The Tribune

A LITTLE over half a century as a sovereign nation, The Bahamas still does not have a national museum. It’s telling sign of our priorities and sometimes pseudo patriotism that we have not mustered the will and resources to create and sustain sucwh an institution.

In failing to open the museum, we are also falling to inculcate a deeper understanding of Bahamian civics, history, and heritage in successive generations. A people’s identity is related to an understanding and assimilation of their history. The National Museum of The Bahamas should be a cornerstone in fostering a more reflective, considered, and vibrant patriotism.

Kim Outten Stubbs insists: “A national museum defines a country in our world, as attaining a certain ‘level of civilization’, a certain acknowledgement and accomplishment. It can certainly help to create one common identity for people of many origins and from so many islands.”

This museum may cultivate in Bahamians a greater knowledge and appreciation of our geological and social history, Lucayan history, the history of slavery and colonialism, the struggle for majority rule and independence, and post-independence history.

The cultural failure to open such a museum is near akin to not having a National Insurance Board to address social welfare and development.

While colonialists and others literally painted and portrayed the nation in one-dimensional tropes and postcard-like images, it remains an obligation and opportunity for Bahamians to portray the country in our image and likeness, with all of our beauty, flaws, contradictions, shadows, and paradoxes.

This is the vital role that museums of all sorts, indigenous textbooks, literary and artworks, and local cum regional festivals and expos play in educating and informing Bahamians and non-Bahamians (including tourists) of the epic memories that constitute Bahamian experiences.

After first visiting the art spaces at Baha Mar some years ago, an American friend, who is an artist, was blown away by the tapestry and diversity of Bahamian art, reframing his understanding of The Bahamas from beach paradise to an archipelago of a richer heritage, and history of struggle and transcendence.

As Minister of Education, now Tourism Minister, Glenys Hanna Martin spearheaded the production of the secondary school history textbook, “Towards a Common Loftier Goal”.

She noted at its release: “The history curriculum, as you’ve heard, had to be updated and modernized for the first time unbelievably in 43 years…It is my hope this text will cause our young people to have a deeper understanding of our history and the shaping of this collective space we call The Bahamas.”

Though the National Museum is no longer part of her brief, she has an opportunity to finally get the institution open, documenting, and telling our history from a Bahamian perspective and imagination.

The Tourism Minister can work in a joint ministerial effort with the Minister of Culture, Arts and Heritage, Leslia Miller Brice, and major hotels, cruise lines, and other benefactors to open a museum along the lines of the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas (NAGB) and the Pompey Museum of Slavery and Emancipation.

How spiritually, artistically, and intellectually poorer we would be without the NAGB?

Imagine the United States or Washington DC, without the Smithsonian Institution, a museum and research complex consisting of 17 museums and galleries, including art and history museums.

Imagine Greece or Egypt, without museums dedicated to their ancient history. National museums are not luxuries. They are vital institutions of national development. They are also huge draws for tourists.

A Bahamas national museum, with gallery space, gifts shops, and immersive visitor experiences inside and on the grounds, could draw on the millions of land and cruise passengers coming to The Bahamas. The Museum could help improve the visitor product and experience on New Providence.

Museums have an enduring and unique power to entice, to provoke and to capture the imaginations of people of diverse backgrounds, divergent views, and all levels of intellect and learning. They are experiential platforms which foster learning, understanding, inquisitiveness – and memory.

Today, the physical space of a museum may be linked to an array of social media and interactive platforms, which can educate and inform everyone from primary school students to domestic and international researchers.

Museums are repositories of art, artefacts, and archival material that help to exhibit the fecundity and complexity of the topics to which they are dedicated. Such institutions are expensive to create and maintain, especially given other demands on the public purse. We are paying, however, an ever-higher price for not having a national museum, for which we could derive tremendous assistance from businesses and private benefactors.

A leading corporate sponsor the government and Hanna Martin should partner with to open the National Museum is Baha Mar, which plays an extraordinary role in the promotion and exhibition and Bahamian arts and culture, locally and internationally. Baha Mar President Graeme Davis’s commitment in these areas has been demonstrated through the resort’s commercial enterprises and philanthropic outreach. Through the Baha Mar Resort Foundation, the company was a leading private-sector partner in The Bahamas’ return to the Venice Biennale.

Baha Mar provided significant financial support—$200,000—while also contributing leadership, fundraising, and cultural expertise to help bring the Bahamas Pavilion to the international stage. The Nassau Paradise Island Development Board was also a significant sponsor.

This past week, the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas officially opened its renovated administration building. Baha Mar’s foundation contributed over $250,000 toward the renovation. The funds covered the full restoration of the Annex building, installation of climate-controlled shipping containers for programming supplies, equipment, exhibition materials, and merchandise, and the creation of a covered outdoor workshop and programming space around them.

Given Baha Mar’s stellar commitment, size, and leadership potential, it could help spearhead a consortium of tourist stakeholders including hotels, cruise lines, and other benefactors, who can combine their financial resources, fundraising capacity, and expertise to work with the government to open a worldclass national museum.

The new Minister of Tourism now has considerably more capacity to realize this dream than when she served as minister of education.

Miller Brice, who has portfolio responsibility for the National Museum, Hanna Martin, Graeme Davis, and other interested parties, should meet with the Prime Minister to devise a strategy to open a museum complex and grounds that will benefit generations of Bahamians and also serve as a cultural venue and attraction for tourists.