In seeing so many large,
bright, and significant works in Bahamian Domestic, it might seem peculiar to
pick a piece that appears so much smaller and more subtle in comparison.
However, it’s equally essential to find the importance in the things that become
marginalized by bigger entities – the significance in the small. For Natalie
Willis, National Art Gallery Curatorial Trainee, Lavar Munroe’s “Migrant” seemed
appropriate to discuss and share as April’s Art Work of the Month.
It
is especially apt to look at Munroe’s work when considering the fact that he
will be exhibiting next month in the upcoming Venice Biennale. A young Bahamian
artist who grew up in Grant’s Town, Munroe will soon be represented at one of
the biggest and oldest international art expos in the world.
Munroe’s
body of work encompasses a vast and varied range of modes
of display – with everything from wall-based works that unsettle our ideas of
the sculpture-painting binary, to projects that incorporate sculpture and
social activism. At the heart of his work remain a few recurring themes:
mythology, cultural identity and that which is auto-ethnographic – that is,
examining a culture subjectively, through one’s own experiences in it. His
works themselves seem to migrate between boundaries.
Initially
“Migrant” appears to be quite simple – a shabby house being carried along by
many legs, amongst other shabby houses. But in its Bahamian context, it unveils
many of our contemporary issues on identity, belonging and, as the title
suggests, migration.
Created
in the midst of the 2007-2008 financial crisis, the work speaks volumes for our
situation – in both senses of the word – in The Bahamas. We are a nation of
migrants – of people from elsewhere – according to late Jamaican cultural
theorist Stuart Hall. Given the country’s current debates over Haitian
migration and illegal immigrants in the country, some like Willis believe it
seems fitting to look to this work and Hall’s ideas on the Caribbean.
“Not
unlike the cart-wheels in ‘Migrant’, we are all spokes in a wheel of some kind,”
said Willis. “We are subject to outer influences and in a perpetual cycle of
being on-top, then back on the bottom, then back on top again. It is like the
ongoing struggle for dominance.”
The
iconic “government pink” on the buildings only adds to this and makes us
consider what roles we play as a nation and as individual agents in this
ongoing discussion of migration and displacement within our Caribbean.
No comments:
Post a Comment