft producers to use the forum to make an effective case for the industry.
Previous experience has shown that while the industry comprises mostly a number of small, independent producers the level of its dependency on government remains far too high and what is hoped is that the engagement at the ‘summit’ does not conclude with an even greater level of dependency. What is needed is for government to create both the opportunity and the space in which the art and craft industry can thrive and the forum also provides a worthwhile opportunity for the private sector, particularly the banking sector, to demonstrate a measure of faith and confidence in the industry.
