NAGB at FUZE Caribbean Art Fair
Now in its third year, FUZE Caribbean Art Fair welcomes contemporary artists from across the Caribbean to The Bahamas, where Baha Mar hosts a showcase for art collectors, enthusiasts, and lovers. The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas returned this year and displayed …and then there was Light, an installation connected to the current National Exhibition, NELEVEN: INTO THE VOID. This interactive installation, organised by Letitia Pratt, encouraged participants to search “the void”, represented by a pit of dark soil, and find “enlightenment”. The “enlightenment” took the shape of poetry – as participants entered the booth and dug through the soil, they found small plastic cases with poems folded inside. It was a conceptual installation: the action of digging was a physical metaphor for the search through darkness to discover creativity and imagination.
The piece echoes the themes presented in NELEVEN: INTO THE VOID. Many of the works in the exhibition investigate ideas of hope, renewal, and finding your creativity to survive in an environment constantly on the verge of deterioration. Jeremy Delancy’s Sepulchre, for example, uses national symbols carved into deteriorating Lignum Vite wood – or Sonia Farmer’s multi-layered installation, The Hole in the Ocean, in which she investigates the deterioration of coral reefs. Both Jeremy and Sonia use poetic symbology to come to terms with this loss, and this action encapsulates the concept for …and then there was Light, where the poets responded to the void theme with small gifts of wisdom.
Poets were invited to interpret the void for themselves. What resulted was a more personal understanding of the void – navigating the complexities of grief and hope; bringing lightness to the murky waters of heartbreak; or the pain of losing a loved one. For the poets, the “light” in the darkness are the ideas that come from traversing it; the brilliance of creation itself that forms in the womb. The poems used in the installation were compiled into a chapbook and shared during the fair.
Among the favourite visitors to the booth were the school children who enjoyed searching the soil for the poems. One child was particularly touched by Zearier Munroe-Wilkinson’s poem, “On the Anniversary of your Death”, a poem written in honour of her mother.
The booth was a playful way to interact with the community at FUZE and introduce them to the work we’re doing at the museum. It was also a way to encourage deep introspection, as the participants entered the sanctuary of our booth to read poetry.
