Of Skin and Sand Archives - National Art Gallery of The Bahamas

Gendered Norms and Deconstruction: The Body, the Image, and the Ability to Speak Out for Self

2 August 2017 Articles

By Dr Ian Bethell-Bennett.As The Bahamas moves into a new administration, 50 years of Majority Rule and over 40 years of independence have done little to remove the boundaries around free expression and positive self-imaging. Basking in its Victorian properness, as long as it is useful, the tourist destination boasts a particular image of Caribbeanness that is acceptable and palatable to the population because they have been taught to accept it.

Gender and the Dream: Confronting Stereotypes in Black Masculinity

25 July 2017 Articles

By Dr Ian Bethell-Bennett

The dream sold is of young men being told that they are prosperous, only to realise that they are imprisoned in a tangled web of failure or underachievement. Young men from the inner city, once the thriving home of Blacks–forced by segregation and reduced circumstances to live in particular parts of town–is cast as the worst place in the country, a place that only produces criminals.

Blank Canvas with Leasho Johnson and Edrin Symonette

19 July 2017 Podcasts

On Wednesday evening’s “Blank Canvas,” as part of the NAGB’s continuing series of “Double Dutch,” your host Amanda Coulson (NAGB Director, middle) is visited in the studio by Bahamian artist Edrin Symonette (right) and Jamaican artist Leasho Johnson (left), who speak to their individual artistic practices and their collaborative exhibition, opening on Friday night at 7 p.m. “Of Skin and Sand.”