I'm not much of a planner.

Okay, scratch that.. My social life can never consist of "planning" simply because I don't stick to plans. Sometimes I forget. Most times, I have the simple desire to watch Jane The Virgin in my pyjamas.

Anyway, the moral of this extreme ramble is: for the first time in a very long time, I had planned (strategically) a night out, to see Sarah Knight's exhibition at Medulla Gallery (and even that didn't work, as I had to constantly cancel and reschedule with myself).

Eventually (thankfully), I made it to the last of the last viewing. Medulla Gallery had hosted an artist talk which vehemently filled the room with a pinch of my favoured topics: sex, gender, music, religion, process (why yes, I'm an 'impractical' woman). 

But the true gem of the night lay in the body of work which was nothing short of an ode to the viewer.

The strength of a portrait, to me, lies in its relativity. It becomes less about the subject and more about the viewer. Sarah, this you have achieved. The composition of each piece evoked messages that had foregone personal exploration. Not to mention, I was impressed by the curation of the show as the space adhered to colour palette and meaning of each sub-series: tracing varying points of "pink" whilst contrasting the loudness of the orange to the muted tone of mint green. To me, the traces of pink were heavily symbolic to the stereotypes that women fall under. A patronisation to the stereotype that pink is often regarded as "feminine", or rather a subtle way of celebrating womanhood in and of itself. There were thousands of references to us all; to the Caribbean native, to the Caribbean woman.

Vocal, self-less, independent, diligent, valiant; the woman-ness of a woman, and that's without the prominent factor of being (of the) Caribbean. It's been approximately 11 months since I've started working full-time, and close to a year that I have moved back to Trinidad, and I can't help but be shocked to the many things that have not started, worked, happened.

Before you decide to close this webpage and think that I'm about to bash my homeland, that's not the case. Gender inequality, racism, classism, every '-ism' is everywhere, even in the "oh-so-powerful" countries that we are so quick to glorify. I've come to notice that mentioning these issues seem to be uninteresting to most of my peers. Why do we fall through the cracks of critical discussion? Or feel ashamed to have an opinion on something that is subjective, but often times relevant?

Nevertheless, this post is a kudos to you, Sarah. You have shown me that the art scope has grown within a significant period of time.

I hope we can all support each other in this.