Lynn Parotti, a Bahamian artist, now based in London, is Amanda’s guest on “Blank Canvas” this evening. Parotti’s ancestral family, of Italian marble workers, settled in The Bahamas at the turn of the century and she was brought up close to the land and sea, which is often the subject of her deceptive artworks.
On this week’s Blank Canvas, Amanda Coulson has the great pleasure to converse with renowned Bahamian artist, Max Taylor.
By Natalie Willis. We are not used to seeing ourselves outside of the lens of tourism as Bahamians. This is troublesome for a newly-independent nation not yet 50 years old, and with 200 years of tourism weighing in above our heads. The decolonial work of imaging ourselves as Bahamians (particularly as Black Bahamians) is slow-going but gaining more visibility. The representation for many of our Black non-Bahamian people of this nation is in a more dire state. These observations and lines of questioning are brought to the forefront in Kachelle Knowles’ delicate and tenderly draughted portraits of the Black Bahamian man in her body of work for “Bahamian Man Since Time,” which recently closed in the NAGB’s Project Space. In the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian and its painful shifts and turns – and in the museum’s efforts to respond appropriately to hurricane efforts, we wanted to share some words on the exhibition as it became the site of a donation centre for Equality Bahamas and Lend-A-Hand Bahamas. These works were the backdrop to so many of your efforts to assist and to be supported.
By Zearier E. Munroe. Exploring art materials with therapeutic thinking. Dorian was the most unnatural of natural disasters to batter this country. The hardest hit islands of Abaco and Grand Bahama will be recovering for years, but they won’t have to do it alone. In the days and weeks following the storm, the power of community and the outpouring of financial, emotional and spiritual support for those affected has been the very epitome of “Bahamas Strong.” And, in this moment of physical and emotional turmoil, the value of a safe space cannot be calculated. Understanding this, the education team at The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas (NAGB) partnered with the incomparable Art Psychotherapist, Susan Moir Mackay, a former resident of Grand Bahama for twenty years. The result of this partnership was Create Space under NAGB’s We Gatchu!: Sanctuary After The Storm initiative. The aim of Create Space was to designate and design areas where participants could explore art materials in a therapeutic way. We prioritised the creation of this space within the shelters, while we reaffirmed the availability of the NAGB property as a haven for all who are in need. As it has long been the mission of the NAGB to use the sanctuary of its halls to uplift and inspire through art.
By Holly Bynoe
September 1, 2019…the day that the sky opened up and tried to swallow a country.
– Bernard Ferguson. Hurricane Dorian Was a Climate Injustice. New Yorker, September 2019
The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas acknowledges the dawning of a new chapter in our country’s history after the passage of Hurricane Dorian. Collectively we have made a decision to suspend our planned exhibition for the end of the year and rather, extend an open call to our creative community to start a larger conversation on the personal and collective impacts after the passage of the storm. This new era has led us to explore the mission of the NAGB even further and what it means to be a socially responsible institution in the age of climate crisis. We are a population on ground zero of this transformation, and as we work to regroup, reconcile and rebuild–now and into the future–the NAGB commits to providing safe space for all who rise within the nation’s borders to heal, to be seen and heard through creating.
Bahamian and Caribbean artists from all genres are coming together to uplift The Bahamas through hurricane relief efforts post-Dorian.
By Kevanté A.C. Cash, NAGB Correspondent. It seems as though visual artist and muralist Angelika Wallace-Whitfield may have been foreshadowing with her Ninth National Exhibition (NE9) public art project: “Hope Is A Weapon.” During these trying times, the words that the artist penned to elaborate on the work finds us at a convenient moment and feels all too real. Much like the pressing issue placed on the backs of our nation’s leaders, Bahamians who have not been severely affected by the storm and the global world who is watching.
We cannot go back to how things were. Our world, and our Bahamas, was changed forever. How we move forward,
On this week’s “Blank Canvas” we’ll be talking about art therapy and how that can heal us in the difficult days after Hurricane Dorian. As part of the NAGB”s “We Gatchu: Sanctuary After the Storm” initiative, the NAGB Education team, with art therapist Susan Moir Mackay, facilitated “Create Space.” These specialised art sessions are designed to release emotions or find quietness. Working with art materials after a crisis can be an excellent tool for restoring a sense of safety, connection and rebuilding agency and grounding for individuals and communities.
As Dorian’s wake remains with us, do we have time to consider the indigenous, traditional knowledge of the Abacos? Abaco, similar to Inagua and Crooked Island in the south, and even Bimini in the North, has dealt with its share of natural disasters and man-made shocks. Its people are deeply connected to their lifeways and arts.
By Natalie Willis. Landmarks are such a common way to give directions we often think nothing of it. In some cities it could be the tallest building, in most, it was historically a cathedral as it was in old Nassau, and in others still an old water tower. Landmarks hold significance, they become a fixed point of reference that we navigate around or through, often in the periphery just so that your little satellite of a body knows where it is in relation to this sentinel. Heino Schmid’s video artwork “North Star” (2007-8), first shown as part of NE4, the Fourth National Exhibition back in 2008, gives us a moment to consider the significance of having the imposing and distinctive structure of the Atlantis hotel as a marker within our landscape.