Space for Message

Space for Message is an examination of the colonial postcard and the function it holds within Bahamian visual culture. This object’s ontology as a commodity, designed to be purchased as a souvenir and taken away, never to return, is what motivates the show. Postcards circulate and naturalise touristic fantasies about a place; and in the Caribbean context, they can be a literal manifestation of the objectification of a people, a culture, and a landscape. They are fundamentally romantic objects for those who exchange them, an hors d’oeuvre of a memory. For the sender, they are evidence of ownership for their experience of the tropics. For the receiver, they are portals, invitations to access that experience through a curated memory. The imagery of postcards presented in this exhibition affirm the colonial area attitude towards The Bahamas as a place to be collected and owned. 

The title makes reference to the back of the cards themselves, which indicates where to write personal notes without obstructing the stamp and address which permit the object’s circulation. The cards included in this show were collectibles, and as such have empty spaces. These objects reference their own function as bearers of meaning; their blankness mirrors the emptiness of the image on the front. Space for Message includes postcards with images that foreground the Bahamian landscape in two distinct areas of the island of New Providence: downtown’s British Colonial Hotel and the historic Grants & Bain Town. Each time an image is produced, there is a decision made about what is and is not worth documenting. A postcard is the result of that importance being repeatedly reaffirmed by its photographer, its printing company, and the thousands of individuals who purchase it. Space for Message ultimately asks how these objects lay the foundation for how The Bahamas has been commodified and consumed, and to what extent the contemporary national image still depends on it.