On tonight’s “Blank Canvas,” Amanda Coulson (NAGB Director, far right) hears from the Bahamian artists who were asked to respond to the video and sound installation, “The Slaves’ Lament” by Scottish artist, Graham Fagen, which is currently showing at the NAGB in the exhibition entitled “We Suffer to Remain.”
From left to right: Sonia Farmer, author, artist and publisher, currenlty completing her MFA in Book Arts at the University of Iowa, talks about her artwork “A True & Exact History”—an unbound book in a series of paper panels that are installed in formation on the gallery walls—inspired during a residency at Fresh Milk Platform, Barbados, and inspired by and created through the act of erasure on the text of a book published in 1657.
Anina Major, artist and professor at the Pratt Institute in New York and the artist-in-residence at the Flowers City Art Centre, NY, addresses her sculptural works—made of strong but fragile materials (glass and ceramics), which reflect the strenght but fragility of enslaved peoples and the histories still borne in their bodies and their nation’s histories.
John Beadle, artist and Junkanooer, discusses his deeply conflicted feelings about Fagen’s work and his idea to disrupt it, by using elements of his Junkanoo practise brought into his fine art practise, through his monumental cardboard figure silhouettes and a soon-to-be-realised sound piece, using a cowbell, that will be on display in the NAGB PS Room (Project Space) in May.
All works can be seen in “We Suffer to Remain” at the NAGB through July 22nd, 2018. Blank Canvas airs every Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. on Guardian Talk Radio, 96.9 FM.
