Petrine Archer-Straw

Who was Petrine Archer-Straw?

Petrine Archer-Straw was an artist and influential art historian and curator who specialized in the art of the Caribbeans. In the words of Eddie Chambers: "In her work as an artist, academic, art historian, writer and curator, Archer-Straw consistently challenged the prevailing orthodoxies that treat Caribbean artists and cultural practice in geographical, racial and artistic isolation. In essence, her position was that we cannot fully understand or appreciate the practice of Caribbean artists without due consideration of broader factors such as migration, history, identity and, above all diaspora – the scattering of many black people beyond their ancestral homeland of Africa."