Curating Memory: Art, Healing, and Women’s Stories
This episode explores the relationship between art, memory, and healing through a deeply reflective conversation with curator and artist Nimah Muwakil-Zukari.
Beginning with a meditation on imagination as a form of possibility, Nimah traces how her early life—shaped by parents who chose unconventional paths—formed her understanding of creativity as both practice and worldview. She reflects on her journey into curatorial work, including her training in Cuba, and how that experience reshaped her understanding of Caribbean identity, resistance, and cultural sovereignty.
The conversation moves into the politics of curation—particularly the underrepresentation of women artists, the institutional constraints of museums, and the emotional labour embedded in cultural work. Nimah speaks candidly about the tensions women face in sustaining creative practice, and the ways societal expectations interrupt artistic continuity.
A central thread in the episode is the question of what it means to curate memory with care. Nimah challenges colonial approaches to archiving and calls for community-based, intergenerational forms of remembering—spaces where stories are not only preserved, but lived, shared, and transmitted.
What this Episode Offers
A reflection on art as a practice of imagination, memory, and healing
Insight into how early life experiences shape creative and intellectual formation
An exploration of the structural marginalisation of women artists in Caribbean contexts
A nuanced understanding of museums as spaces of “soft power” and public dialogue
A challenge to colonial models of archiving and knowledge preservation
A call toward community-based, intergenerational archives rooted in care and relationship
Reflection on how everyday life becomes a form of curation and legacy-making
An invitation to think differently about what we preserve, and who we preserve it for
References & Resources
Websites: https://artbytheriver.art/
https://www.instagram.com/art.by.the.river/
hooks, b. (1995). Art on my mind: Visual politics. The New Press.
Institutions and Organisations
National Museum and Art Gallery of Trinidad and Tobago — national collection; site of the Sybil Atteck centenary exhibition and the national digitisation project discussed in the episode.
Central Bank Museum, Trinidad and Tobago — where Nimah currently works as curator; free entry; post-pandemic focus on community dialogue and public programming.
Trinidad and Tobago Alliance of Museums — newly formalised network of museums across T&T, majority non-governmental; worth following for updates on community-based heritage work.
Tamana Mountain Chocolate Museum — cited as an example of community-rooted, intergenerational heritage work; preserving cocoa varieties, agricultural knowledge, and cultural memory.
Lopinot Heritage Site and Museum — mentioned as another example of community-based archiving.
Trinidad Art Society — founded 1936; one of the oldest visual arts organisations in the region.
