- Norman GrindleyAn old tailor's iron used by Caribbean women in their daily domestic routines on the plantations and even after Emancipation.
Georgia Hemmings, Staff Reporter
WOMEN as proud, courageous, confident and independent. Women as slave labourers, peasant producers and bread-winners. Women as rebels and protesters, warriors and survivors. Women, actively or passively, singly or in groups. Women as creators and preservers of a region's history and culture.
These are the powerful images of women portrayed in the exhibition "Caribbean Woman: Labour and Resistance" currently on at the African-Caribbean Institute of Jamaica/Jamaica Memory Bank (ACIJ/JMB) in the downtown Kingston Mall.
A mainly poster exhibition, it is designed to highlight the role of women in the economy and struggles of the Caribbean and their contribution to nation-building, an aspect that is usually hidden in the portrayal of women in history books. It spans the period from early Ameridians and Tainos to slavery and emancipation, and also highlights women who were active in social movements in the region and abroad between 1970s to 1990s. In the main exhibition hall, the information is presented through photographs, drawings and posters, and covers areas such as social development and social challenges.
Here one can see the Caribbean woman as unpaid house/domestic slaves and sugar cane workers. Details of their lifestyles, family life and market activities are provided; and on display, too, are the different forms of punishment and torture used for discipline - from the branding iron to the punishment necklace.
The stark images show, too, that even beyond Emancipation, women still continue as under-paid agricultural field workers, peasant producers, and construction stone-breakers.
Room two focuses on the socio-political contributions made by women during the 20th century up to 1980, and includes revolutionary Caribbean women such as Nanny of the Maroons, Phyllis Coard of Grenada, and Clementine Serra of Cuba.
Whether in guerrilla warfare in Nicaragua, in riots and demonstrations in London; whether labouring in factories or teaching in classrooms, whether self-employed or in small-scale manufacturing or agriculture, the importance of women in the creation and maintenance of society is underscored.
And, like the Caribbean region itself, it is women of all classes, colours and creeds who are depicted (African, Asian, poor whites, etc), reflecting the plurality of the wider society.
The show is complemented by objects from the ACIJ's African collection which add an interesting dimension, including old tailor irons, wash boards, sewing machine, 'yabba' pot, grater, and mortar.
The catalogue points out that the subjects of the exhibition are "ordinary" Caribbean women portrayed in their everyday labours. Not that there aren't any "eminent" persons, but so far as these can be "clearly shown to have been involved positively in the resistance of Caribbean people against "downpression" in all forms."
But, as the organisers warned, the "visual images of these women were rarely created by themselves. Consequently the pictures that have come down to us are deeply distorted - by racism, sexism, imperialism, slavery and exoticism."
Nevertheless, the exhibit strives to show the contribution of women as equal to the part played by her sons, fathers, brothers and partners, alongside whom she fought and died.
The posters in this exhibition are a fraction of an original 117-piece presentation organised by Cecil Gutzmore and Lance Watson for the Garvey-Rodney Visual History Archive and the Caribbean Visual History Resources Project, while at the University of London.
Today, as a board member of the ACIJ/JMB, Mr. Gutzmore does not wish the Caribbean woman's contribution in labour and resistance to be forgotten, hence the staging of this exhibition, in collaboration with the Institute.
The show is the latest in the series of exhibitions organised this year by the ACIJ/JMB to coincide with the curricula in secondary schools, especially relating to social studies.
In fact, acting ACIJ/JMB director, David Brown, said it was timely in this 40th year of Independence as the country reflected on its Afro-Caribbean heritage and ancestry.
"It is not a question of whether women contributed to economic and social change, it's recognition of the magnitude of that contribution," he told The Sunday Gleaner. "And this exhibition gives a voice and representation of that contribution, that woman power."
"Caribbean Women: Labour and Resistance" is scheduled to run until October 22. Viewing hours are Monday to Thursday, 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
