admin, Author at National Art Gallery of The Bahamas

Summer Camp ends on a festive note: MMASC Exhibition and Awards Ceremony held at the NAGB

14 August 2019 Highlights

By Katrina Cartwright. On the evening of Thursday, August 1st, 2019 the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas welcomed over 250 individuals to the exhibition opening reception and awards ceremony for its annual Mixed Media Art Summer Camp (MMASC). Attendees were comprised of MMASC campers and camp counsellors, their families and friends, NAGB supporters and staff who all came out to support our young budding creatives who spent 2-4 weeks during the month of July working hard to create one-of-kind artworks that spoke to the camp’s theme “Parading through the Caribbean.” Although the weather was determined to put a damper on the celebration of a major accomplishment for the campers, it could not quell their excitement and joy and the pride of their supporters. Patient parents and friends squeezed into the hot and humid confines of the NAGB’s upper veranda and clapped loudly when awards were distributed and short performances by campers and counsellors were done.

Blank Canvas: August 14th 2019, Kim Smith and Andrew Ash

14 August 2019 Podcasts

This episode of Blank Canvas, Amanda Coulson, NAGB Executive Director, speaks with Kim Smith and Andrew Ash from The Place For Art on Village Road.

The Visual Life Of Social Affliction: Structures of Violence in the Caribbean

13 August 2019 Articles

Structural violence is rife and regionwide. At least we are here, even if we may be. In Bahamian artist Blue Curry’s “The New Riviera”(2014), we are not even here. This erasure of us from the scene is yet another form of unperceived structural violence, as we can also see in Curry’s “Nassau From Above” (2004).

From the Collection: “Poor Man’s Orchid” (1989) by Sue Bennett-Williams

12 August 2019 Articles

By Natalie Willis. a portal into the practice of a dedicated educator. The 19th Century marked a period in Britain known as Orchidelirium. Not entirely unlike the Dutch tulip fever, this flower-frenzy was a mad scramble for the exotic, elusive orchid. They became connotative as a symbol of wealth, prestige and knowledge, of the affluence required to secure these items from far-off lands. Sue Bennett Williams’ “Poor Man’s Orchid” (1989) is no such thing and no less beautiful.

Blank Canvas: August 7th, 2019, Walteria Tucker-Rolle, Heino Schmid and Keisha Oliver

8 August 2019 Podcasts

On tonight’s “Blank Canvas” we are talking about the exciting new initiative between the NAGB and the University of The Bahamas (UB). The NAGB and UB recently signed a memo of understanding allowing for greater and closer collaboration.

Finding Our Voices: Resisting Violence and Oppression

7 August 2019 Articles

By Dr Ian Bethell Bennett, The University of The Bahamas. “I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.” – Hamlet, II.ii. Is it a bad dream, a nightmare provoking somnambulance? We all think the best of green gentrification because we have been taught, in spite of the climate sceptics, we need to do something to improve our resilience. We are also told by the media that while people know about climate change and the havoc it plays in their neighbourhoods, jobs are more important because many of us are one paycheque away from poverty.

From the Collection: Jolyon Smith’s “Transformation” (1987) and imagining Black Bahamian futures

6 August 2019 Articles

By Natalie Willis. Jolyon Smith’s Transformation (1987) is one of the first works collected for the National Collection at the NAGB, shown in the Inaugural National Exhibition or the INE. To have a work that appears so afrofuturist in its aesthetic speaks volumes for the genre and also for the nascent years of the NAGB in thinking what a National Collection could and should look like. What does a Black future look like, and a Bahamian one at that?

Blank Canvas: July 31st, 2019, Women’s Wednesdays

2 August 2019 Podcasts

On tonight’s “Blank Canvas,” we shine a spotlight on “Women’s Wednesdays,” an initiative initiated by Equality Bahamas and is supported by the NAGB. The event has been hosted once per month on our campus for nearly two years. “Women’s Wednesdays” was founded as a response to community members’ requests for a space to access resources, experts, and practitioners, share knowledge, and engage in conversation with one another.

NAGB Announces Departure of Chief Curator, Holly Bynoe

1 August 2019 News

Diana Lynn Sands August 1st, 2019 The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas (NAGB) –a world-class museum that collects, preserves,

Designing for Space: Working with Possible Futures in Mind

30 July 2019 Articles

By Dr Ian Bethell Bennett,The University of The Bahamas. Colonialism and coloniality in design occur when little is left of the past to remind us of the physical reality. On a recent trip to Cape Town, I had the pleasure of enjoying two spectacular spaces of art and design that showed how important it is to think through purpose and landscape and how the beauty of both can be made functional in the spaces created. I had the pleasure of stumbling into a nursery that doubled as an apparent antiquarian. The space was large and well-designed with room to breathe. Form and purpose combined with the art of design to speak to concepts of natural beauty, much like the wave design at the London Aquatic Centre at Stratford designed by Zaha Hadid especially for the 2012 Olympic games and constructed by Balfour Beaty; the perfect example of form, design and purpose merging and blurring lines of functionality and beauty.