Event

The Institute for Gender and Development Studies (IGDS) presents the IGDS Lunchtime Seminar Series starting with a presentation by Nimah Muwakil-Zakuri, Art Historian on the topic, Woman, Art and Nation: Re-presentation Post-Independence (1962-1986).

This event takes place at noon. Please feel free to bring your lunch.

For more information, please contact IGDS: at 662 2002 exts. 83573/83577 or email: igds@sta.uwi.edu or visit their Facebook Page by clicking here.

About the presentation

During the colonial period the Caribbean was a site where, apart from corporal restriction and regulation, control was exerted through several mechanisms of documentary culture including photography, travel writing and various forms of the plastic arts. This research focuses on the arts (paintings and drawings) and I specifically deal with the image of the woman because it was precisely her image that was appropriated to contrast bodies with other bodies as a methodology for inculcating difference; as well as to promote the New World as an idyllic and exotic location ripe for exploitation.

This study offers a primarily feminist intervention in the history of art of Trinidad and Tobago over arguably the most formative years of its development as a nation. The era in question is between 1836 and 1986. It is further broken down into three periods, namely colonial, pre-independence and post-independence. In it I attempt to uncover how notions of femininity were discursively constructed, developed and translated over time through visual art practice locally. Mainly through feminist and post-colonial theoretical approaches, selected works are analysed with the aim of locating the specific characteristics/tropes used in representing women in Trinidad and Tobago during the colonial period and determining whether there was a continuation of these visual strategies by subsequent artists in the periods leading up to independence and after.

This presentation focuses on the period post-Independence 1962-1986 and looks at how artists operating in a society that was negotiating ideas of nationhood and self-determination, dealt with the image of the woman in her work.

To view a printable version of this information, please click here.