Essay Environmental Force: On Poetry, Abstraction, and the Nature of Survival Letitia Pratt ● March 27, 2024 Environmental Force (2005),
Environmental Force: On Abstraction and the Nature of Survival
All posts tagged: sustainability
When We Are Like the Trees
Stories When We Are Like the Trees Letitia Pratt · 18 February 2019 “You who are so-called illegal aliens must
Under Attack: Averia Wright’s Elevating the Blue Light Special and the Dualities of Bahamian Identity
By Ethan Knowles. War for much of the Caribbean is a remote idea – a thing of books, films and faraway lands. In a region characterized by calm waters, light breezes and laidback locals, the notion seems oddly out of place. But the idea is not just a distant one. It’s also awfully dangerous. War necessarily conflicts with what Caribbean nations like The Bahamas ‘should’ be, that is, a peaceful escape for the worn and overworked. Put simply: conflict in the Caribbean is off-brand. And in our Bahamaland, where at least sixty percent of the GDP and half the workforce rely on a carefully manufactured and embellished brand image, being off-brand can be about as deadly as armed conflict. As the daughter of a straw vendor in a family of straw vendors, Bahamian sculptor and expanded practice artist Averia Wright is well-acquainted with the brand of paradise we manufacture here. Her work, which grapples with issues affecting both The Bahamas and the region at large, is particularly concerned with tourism and its role as a neocolonialist system in the country today. Elevating the Blue Light Special (2018), Wright’s submission for the “NE9: The Fruit and The Seed,” addresses just this concern, exposing and critiquing the commercialisation of identity which is so central to the contemporary tourist economy.
The Life and Death of Street Trees: Jenna Chaplin’s call to attention for the importance of street trees for the upcoming NE9
By Natalie Willis. “Space is not a scientific object removed from ideology or politics. It has always been political and strategic.” – Henri Lefebvre. But how do you strategize something that grows organically? Cities pose that very question for us. Henri Lefebvre, a French philosopher and sociologist with a heavy Marxist influence, was interested in the fabric of our everyday lives and particularly in the ownership of spaces, particularly cities. I’d wager he’d have a field day in Nassau – with our planned and unplanned spaces, historic and new, and that the upcoming printmaking project by Jenna Chaplin for the National Exhibition 9 (NE9) might whet his appetite too.
“When the Lionfish Came”: Tamika Galanis gives voice to the people of the reef amid dangerously rising tides
By Natalie Willis. In Adelaide, there is a bell that has been ringing for at least a hundred years, but closer to two. Events, hurricanes, births and deaths, are all marked by the chime, and the proud denizens of this historic community for freed Blacks have, for generations, found themselves answering to its call. However, Tamika Galanis’ film, “When The Lionfish Came” (2015) is not a church bell…
It is an alarm.
The art of living in the tropics. Part II: Hand come, hand go
By Dr Ian Bethell-Bennett, The University of The Bahamas. Exuma blue recedes into Ragged Island sargasso and green. Sole inhabitant of Buena Vista Cay, Edward Lockhart, a reminder of Hemingway’s Old Man and The Sea (1952) has pulled up alongside and tied his boat to the MV Captain C and now stands with the others on the deck. Sun pounds down as the heat of living in the tropics feels much hotter than it has in forever. Art is always somewhat less strange than life, as stories come and go and fight to retain their place in a global village quickly being overtaken by overwriting of colour-blindness and leadership that throws women and minorities and their voices under the bus. Ironically, there is this romantic notion about “going back to the island”, it will all be better there, by and by. The irony is that hidden in this discourse of nostalgia for the island, is an erasure of the same island we long for.
Vision, Materiality and Creativity: A pathway to innovation and development?
By Dr Ian Bethell-Bennett, The University of The Bahamas. Can we conceptualise change? In our lessons, our lives, our schooling, have we been encouraged to examine a problem and to solve it? Have we been encouraged to dream big and produce along those lines? Usually, to ideate creatively, to innovate, to shift the cultural thinking or vision, we must think critically. This thinking makes some people uncomfortable, yet, this essential skill is wiped out in the Bahamian education system. We are also told that dabbling in art won’t pay the bills, however, to meet the demands of change, we must think creatively. Google, FaceBook, sustainable renewable cities, Worlds fairs, Disney World, are all creative building structures that use winds, the light and the landmass to cool, power, and illuminate are usually created in studios of creative minds that do not conform to linear thinking or conservative paradigmatic control.
Cultivating the Local: In the wake of change
By Dr Ian Bethell Bennett This is our time, the occasion for thinking and being different, not bound by an antiquated, out-dated design and building model, or for that matter a tourism model that focuses almost exclusively on resort style entertainment at the expense of locally-fashioned rustic flavoured spots that draw in tourists with their uniqueness.
In the wake of storms: Moving forward as a nation displaced
By Dr Ian Bethell-Bennett.Dominica, The British Virgin Islands, Barbuda, Puerto Rico, The Bahamas, in particular, Ragged Island and some other southern places, are beautiful and far-flung, exotic and form parts of people’s dreams of paradise. They are paradises on earth and they have been devastated. They have, like many parts of the Commonwealth world, experienced unprecedented natural disasters and suffering in the short space of a few weeks. They are stunning spaces of natural beauty and amazing depth of feeling and life.
The Art of Survival: Rebuilding for the future
By Malika N Pryor. When I moved to The Bahamas in 2013, I knew that it was possible to encounter one of them. Like the unspeakable name of a villain in a famous children’s book turned film series, I talked about the storms that originated on the shores of West Africa in a low voice, as if I’d awaken them if spoken at a regular volume. Most Nassau residents I encountered were largely unbothered, and I was amazed at how casual most were when it came to the conversation of hurricanes. Then, in 2015 Joaquin hit the southern islands and I realised how incredibly close they could be. I ached for those who had lost nearly everything and for their family members who watched from their screens in New Providence.