National Exhibition 7 · Antillean: An Ecology

For the past 11 years, the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas has committed itself to the fostering of local artists who continue to push the frontiers and foundations of culture across the islands. Every two years, NAGB presents a group exhibition to showcase works being currently produced in The Bahamas, focusing largely on contemporary artists of Bahamian descent or those living and working in The Bahamas today.

NE7 coincides with “Blackness: A Comparative, Cross-National Investigation of Meaning and Significance,” an international conference organised by Duke University in collaboration with the College of The Bahamas. This exhibition will have a symbiotic relationship with that inquiry, challenging Bahamian visual and creative practitioners both resident and afield to respond to the dynamics of race and class.

The Antillean/Antillanité, a context developed by Martinican writer Édouard Glissant, embraces the multiracial and transracial culture of the Caribbean as syncretic. The Antillean is mammal; he or she is submarine, lying outside of the borders of a normative existence, embodying multiplicities, defying singularities, and tangling with liminality—a mind and body that simultaneously occupies the centre and periphery of never-ending possibilities. Through this lens, we invite artists to interrogate the complexities of modern notions of Blackness, Whiteness, and the in-between.

We look towards citizenship, migration, the landscape, collective traumas, slavery, indentureship, trade, racial delineations, the hybrid and rhizome—things that have shaped our identities. We consider the imagination, memory, language, and mythologies, and how they offer a critical space to intersect with stereotypes that are deeply ingrained in our social fabric about personal and public personas.

Are we ready to confront the contentious relationship that we have with race and ethnicity? What would that unearthing look like, and is there room for counter-narratives? How will these definitions fit into the social diversity of the nation, and what kind of shift will this bring about in our public and private relationships?

NE7 calls on visual and literary artists to engage with these complex ideas of self, and how they have been affected by social and racial codes, complex histories, and global convergences that are seeking to determine representation and meaning.

Curators

Michael Edwards received a BFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2000, and a Master of Science in Art and Technology from Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden in 2006. Edwards has been a visiting critic at Valand School of Fine Arts, the University of Gothenburg, studio assistant at Sam Gilliam Studio, Washington, D.C., and Senior Education Officer at the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas. He is a currently a lecturer in the School of Communications and Creative Arts at the College of The Bahamas.

Holly Bynoe is a visual artist, curator, and writer from St. Vincent and the Grenadines, currently living and working across the Caribbean. She is the co-founder and director of ARC Magazine, the premiere visual art and culture publication focusing on contemporary visual art created throughout the Caribbean and its diaspora. Recently, she has overseen production of Caribbean Linked, a roving emerging artists residency programme, was appointed curator for the International Biennale of Contemporary Art: Martinique, and curated a segment of Transforming Spaces 2014 in partnership with Liquid Courage Gallery and the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas.