Natalie Willis, Author at National Art Gallery of The Bahamas

Whimsical Bahamian Teapots: Book Launch & Exhibit for Jessica Colebrooke

14 November 2018 Natalie Willis

By Kevanté A. C. Cash, NAGB Correspondent. “It didn’t have to take 10 years for this book to be published, but it did. Wherever there’s a vision, God will make provision; but the provision has to be made. So, if people aren’t willing to provide, we’re just doing the same things over and over again. And this causes a lot of Bahamians to lose interest in returning home to make contributions. But for me, this is just the tip of the iceberg to what I can give to my country and community.”

Reporting from the 2018 Creative Time Summit screening at the NAGB: Showing up for our Future

13 November 2018 Natalie Willis

By Dr Ian Bethell-Bennett, The University of The Bahamas. The 2018 Creative Time Summit under the theme “On Archipelagos and Other imaginaries: Collective Strategies to Inhabit the World” was livestreamed at the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas (NAGB) and coupled with key local academics, including Dr Niambi Hall Campbell-Dean, Dr Allana Thomas and Joey Gaskins and other creatives discussing our present-day national realities. The day provided much fodder for digestion and provoked upset, and it was a necessary light bulb that came on or an explosion that went boom in the night. Also, we all know how those booms go. We wake up startled and unable to get back to sleep. The many conversations were alive and inspiring; it also caused great unease because of the themes explored: spatial injustice, erasure of black and brown bodies and the real threat of climate change and sea level rise along with the erosion of democracy. It is always interesting for me that Miami, often such a conservative space, can produce such edgy and cutting cultural expression and creative experimentation.

The Architecture of Loss: Memorials, Memento Mori, and the Man from Milton Street

12 November 2018 Natalie Willis

By Natalie Willis. “i learn urgently | the architecture of loss | then find you again.” ― Warsan Shire. Lavar Munroe’s “Memorials” series is an exercise in the architecture of loss, of remembering, and the residue of life we leave long after we are physically gone from this world. A parachute, a hand-made urn, and flowers are an unlikely pairing but help to braid together the strands of the story of a man’s life, but they also offer us a thread between worlds, between countries, between lives, and between times. Munroe–proud of his upbringing and regular reunions with the Grants Town community where he still holds a studio–spends much of his time these days travelling. Not unlike the parachute shown in “Return: The Magic Flight” (2018), he is uprooted, but he often finds his way back to the solid soil of this historic settlement in Nassau. The “nation’s navel” that is Bain and Grants Town have produced a number of historically significant figures in Bahamian history, and Lavar is well on his way to being a key fixture in Bahamian art history for years to come, if his current 10 year survey at the NAGB (with the proud and proclamatory title “Son of the Soil”) is any indication.

The long eye of culture.: A mash up, a hybrid

7 November 2018 Natalie Willis

By Dr Ian Bethell-Bennett, The University of The Bahamas. Bahamian society and culture are already deeply creolised and vibrant, so why not make every effort, take every chance to show who we are? In the 1980s Barbadian calypsonian Gabby performed ‘Jack’, and people laughed. In the early 2000s Bahamian performer K. B. sang ‘Dey Sellin’, and people laughed. In fact people criticised him for exaggerating. ‘Dey sellin’… culture captures what we do not see. Oral and aural culture deliver serious critical visions and versions on what a go on, as the calypsos of the Trinidadian ‘Trinity’ Mighty Sparrow, Shadow and Chalkdust made critical often blistering interventions in all matters of national concern. Today, we hide from this kind of cultural richness or defame it. In “Apocolypso”–first published in 2004 and recirculated in 2013–Christian Campbell highlights the shifting tides and sands of Bahamian landscape and the accompanying cultural erosion and erasure.

Making the connection: In conversation with Sasha Dees about her time of travel and research across the Caribbean

6 November 2018 Natalie Willis

By Kevanté A. C. Cash. A laid-back woman comes from the behind the building to greet me upon hearing the call of her name. She is stationed on the benches of the National Art Gallery’s back porch overlooking the Sculpture Garden – just above the newly opened Amphitheatre named “Fiona’s Theatre” – that opens to Hospital Lane. Sporting a cool summer dress in the middle of Bahamian fall, she says she was “soaking up the sun and catching up on messages” while waiting for my arrival. She is Sasha Dees, a Dutch independent curator, festival and theatre producer and arts writer, currently doing research across the Caribbean. “The research that I’m doing is actually not a part of anything. It’s really in my interest. So, what happens is there’s a mid-career grant – the governmental visual art fund – that’s there for artists but also people working within the arts like curators, writers and so on to take some time off to do something they always wanted to do but never found the time or had the money to do. “So, often it was more so museum workers giving themselves a chance to take a sabbatical to maybe write a book or do more research on a subject that’s within the museum. It’s very rare for people like me to get the grant because I’ve always worked independently but when I thought again, I figured – ‘There still might be a possibility.’”

From the Collection: “The Bussett and the Monkey” (1991) by Amos Ferguson

5 November 2018 Natalie Willis

The musical stylings of Bahamian favourite Phil Stubbs, no doubt inspired by the Nat King Cole classic, in this story of the monkey and the buzzard, speak to fable, myth and reality. Amos Ferguson was also quite clearly inspired by this story, as we see in his painting “The Bussett and the Monkey” (1991), currently on display in central Andros as part of the NAGB’s Inter-Island Traveling Exhibition “TRANS: A Migration of Identity”.

“The Story of “ETA”: Blue/Green Ragged Island” Ideation in Art and Design

24 October 2018 Natalie Willis

By Dr Ian Bethell-Bennett, The University of The Bahamas. Art and design, though they seem to make strange bedfellows, work hand in glove, and, along with literature, carve out space for exceptional spatial and design shifts that move people into new possibilities. The 2018 iteration of the annual regional collaborative project “Double Dutch” titled “Hot Water,” combines the work of Plastico Fantastico (PF) and Expo 2020 team from University of The Bahamas. The teams spent a week travelling to and from Ragged Island researching what it might look like to rebuild in stronger and more resilient ways in the wake of Hurricane Irma. The project combined students and faculty, as well as members from PF and we interviewed committee and community members and spent hours and then days creating and distilling ideas for the exhibition. What finally stands in the Ballroom of the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas (NAGB) is weeks of contact and ideation, with that, a lot of experimentation to see how best to construct and meet new demands.

Murky Histories and Futures: “Digging Upward in the Sand” (2018) by Plastico Fantastico

23 October 2018 Natalie Willis

By Natalie Willis. Forward, onward, digging upward in the sand, together. The 2018 “Double Dutch,” the 7th in the series of paired exhibitions, brings us questions on the future, on climate change, on what it means to govern a chain of 700 islands, and on what it means to lose an island’s culture from lack of infrastructure and intervention. “Digging Upward in the Sand” (2018) by the Plastico Fantastico Collective, stirs up these queries, worries, and troubling presents for us.

Friday Night Live! Scares at the NAGB: The NAGB hosts a special Night at the Museum

22 October 2018 Natalie Willis

By Katrina Cartwright. This October, the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas (NAGB) brings a little spookiness and a lot of fun with a special Halloween-themed Friday Night Live! (FNL!) on Friday, October 26, starting at 6:00 p.m. Powered by ALIV, the third iteration of FNL! gives us a “Night at the Museum” where there will be art, food, lots of mystery and tricks and treats—all to be enjoyed in the course of just one night.

Potcake Adopt-a-thon and Workshop at the NAGB

16 October 2018 Natalie Willis

By Katrina Cartwright. The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas (NAGB) is adding lots of bark and a huge dose of adorable to its first exhibition-related fall workshop. In partnership with the Bahamas Humane Society (BHS), the NAGB is hosting a special adopt-a-thon paired with a workshop today, October 13th between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. that invites visitors to play with and/or adopt a puppy, then create a “patchwork potcake”—a collage that reflects the personality of their favourite canine! This unusual workshop can be joined at any time during the three-hour period and will have a reduced price: $10.00 for adults and $5.00 for children. This is a great family event and ten percent of all proceeds will go to the BHS!