The Tribune

The National Art Gallery of the Bahamas (NAGB), in collaboration with “Blackness: A Comparative, Cross-National Investigation of Meaning and Significance”, a conference initiated by Duke University being hosted at the College of the Bahamas, has announced an open call for this year’s National Exhibition 7 (NE7).

For the past 11 years, the NAGB has committed itself to fostering local artists who continue to push the frontiers and foundations of culture across the islands. The institution assumes a critical role in the development of visual arts and a strong economy of thought and language that devotes itself to exchange, the shoring up of national identity, scholarship and education.

For this year’s NE7, Bahamian visual/creative practitioners both resident and abroad are being challenged to respond to the dynamics of race and class.
According to the NAGB, NE7 is inviting artists to “investigate, within a broad disciplinary field and through various mediums, the impact and implications of the dynamic relationships that have been forged by the passage of time, and issues arising out of race, ethnicity and its contemporary discourse”.

The NAGB said to do this “we look towards citizenship, migration, the landscape, collective traumas, slavery, Indentureship, trade, racial delineations, the hybrid and rhizome; we look at things that have shaped our identities. We consider the imagination, memory, language and mythologies and how they offer a critical space to intersect with stereotypes that are deeply ingrained in our social fabric about personal and public personas”.

And it is asking artists “are we ready to confront the contentious relationship that we have with race and ethnicity? What would that unearthing look like and is there room for counter narratives? How will these definitions of Blackness, Whiteness and the dynamic range in between, fit into the social diversity of the nation? What kind of shift will this bring about in our public and private relationships? What types of freedom, permission and possibilities would this engender?”

Visual and literary artists are being asked to engage with these complex ideas of self, and how they have been affected by social and racial codes, complex histories and global convergences that are seeking to determine representation and meaning.

For details, visit the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas website: www.nagb.org.bs/