Guna Yala Artist Research Residency

My name is Sarah Cunningham and I am a contemporary artist living in Nottingham with a studio at Backlit Gallery.

It is with great honor to announce that I have recently been selected for a research residency by La Wayaka Current, an artist-led non profit initiative, where I will be living and working with an indigenous group in Latin America, Panama, for three weeks this September, in collaboration with Guna Yala Indigenous Province. This is a life changing opportunity for me to explore pressing environmental and socio-political issues of our time in one of the richest biomes on this earth.

Throughout my residency I will be delivering a series of workshops and biography sessions with the indigenous community, the Gunas, and learning about the significant threats to their habitat, resources, tropical forests and coastal marine ecosystems.

Guna communities have long been recognised for protecting the forests along their coastline; despite significant threats from farming and industrial logging, they are proven protectors of their ancestral forests. One of the key ways in which the Gunas have protected their forests is by having sacred areas, which are mainly primary forest. Today they face uncertainty over the forests and the sea that surrounds their island homes. The increase in illegal logging and encroachment by luxury vessels and at times irresponsible tourism threatens the long term viability of their ecosystems. Without the support of the government of Panama and clear rights, they face an increasingly bitter struggle to protect the biodiversity in these forests and waters.

My interest is in the textures and landscapes through which this indigenous community identifies themselves and whether this creates a common memory. Through a series of workshops and biography sessions I will be asking members of the indigenous community to produce descriptions of home and landscape, focusing on ideas of belonging. I will be producing a series of paintings from their descriptions of home upon my return to England. This will be empowering for the community as they then have this record of their history. The project will provide a way of getting the Guna peoples lives into academic work and therefore encouraging this urgent debate.

The residency offers a small amount of financial aid but it is vital for me to raise the rest of the funds to cover my trip, flights, travel, accomodation, food, equipment due to the remote location, materials and funds to go towards the solo exhibition where I will be bringing my experience back to the UK in the form of a series of paintings. I am currently calling out in desperate need of help right now from my family, friends, fellow artists and creatives, anyone who is also passionate about the protection of indigenous peoples.

It is my duty as an artist to do this unique indigenous group a real justice to their ideas of home, their knowledge of the forest and their ideas of belonging and community. Upon my return the series of paintings rhat I will produce, informed by this remote environment, will be exhibited in a solo exhibition and various group exhibitions in the UK next year. For the next year, at least, I will be dedicating my practice to this urgent and valuable debate, whilst presenting reciprocal benefits for this indigenous group through cultural exchange. These paintings will create new landscapes of memory and act as reminders of the significant threats to the Guna's forests and waters, that they are currently facing as a community.

There is a pressing need to protect the rights of indigenous peoples right now. I have finally found a way to raise awareness and to take action by promoting these urgent dialogues, but I am in desperate need of your help for this to work.

Any support would mean the world to me as it would help me in my mission to connect this beautiful remote area of the planet to cities worldwide, at a time when it is under such significant threat.


Any questions, please contact:


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