All posts by Natalie Willis

Over a year ago, the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas (NAGB), entered into a formal agreement with the British Council to craft the final iteration of the “Difficult Conversations” series of exhibitions, public conversations and student mentorships, reflecting on the UK’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade throughout the Caribbean. The NAGB produced, in collaboration with the British Council, “We Suffer to Remain,” a group exhibition that supported the works of John Beadle, Graham Fagen, Sonia Farmer and Anina Major, and a series of public programmes—artists talks, public lectures and film screenings—that spoke in expansive ways about Blackness, ownership, the vestiges, trauma and the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade and the implications of the empire in relation to its colonies.  

The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas is celebrating the Chinese year of the Dog with a call for Potcakes. Would you like to share your experience of observing, owning or knowing a potcake Bahamian artists are welcome to submit works in any medium: painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, printmaking, photography, video, textile, installation and mixed media. The potcake is a staple of life in The Bahamas. It’s presence not only speaks to the fragility of how we care for living things but also the strength and fortitude of these resilient animals who become a part of our lives. For ages, the Potcake has been seen as an icon and signifier of Bahamianness, and even though the word is shared in other Caribbean countries, there is a unique relationship developed between the canine and the wider community.

By Malika Pryor Martin. Thanks to the support and partnership of the Central Bank of The Bahamas, the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas (NAGB) is pleased to announce limited free bus service for primary and secondary school tours! At this time, the offer is available to all government schools in New Providence. “The Magic School Bus” Initiative, as it is affectionately titled, will facilitate the visitation of more than 800 students to The Bahamas’ preeminent arts institution.

By Dr Ian Bethell-Bennett, The University of The Bahamas .  “Traversing the Picturesque: For Sentimental Value” provides an invaluable view into the way the islands have been visioned for decades.  It is a unique and important show that serves as a historical and current window into a perspective that adds value to our discussions and to how we see ourselves.  Working in tandem with “We Suffer to Remain”, both shows provide an incredibly fruitful and open discussion for the cultural materialism and intermateriality cross-materiality that allows deeper and broader understanding of where we live and how we live here. The latter show deals with the loss of tangible and intangible cultural heritage of slavery through erasure. The periphery, the colony where the history physically took place has gutted its memory through a process of deletion and writing over. 

By Malika N Pryor.  At the NAGB, we’d like to think that every special event we hold is one-of-a-kind. However, Friday April 6th, 2018 was particularly spectacular as it marked the naming ceremony and formal opening of Fiona’s Theatre. The only amphitheatre in New Providence, the bowl shaped auditorium is a part of a long and storied history that ties its earliest recorded use to its current purpose.

By Dr Ian Bethell-Bennett, The University of The Bahamas. Our culture is as much about how we build, live and die, as how we speak, dress and eat, and George Cox, for me, embodied one of those shapers of Bahamian vernacular culture, simultaneously impacting high culture.  How we live is as important as what we do and both influence the legacies we leave. 

By Natalie Willis

The last in our series of two-part interviews with the artists of “We Suffer To Remain”, this week we speak to Scottish artist Graham Fagen on having his work not only as the starting point of this series of exhibitions on “Difficult Conversations”, but also on having his work brought to the Caribbean context to which it refers. “The Slave’s Lament” (2015) is a moment for us to consider the realities of this Trans-Atlantic history in contemporary contexts, and now that we’ve seen Bahamian responses with our national artists responding to this work, we take a moment to consider Fagen’s perspectives in our space.