Tourism Archives - National Art Gallery of The Bahamas

From the Collection: “North Star” (2007-8) by Heino Schmid

23 September 2019

By Natalie Willis. Landmarks are such a common way to give directions we often think nothing of it. In some cities it could be the tallest building, in most, it was historically a cathedral as it was in old Nassau, and in others still an old water tower. Landmarks hold significance, they become a fixed point of reference that we navigate around or through, often in the periphery just so that your little satellite of a body knows where it is in relation to this sentinel. Heino Schmid’s video artwork “North Star” (2007-8), first shown as part of NE4, the Fourth National Exhibition back in 2008, gives us a moment to consider the significance of having the imposing and distinctive structure of the Atlantis hotel as a marker within our landscape.

Under Attack: Averia Wright’s Elevating the Blue Light Special and the Dualities of Bahamian Identity

29 January 2019

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.

What’s in the frame: Tourism, art, installation and rebuilding the old whore of a body

15 August 2017

By Dr Ian Bethell-Bennett. Frames capture or remove things, images, objects, people for or from the public eye. The frame of the photo can bring something into sharp focus, or it can reduce that same thing into an abstraction in the fore or background and highlight something else. One image usually metaphorically represents an entire discourse and political, economic and socio-cultural paradigm, a way of thinking about enslaved bodies and their relation to consumer politics, that is to say, discourses of otherness and sexualisation.

From the Collection: Blue Curry’s Nassau From Above

31 May 2017

A sense of gloom surrounds Nassau from Above through Blue Curry’s use of black-and-white collage-styled imagery, paired with the words “Doesn’t it all look so peaceful… from up here.” We are slapped with sarcasm as these words overlay an image of Nassau seen from above through an airplane window.

Through the eyes of a tourist: Oh Island in the Sun, Funky Nassau

24 November 2016

How much more value can we get out of tourism by really investing in Nassau and promoting small businesses like walking tours, garden cafes, and tea shops along with waterside bars? The longer we take to change the model of rot, the harder it is and the worse the actual situation gets. Why travel to downtown Paradise to see decay? Is it not better to remain locked in a resort or on a ship?

A Teetering Bimini: Thinking about The Old Man and the Sea

16 October 2016

From Earnest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea to his less-well-known Islands in the Stream, Bimini stars as an island full of adventure, liquor and raucous living, a man’s island, where fishing and drinking go hand-in- hand. Bimini has changed little since these books were written. Cultural integrity is essential for such a world-class tiny island. It is still a place of booze and boating.