As your regular host Amanda Coulson (NAGB Executive Director) stays home and safe during this COVID-19 pandemic, we visit the “Blank Canvas” archives to bring back some great shows and pay tribute to those we have lost.
All posts by diana-lynn sands
Blank Canvas: April 8th, 2020 (Seph Rodney Re-air)
Tonight we re-air a “ Blank Canvas” show from a little over one year ago when the NAGB invited art critic and writer Seph Rodney to give a lecture as part of the ACE Series (Art, Culture, Education) on the importance of his practise in a talk entitled “What Art Criticism Does.” The talk can be viewed on our Vimeo page here https://vimeo.com/335514827.
Blank Canvas: April 1st, 2020 featuring Larry Ossel-Mensah
Tonight we will reair the April 10th, 2019 episode, featuring international curator, Larry Ossei-Mensah who came to scope out the art scene in The Bahamas and we’re really pleased to have had him in the Blank Canvas studio!
Blank Canvas: March 25th, 2020 (featuring Kristin and Dede Brown)
The NAGB is currently closed due to COVID-19, but when the museum reopens please visit us to view the stunning “Refuge” show. Your regular host Amanda Coulson invites artistic duo, the sisters Kristin and Dede Brown, into the Blank Canvas studio to discuss their moving piece, “In the Faces of Tragedy” which is one of the showstoppers at the NAGB’s post-Hurricane Dorian exhibition.
NAGB Team Member Favourite Artwork – Stan Burnside’s “Solomon”
NAGB team member Diana Sands shares a personal assessment of a captivating painting that is currently on display.
Everybody and Dey Grammy
Whether we were watching and waiting for the storm to hit directly, or watching and waiting for it to pass from the safety of our own sofas, Christina Wong’s “Everybody and Dey Grammy #hurricanedorian” (2019) struck a cord (and plucked on heartstrings) for all of us. From the hashtag to the sentiment of everybody collectively waiting with bated breath, we felt Hurricane Dorian as a nation — not in a nationalist sense, but rather as people living in, from and tied to this landscape, “born Bahamian” or otherwise.
So Close Yet So Far
As life on islands finds a new normal, we see the importance of connectivity and awareness. Much has been revealed by Dorian’s passage, from the lack of bill payment by some agencies for private companies’ services to aid storm victims, to the need for closer links between people with communities. The beauty of art is that it can capture so many emotions and open up valuable conversations about how and where we live. Naomi Klein in her work The Battle for Paradise (2019), illustrates the gap between words used to rebuild in Puerto Rico in the wake of Maria and Irma and the reality of dispossession and displacement.
Blank Canvas: March 18th, 2020, ITE North Eleuthera
On tonight’s Blank Canvas guest host Katrina Cartwright, NAGB Education and Outreach Manager, is joined by NAGB colleagues Natalie Willis, Assistant Curator and Blake Fox, Education Assistant. Both Willis and Fox have recently returned from North Eleuthera where, they worked with Zearier Munroe, Community Outreach Officer, to take the newest iteration of the NAGB’s Inter-Island Travelling Exhibition (ITE), “From Time: Water Has A Perfect Memory” and its accompanying programming.
Blank Canvas: March 11th, 2020, Grand Bahamian “Refuge” Artists
On a very special Blank Canvas, your regular host Amanda Coulson (NAGB’s Executive Director, centre) gathered together all of the Grand Bahamian artists participating in the exhibition “Refuge,” currently on view at the NAGB, to give them the opportunity to speak about their work and their continued challenges post-Dorian. For listeners to understand just how complicated life still is for our creatives in the areas most badly hit, it took us about 5 weeks to organise this show!
Blank Canvas: March 4th, 2020, Transforming Spaces
On tonight’s Blank Canvas we learn all about this year’s “Transforming Spaces” now in its 16th year! This annual cross-island bus tour will include six spaces this year — the new Project ICE (Incubator for Creative Expression by Antonius Roberts (far left) in collaboration with Central Bank of The Bahamas (second from left: CBoB Curator, Ulrich Voges); The Current at Baha Mar, presenting artist Jodi Minnis (third from left with Natascha Vasquez-Pyfrom from The Current); the NAGB (middle: Richardo Barrett, Associate Curator and your host Amanda Coulson); the D’Aguilar Art Foundation (far right, DAF curator Tessa Whitehead), Doongalik and University of The Bahamas (UB).