Stories Archives - Page 17 of 31 - National Art Gallery of The Bahamas

Golden Touch and Go: Jace McKinney’s imagines golden kings and living dangerously in “Trumped” (2013)

27 November 2017 admin

By Natalie Willis Ours is a region filled with spirituality, mysticism, myth, and the ghosts of these things and our

Unpacking Identity with Joiri Minaya

24 November 2017 admin

The sixth iteration of Double Dutch “Re: Encounter,” featuring the works of Dede Brown and Joiri Minaya, starts to address how important it is from a curatorial perspective to provide opportunities for artists, who are looking for ways to mitigate the sense of frustration that they feel within their practice, by allowing a moment to experiment. The following is the first in a two-part series of long-form Q+As that seeks to expand upon both projects. We connect with Joiri Minaya, a Dominican-American multi-disciplinary artist whose work deals with identity, otherness, self-consciousness and displacement.

Building empathy through culture: Taking a seat at your table

20 November 2017 admin

By Holly Bynoe On Being: Timed Out On November 8 and 9th, over 250 members representing 26 countries from civil

Two Arts Professionals: One Mission

16 November 2017 Katrina Cartwright

“It’s the National Collection, not the Nassau Collection.” That was the sentiment, expressed by NAGB Assistant Curator Natalie Willis and triumphantly echoed in the National Art Gallery’s very first travelling exhibition. At its heart an outreach project, Abby Smith, the NAGB Community Outreach Officer led the way. What began as a visit to one island, evolved into a four island tour that included workshops, curator talks and school visits. However, none of it could transpire without the art and the story.

Creative Youth: Reevaluating our values and the work of young people.

16 November 2017 Natalie Willis

By Dr Ian Bethell Bennett. The Bahamas has quickly become a country with multilayered and multifaceted youth conflicts. Over the last ten years, these issues have taken the fore and removed the focus from real and positive change. Violence, youth disengagement and youth disaffection can be addressed through creative expression and creative practice. However, in a school system that argues for a focus on the STEM and not STEAM, but without any real engagement–where art and performance are seen as outside and unwanted stepchildren–it is significant that some young Bahamians are excelling in their work and their creative expression.

Some (Re)assembly Required: Melissa Alcena’s takes a soft lens on Black masculinity

9 November 2017 admin

Melissa Alcena’s solo show currently on view in the Project Space through December 3rd, “Some (Re)assembly Required,” speaks to this puzzle-piecing together and rebuilding and reclaiming of the chunks of softness that has been chipped away from Black men for so long.

(Un)Monumental: How do we re-contextualise historic sculptures for contemporary life?

30 October 2017 admin

As we have seen in “Re: Encounter” artists can often speak to the idea of the monumental both in size and in content. Dede Brown presents ambiguous humanoid busts, absent and cut out of wood and masonite, which are suspended from the ceiling – perhaps un-monumental in their own way. Playing into this in a different respect, Joiri Minaya presents us with a monumental wall of stretchy fabric that spans the width of the ballroom, but also gives us a series of postcards depicting a proposal for artistic intervention on the Christopher Columbus monument that sits at the front of Government House, making good use of both sides of this double-meaning of the word.

Fabric Printing Workshop brings crowd to NAGB: NAGB Kicks off Fall Programming

26 October 2017 Natalie Willis

By Katrina Cartwright. As a part of The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas’ monthly programming, the “Fabric Printing Workshop” with Joiri Minaya, the first workshop for the fall season, was held on Saturday, October 14th on the Gallery’s grounds. Led by Double Dutch artist Joiri Minaya, a diverse group of 19 participants were introduced to the basics of block printing then invited to try out their designs on fabric.

The Domestic Not-So-Tourist: Marina Reyes Franco visits The Bahamas as recipient of the CPPC Travel Award

25 October 2017 Natalie Willis

By Natalie Willis. The aftermath of this historic hurricane season has thrown the inter-relations of countries in the Caribbean, and the attitudes around it all, into much clearer focus. The growing regional engagement over the years hasn’t just involved development or relief efforts, but we have also seen a rise in intra-Caribbean art and cultural research and projects – which is very exciting indeed and adds some levity to this difficult period we are all going through together. Balancing both of these realities – of arts development and relief efforts – in her mind, is curator Marina Reyes Franco from Puerto Rico, who is currently travelling around different nations in the region as this year’s recipient of the 2017 Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros (CPPC) Travel Award for Central America and the Caribbean, a joint effort between the CPPC Travel Award and Independent Curators International (ICI)

Re-Encounter: Thoughts of a Mad Mind

23 October 2017 admin

So much of our lives is defined by our relationship with space and indeed with water, or a space that is not a space, but is actively always churning and redefining itself and its boundaries. We engage at a new level now as boundaries mean little, except for the new and ever-increasing global boundaries that allow capital flow but insist on barring the flow of people. We live in a time of shifting and yet unchanging spaces.