Dear Editor
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Guyana United Artists (GUA). The organization was once made up of 36 prominent Guyanese artists. Many of whom have since died and many others have migrated. Only a few hardcore Guyanese Artists remain, desperately struggling to survive. Men and women who have given well over 4 decades of dedicated service to our country both in Guyana and the world over. They have in their time contributed to the Treasury of Guyanese Art.
The following is a statement made by then Curator of the National Gallery Ms. Elfrieda Bissember in August, 2012: “Despite or because of the many shifts and trends that have taken hold in Guyanese Society and the wider international community in recent years, the Guyana United Artists have remained true to their founding aims and reflected these changes in the range of themes under which they have presented their frequent exhibitions over the past fifteen years of their existence. Indeed the underlying instincts and causes of this group’s formation have always been and remain those of social transformation and change for the betterment of society…This was a remarkably simple but articulate expression of commendable ideals, and a bold move of optimism in a stringent economic climate where tourist-based or national habits of purchase and collection were hardly in evidence and are still now only slowly taking root. Challenges have therefore led to shifting fortunes and fluctuating membership of the group, but founder Alli and a diehard group of co-exhibitors, usually with a regular yearly showing, have made a timely appearance at critical points and places on the contemporary scene and must be recognized for the importance of the ideal of National Unity that they seek to keep alive, as daily and national life remains buffed by challenges and upheavals.
“At the time of their founding, another initiative was undertaken, commendably imaginative and courageous yet simple, given the group’s limited means but abundant commitment to the ideals: a series of ‘Unity Marches’ embarked on by members in efforts to promote their message, walks from Georgetown to various towns and centers throughout Guyana, from the West Bank of Demerara to East Coast Villages, further to New Amsterdam and Corentyne, and inland to Linden, between June 1996 and December 1997. It must be added finally that in 1995, before formally launching the GUA, Desmond Alli had been given permission to build and install his ‘Monument to National Unity’, the centerpiece of his ‘Monument to National Unity and Regional Integration’, on the lawns of the gallery premises at Castellani House, dedicated towards the promotion of peace, justice, racial harmony and cultural relations between Guyana, the people of the Caribbean and the Americas. He was later given approval for the addition of two further columns at the site, though this project was subsequently stalled after the severe flooding in Georgetown in January 2005.
“This was however a worthy cause and a pioneering message which the National Gallery was happy to support, nearly two decades ago, even as it has continued to encourage and support, at the National Gallery and elsewhere, the GUA’s causes and their underlying message of Unity and enrichment through art for Guyanese Artists and the wider society. It is a message that is perennially relevant, and one which we once again join them in presenting today.”
In 2018, the GUA was selected as a recipient of the prestigious Guyana Cultural Association Award Brooklyn New York, for its definitive work in the pursuit of the Nobel Ideal of Uniting Guyanese by way of the Creative Arts and the Promotion of Universal Peace and Harmony. There will be a number of activities to mark the occasion. A vigil on the Square of the Revolution on Art and the Environment ‘Save the Earth’, and in Main Street Georgetown the launching of the GUA Booklet. The highlight of the events will be a vigil at the United Nations Headquarters on the eve of the 42nd Anniversary of the Imposition of the fraudulent 1980 constitution.
Sincerely,
Desmond Alli
General Secretary
Guyana United Artists (GUA)
