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Sitting with the Dead: “Medium,” a show of Bahamian Religion and Spirituality

4 December 2017 Articles

By Dr Ian Bethell Bennett. Tie a black piece of cotton around the child’s wrist, Don’t walk outside at night without covering the child’s head, Be careful how you come into the house at night, Wipe your feet off well. Cover the mirrors with cloth, Open the house if the coffin comes by, let the spirit travel through, Rosemary helps keep away bad-minded things… To our mind, these are all local lore.  To many, these are discredited as they are lumped together with Obeah and dismissed as ‘evil, black, Dark and African.’  Our double-consciousness denies the survival or the importance of such cultural elements as Asue, Lodges, Burial Societies, Friendly Societies, all of which allowed our spiritual and physical survival during and after slavery.

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Blank Canvas with Lauren Holowesko and Natascha Vasquez

29 November 2017 Podcasts

It’s an all-female cast in the “Blank Canvas” studio this week. Joining your regular host, NAGB Director Amanda Coulson, are Lauren Holowesko, Director of The Island House boutique hotel on the West End of New Providence (left), and Natascha Vasquez (right), the Creative Arts Programming Manager at The Current, studio and gallery at Bahamar. Natascha is also a painter who is having her first solo show at home in The Bahamas at The Island House this Friday, December 1st.

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Unpacking Identity with Joiri Minaya

24 November 2017 Articles

The sixth iteration of Double Dutch “Re: Encounter,” featuring the works of Dede Brown and Joiri Minaya, starts to address how important it is from a curatorial perspective to provide opportunities for artists, who are looking for ways to mitigate the sense of frustration that they feel within their practice, by allowing a moment to experiment.  The following is the first in a two-part series of long-form Q+As that seeks to expand upon both projects. We connect with Joiri Minaya, a Dominican-American multi-disciplinary artist whose work deals with identity, otherness, self-consciousness and displacement.

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Blank Canvas with Pierre Richard Parsien, Pam Burnside, and Holly Bynoe

22 November 2017 Playback, Podcasts

On this week’s “Blank Canvas,” we have the opportunity to learn more about the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and their activities in The Bahamas and the region through Gevon Moss, their local Civil Society Liaison and Resource Planner. Aside from their general activities, he’ll speak to their recent annual meeting in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, from November 8-9, examining sustainable development in the region.

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Two Arts Professionals: One Mission

16 November 2017 Highlights

“It’s the National Collection, not the Nassau Collection.” That was the sentiment, expressed by NAGB Assistant Curator Natalie Willis and triumphantly echoed in the National Art Gallery’s very first travelling exhibition. At its heart an outreach project, Abby Smith, the NAGB Community Outreach Officer led the way. What began as a visit to one island, evolved into a four island tour that included workshops, curator talks and school visits. However, none of it could transpire without the art and the story.

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Creative Youth: Reevaluating Our Values and the Work of Young People

16 November 2017 Articles

By Dr Ian Bethell Bennett.  The Bahamas has quickly become a country with multilayered and multifaceted youth conflicts.  Over the last ten years, these issues have taken the fore and removed the focus from real and positive change.  Violence, youth disengagement and youth disaffection can be addressed through creative expression and creative practice.  However, in a school system that argues for a focus on the STEM and not STEAM, but without any real engagement–where art and performance are seen as outside and unwanted stepchildren–it is significant that some young Bahamians are excelling in their work and their creative expression. 

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The MAX/AMOS Exhibition: Last Stop, Exuma

15 November 2017 Highlights

In the fall of 2015, NAGB director Amanda Coulson gave a directive: We must take art to the Family Islands, starting with Grand Bahama. So, Community Outreach Officer Abby Smith got down to the business of developing an exhibition that would also be an act of community and cultural affirmation – using the National Collection. With Assistant Curator Natalie Willis, herself a Grand Bahamian, the two co-curated the museum’s first inter-island exhibition – “MAX/AMOS: A Tale of Two Paradises”.

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