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Cultural heritage, shockingly, is actually not unique to or owned by a people unless it is inscribed as such. So, as a nation, we think we are the sole practitioners of Junkanoo the way we perform it on Boxing Day morning and New Year’s Day morning, however, this unique cultural relationship does not endow us, The Bahamas or the Bahamian people with the right to use Junkanoo as we wish. We do not own the practice nor do we benefit from it, despite the fact that whenever we are invited as a country to an arts or culture festival we tend to drag an entire Junkanoo group with us. The nation and the state have been historically irresponsible when it comes to officially claiming and so protecting our cultural heritage.

On Thursday June 8th, 7pm, Helen Klonaris will launch her debut short story collection If I Had the Wings with a reading at the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas, on West Hill Street, Nassau, Bahamas.

The National Gallery of the Cayman Islands to host The Business of Art • Symposium with guest presenter NAGB Director, Amanda Coulson

Tilting Axis is a roving meeting, conceptualized by ARC Magazine and the Fresh Milk Art Platform Inc., that moves in and out of the Caribbean region on an annual basis. It brings together arts professionals who are interested in, and committed to, expanding contemporary visual art practice across all linguistic areas of the region. Participants include those based in the Caribbean and its diasporas, professionals working in the coastal rim of the Caribbean, as well as global professionals whose research and practice is influenced by the region. The goal of Tilting Axis is to facilitate opportunities for those who are living and working in the Caribbean, to increase interest and understanding of this region’s contemporary visual practice while contributing to a healthy cultural eco-system and purposeful growth for the Caribbean creative sector.

How do we forget that when we lose our tangible culture, we actually also lose our intangible culture?  They usually go together.  Culture is not just a product that we package and sell.  It is actually a process, a way of life, a rhythm that is embodied in a place.  Exuma and Long Island, Acklins and Bimini have very different rhythms. They do not all practice Rake ‘n’ Scrape the same way, nor do they cook the same dishes in the same fashion.  Boat building on Abaco is different from boat building in Long Island; each community has its own identity and rhythm that does not conform to national structures.

A fire-breathing hell-beast, a scaly winged thing of fantasy – sometimes good, sometimes dangerous and greedy: Dragons. Not a staple in the established subject matter for Amos Ferguson, but nonetheless a treasure in the National Collection, an entity worthy of having an epic flying reptilian guarding it for sure. Ferguson’s “The Dragon” (1991) is an outlier for a lot of reasons. While his usual practice includes references to biblical scenes, Bahamian folklore, and more often than not, Bahamian scenery – with the iconic titles painted in Bahamian vernacular that act as a mirror for our particular language traditions, this piece doesn’t quite typify his practice.

Bain Town is a space of much notorietythese days, as a number of historically freed slave villages on the island have grown to be, but it wasn’t always so, and there is certainly a need to celebrate the history of these areas and the sense of community and pride amongst those who remember how different the place was merely a few decades ago. So many of our major artists in The Bahamas came from Over-the-Hill, perhaps most notably our beloved Maxwell Taylor, and embracing the greatness that comes out of these communities is important.

Antonius Roberts, one of The Bahamas’ leading artists, exploring themes of nature, humanity and spirituality through a diverse range of genres. This May, we focus on his piece, “Procession of Females in White Uniforms” as our Artwork of the Month. The painting is a part of the Gallery’s National Collection and currently on view in the Permanent Exhibition “Revisiting An Eye For The Tropics”.

On Friday, April 28th, artist Thierry Lamare and international art critic, writer and historian Edward Lucie-Smith discuss the critical influence identity and the space that we occupy has on our relationships, practice and perception.
 

The April 29th Nassau Guardian Arts+Culture section features a write up on Thierry Lamare‘s “The Liberal” which is part of our National Collection and currently on view in “Love, Loss and Life” at the NAGB through September.