Briheda Haylock
Briheda Haylock was born on December 28, 1990, in Belize. Haylock made her trailblazing entrance into the visual arts community in 2012, with artist Ruhiel Trejo, the art exhibition ‘Society Killed the Teenager’ challenging their society's social oppression, individualism and politics. Haylock developed her voice in the community as bold, provocative, and controversial with a healing psychological twist looking at individualism, gender-based violence, and making a stance for the LGBTQIA+ community, of which she is also a member.
Since her debut, Haylock has done numerous shows, solo, and collective. Haylock has been continuously active in promoting the contemporary art scene in Belize as well as curating art shows for NGOs such as Special Envoy for Children and Women and UNIBAM. ‘Milestone’ (2014)helped highlight the most prolific women in Belize. ‘My Story’ aided with the Humanization of the LGBTQIA+ community with the show, My Story (2015).
Haylock was also a part of a small editorial team Baffu E-Magazine (2014-2016) that highlighted the contemporary visual artist, and poets in Belize and documented the culture of Belize. Her visual pieces and poetry were featured in the publication. Haylock is also a member and a co-founder of Belize Women Art Collective (BWAC), an art group geared to promoting women artists in Belize. In 2016 Haylock was listed as one of the top 14 women who has an influential voice in her Belizean society.
While Haylock is widely known for her visual arts presence, she also has a presence in the poetry community starting at a young age. In 2006 her poem Word of Anger Which We Speak was published in a small collective Poets R’ Us. Haylock became a member of 501 Spoken word around 2015. She has performed with the group Spoken Word 501, and has a feature in the anthology: Poetic Narcotics. She performed at the event Doh seh It! ( 2018). Her international poetry festival performance was Poesia versus Diferendo, Crea. Puerto Barrios Guatemala (2018) and also participated in 17 Festival Internacional De Poesía De Quetzaltenango, Guatemala,(2021)
Haylock is currently building an international presence, her works have been featured in collective publications such as Bible Belt Queers, in 2019, and Ghost of A Dream in 2021 a global video collective project. She has also been acknowledged in Mexico for her contribution to the Central American performance art scene.