When Miami curator and gallery owner Rosie Gordon-Wallace visited the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas last year, she says that one thing jumped out at her - the intellectual pool of artistic talent in Nassau.
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Rosie Gordon-Wallace
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In about two weeks, Gordon-Wallace, originally from Jamaica, will be making good use of that talent through the 1st International Diaspora Artists Biennale, a three-day retreat hosted by the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas and Popopstudios, focused on art, conversation and performance - "just us talking about us."
"In small countries, we are used to the experts being flown in and telling us how we do things," Gordon-Wallace told Arts and Entertainment. "The time has come, after more than 30 years of independence, for us to start having a dialogue with ourselves."
The retreat will run February 17-19 and involve artists from The Bahamas, Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba, St. Martin, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Aruba, Barbados and the US, along with art historians, critics, art lawyers and curators who will be exploring Contemporary Art practice and "our visions of the future."
Participating artists are Carol Campbell (Jamaica), John Cox (Bahamas), Antonius Roberts (Bahamas), Irene Peterson (Aruba), Susan Mains (Grenada), Swati Khurana (India), Rodney Jackson (Jamaica), Erman (Cuba), Teri Richardson (African-American), Danny Ramirez (Cuba), Jean Chiang (Chinese-American) Noelle Theard (Haiti), Ayanna Jolivet Mccloud (African-American), Ewan Atkinson (Barbados), Carolina Vasquez (Dominican Republic).
Artists will talk with artists about hyphenated existence, art production while living in the Diaspora, border communities, creating and documenting generational memory, and documenting the process in Nassau, Bahamas, side by side Bahamian contemporary artists.
"Our interaction with Nassau has been a very fertile one. We met Erica James [director of the NAGB] and were introduced to 19 RISD [Rhode Island School of Design] graduates. The intellectual pool of artist talent and language was extremely attractive and I can’t think of anther country in the region that has this kind of intellectual pool from one Caribbean country," says Gordon-Wallace.
"RISD is ranked the number one art school in the US and we thought [The Bahamas] would be the perfect place to have a conversation about ourselves with ourselves."
The programme is funded by Artography: Arts in a Changing America, a grant and documentation programme of leveraging investments in creativity, that Gordon-Wallace’s Diaspora Vibe Gallery recently received from the Ford Foundation.
Workshops, discussions and performances will be held between the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas and Popopstudios in Chippingham, an art space dedicated to contemporary art and run by Bahamian artist John Cox.
"We are going to manoeuvre and encourage the conversation about who we are, where we are and where we are going," says Gordon-Wallace.
The invitations to the biennale have already been sent out to local artists, and it is hoped that the response will be a good one.
"The exercise will be beneficial to artists in the Bahamas who choose to participate, just to be exposed to regional trends and concerns. I think it’s a worthwhile platform that will also help create relationships. Artists will be given opportunities to form their own connections," says Cox.
"I think it’s rare. Any opportunity for a group of artists to come together and discuss related subjects will benefit all parties."
Gordon-Wallace pitched the idea to Cox a few months ago, when he and artist Antonius Roberts were chosen to exhibit at her Diaspora Vibe Art Gallery in Miami’s Design District over the weekend of Art Basel in December.
And when funding came through, the wheels started turning.
Diaspora Vibe Gallery, now in its 10th year, is a multi-disciplinary art space serving as a laboratory for emerging artists of the Caribbean Diaspora and other artists of colour, providing them with a contemporary sensibility to explore and experiment with new forms and cultural themes.
Cox feels that in addition to the benefits that will be afforded to local artists taking part in the retreat, there is also something to be gained for the artists coming to The Bahamas.
Other topics to be discussed at the retreat include when and where Caribbean artists will meet again in two years. The experience will also be documented by Dr. Rosamond King, an art historian, and continue the conversations with collaborative exposure of the work moving forward.
"The Bahamas is a ready and able community, in terms of art, to host such an event," says Cox.
- Austin DWI - New York DWI