Joining host, Amanda Coulson, on The Blank Canvas tonight are Tessa Whitehead, curator of the upcoming show at The D’Aguilar Art Foundation, entitled “Diversions” and participating artists Melissa Alcena and Sofia Whitehead.
Joining host, Amanda Coulson, on The Blank Canvas tonight are Tessa Whitehead, curator of the upcoming show at The D’Aguilar Art Foundation, entitled “Diversions” and participating artists Melissa Alcena and Sofia Whitehead.
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.
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.
Reviews of the permanent collection of the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas (NAGB) should always demand an examination of the works and aesthetics of two of the country’s outstanding and prolific indigenous artists, Amos Ferguson (1920-2009) and Maxwell Taylor, better known as “Max”. Ferguson has a particular call on prominence in this regard because it was the Bahamas Government’s purchase of twenty-five of his paintings in 1991 that launched the National Collection.
By Natalie Willis. Averia Wright’s “The Straw Paradox: The Pig That Built His House of Straw” is something of a paradox in the name itself. Straw work in The Bahamas is a bit of a misnomer – it isn’t really “straw” in the Western traditional sense at all. Our straw is not made of barley, wheat or things of that ilk at all, rather, it is a pale gold weaving made of Silver Top Palm. Wright comes from a family of straw market women, and has been plaiting her whole life.
By Dr Ian Bethell-Bennett, University of The Bahamas. English Social Sciences organised a screening and panel discussion of the film I’s Man at the University of The Bahamas on Wednesday, November 6th, at 6:00 p.m. The room was packed as students and faculty from sociology, psychology, English and the general public came out to discuss the current ‘man crisis’. The film captures perspectives from multiple angles that discuss the imagery of black masculinity and its descriptors from objectifying women in batty riders to murder for glory because of ego issues: the intersections of sexuality and socio-cultural and economic pressures conflate to conform to roles society perceives as normal and in turn normalises. If men do not consume women like that, something must be wrong with them. Much is documented in the film of the ways black masculinities are defined and controlled by a capitalistic, hegemonic racialised system that seeks to disempower through weaponised messaging and stereotyping. Meanwhile, the documentary reveals this underside.
By Dr. Ian Bethell-Bennett, The University of The Bahamas. It is the Visual Life of Social Affliction that speaks out against silence imposed over death. Undocumented death. If one lives an undocumented life, does one die an undocumented death?
The sea as life
One is buoyed on by levity, not dropped like a lead weight to the bottom of the sea, where there are souls that link from Africa to the New World and back again. These disembodied figures, souls linking lands, the submarine link, or submerged mother of Edward Brathwaite’s creation bind us together. They travel up from Haiti through the Ragged Island passage to northern shores. This is life suspended in a watery elixir of death and blue green beauty: the irony of nature.
Peggy Hering’s “Lilies” (1984) invites reflection on movement and permanence in the Caribbean. This rare piece from the Dawn Davies Collection offers a glimpse into the life of an artist whose story is woven into Nassau’s past.
By Natalie Willis. King Solomon, the biblical king of Israel, is revered in Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Rastafarianism alike. A wealthy and wise man (the latter of which people the world over feel are missing in leadership), he was known for his sense of justice and morality, and perhaps most famously known for settling a dispute between two women who fought over the guardianship of a child. We’ve most often seen this son of David, the successor to the throne, depicted as a wizened old man with a beard, looking every inch the grandfather. Why then, do we seem to get such contrasting reactions to Stan Burnside’s “Solomon” (2000) in our space? People claim to love the large scale work or despise it. We’ve had to move it from external spaces on loan because it was seen as “too much” or disconcerting – which feels rather unsettling for our dear Gallery + Collections Assistant, Matthew Rahming, whose likeness is often compared to that of Burnside’s king.