Dr Ian Bethell-Bennett Paradise is beautiful. A space filled with art, colour, diversity, pleasure, and adventure. Paradise has become synonymous
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The Problems of Paradise: Thoughts on the NAGB’s Traversing the Picturesque
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Mixed Media Summer Camp Spotlight: On Sharvez Woodside
By Malika Pryor-Martin When you meet young people like Sharvez Woodside, age 17, the future of The Bahamas seems incredibly
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CATALYST: Harmonising Actions and Trust Building in the Caribbean Creative Ecology
NAGB hailed as flagship institution in the region by Holly Bynoe On Wednesday, June 13th, through Friday, June 15th, over
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Tilting Axis Curatorial Fellowship 2018: Bahamian, Natalie Willis, awarded!
By Dr Ian Bethell Bennett As people who view art from outside, we are usually blind to all the moving
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Are We One With Nature? G. Paul Dorfmuller’s Nassau Corner
By Letitia M. Pratt, The D’Aguilar Art Foundation Recently, National Geographic published an article on their website acknowledging their racist coverage
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The Moving Image: The First Turn of the Revolution
The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas and LUX Scotland partnered with the British Council to produce a series of short and experimental films that coincides with the exhibition “We Suffer to Remain”. The series highlights a history of moving image expression of hard to have conversations about race, indigeneity and belonging.
Indigenous art takes the lead at the Mixed Media Art Summer Camp
With just three weeks left to prepare for this year’s Mixed Media Art Summer Camp (MMASC), the NAGB team is kicking into high gear to get everything ready for the 100 campers who will be engaging in six weeks of fun creativity between June 25th and August 3rd. The NAGB Mixed Media Art Summer Camp, revamped in 2015, serves as an access point for all kids, ages 5 to 17, to art and its history.
Troubling Narratives: This is how we suffer to remain
“We Suffer to Remain” is a collaborative exhibition whose seed was sprouted in November 2015, when I was invited to be a part of a curatorial cohort that visited Glasgow and Edinburgh, Scotland, as a part of the British Council expanding and investing in the emerging and burgeoning visual art ecology in the Caribbean. This meeting set an idea in motion about how institutions in the Caribbean can start thinking in new ways about partnerships and collaborations that, 20 years ago, might not have been possible. The Caribbean as a creative space continues to flourish in its liminality, continues to grow and inspire globally as a cornerstone of excellence but, unfortunately, also continues to be a perpetual site of extraction, exhaustion and removal. Perhaps one needs to be alone with these words to understand the gravitas and the generational weight of our inheritance.
Partnerships Present Opportunities for NAGB: NAGB is reaching beyond New Providence to Support Family Island Schools
By Katrina Cartwright. For the second year, the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas has partnered with the Department of Culture to adjudicate Arts and Crafts entries for the E. Clement Bethel National Arts Festival. Between February and May 2018 Katrina Cartwright, NAGB Education Officer, and Abby Smith, NAGB Community Outreach Officer traveled with the organizing committee of the National Arts Festival to schools in the north, south and central Bahamas, where the best of Bahamian talent was showcased by talented hopefuls, seeking to win in their respective categories.
Sorry for What: I am not the sugar in your cup of tea
Dr Ian Bethell Bennett
Sorry, Not Sorry a short experimental film by Alberta Whittle juxtaposes tourism and post-enslavement-dispossession in the British Caribbean. An intriguing mise-en-scène combined with sharp overlaying and interweaving text, image, audio and nuance that brings all sorts of feelings to the fore, from contradictions to harmonies. The harmony in the background, though clashes with the discordant foreground that allows the moving image the salience it has to document, to articulate, to illustrate the unbecoming side of colonialism and independence. Again, the irony of postcolonial independence is that there is no real sovereignty as governments are only held in power by foreign direct investors who own the economy, by owning resorts where the Bacardi-sipping-frolicking-lithe bodies stay during their fantasy time in paradise.