Art of the Month: Shanty Town Tea Service

On my way to work, I noticed that a familiar town had been demolished. Boards and other forms of structure that once housed a community lay broken on the ground.

I’ve always known that the town enclosed by trees and bushes was there, but when it was exposed, the size and difference of the town was a shock. I was looking at another way of living, another standard of living; how certain groups of people lived.

July 2nd, 2014, Tracy-Ann Perpall, also known as TAP, released a documentary on YouTube called Bwapen: Village Documentary. This documentary gave insight on the burning of a ‘shanty town’ village off of Joe Farrington Road and the Haitian-Bahamian situation in the Bahamas. Perpall’s investigation into this tragedy unearthed tensions between Bahamian landowners and ‘shanty town’ residents, the true conditions of said ‘shanty towns’, and ended by questioning the public. “Does real change occur with dismantling Bwapen, or is it just a band-aid attempting to cover the symptoms of underlying problem” – Tracy Ann Perpall.

Over the past year and a half, the government has been working to effectively address and act upon the issue of growing shantytowns within New Providence. Over the past year and a half, the island has experienced a mass exposure of those towns, several fires of buildings in the towns, and demolition and plans of demolition for some areas. These issues of immigration and the living standards of some immigrants and poor Bahamians in the Bahamas have not popped up over night.

In 2011, Jeffrey Meris, a graduate of the College of the Bahamas and a Popop Junior Prize Winner, constructed Shanty Town Tea Service, which is on display in the Bahamian Domestic exhibition. As a Haitian-Bahamian, Meris comments on the Haitian-Bahamian situation and the view of said people through the manipulation of clay. The class of a tea service is not often compared or associated with standard of shantytowns. Contradictory in some senses, some may say. The standards of shanty towns deemed as “environments that incubate horrible, horrible health challenges,” by Duane Miller does not compare with the dainty, polished China set utilized during tea parties.

In 2011, Jeffrey Meris was concluding his studies at the College of the Bahamas. He commented on the social structure of shantytowns within the Bahamas. In 2014, Tracy-Ann Perpall exposed the social structure of a forgotten shantytown in her documentary. At the later part of 2014, the relevance of the conversation still prevails. During the late part of 2014, on my way to work, I noticed that a familiar town had been demolished.

Shanty Town Tea Service
Jeffrey Meris
Dawn Davies Collection

Written by NAGB Gallery Assistant, Jodi Minnis for the Art of the Month.

Feature From The Exhibition: Side Spaces

The idea of the apocalypse has been around for a long time. In most religious ideology the term refers to an end of time the end of the world. End of days and everything that is, will cease to exist. Universally the apocalypse spells doom and gloom for the extinction of mankind and the world as we know it, historically however this should have happened may times over.

In modern society this idea is being less recognized as a possible factual prediction for the mankind’s future but rather as term or a metaphor to describe a change or transformation; an age of enlightenment. How this is interpreted is based on the individual’s ideology, religious beliefs, environment, knowledge and perceptions of truth.

Lillian Blades installation, Mystic Veil, indicates such ideas of revealing the hidden. Lillian work represents a barrier, which can obscure the viewer or present a revelation. Shifting perspectives as the viewer walks through the assemblage both sides of the veil reveal the known and unknown. In Jonathan Bethel’s painting the unknown is in the distance. The storm represents an impending apocalypse in lurking in the dark, of what is to come. In another perspective it is post-apocalyptic and now everything is calm, the worst is over.

What A Maggot Calls The End Of The World The Master Calls A Fly by Christina Darville

In similar fashion Christina Darville’s installation, What A Maggot Calls The End Of The World The Master Calls A Fly, hints to the same ideas. The event after the apocalypse; a new beginning. However in works such as Del Foxton’s piece, Kingdom Come ... Moving into the Light, the artist describes the event as a time of possible enlightenment. Instead we move around in circles making the same mistakes and are the architectures of our own demise. But the work is still hopeful that mankind can find their way.

Kingdom Come ... Moving into the Light by Del Foxton

Other artists such as Jessica Colebrooke and Allan Wallace discuss the coming of the Kingdom from a literal and religious perspective. Wallace’s painting depicts the heavens opening up and the return of the lord in the end of days.

Thy Will Be Done by Jessica Colebrooke

In the video installation by Jackson Petit, Progress: Under Construction, Petit presents the idea in a real world practicality, where we move through this existence unaware of the impacts we impose on the environment, each other and nature. An impending darkness lies beneath the surface of the video and we feel uneasy and the video reveals many things about the society’s negligence and unwillingness to discuss particular matters.

Progress: Under Construction by Jackson Petit

The works in the NE6 are vast and diverse and the depiction of the theme by many of the artists is quite unexpected and revealing. In this section of the exhibition the artists discuss the theme both personally and in a social context; both subjectively and objectively.

-JP

National Exhibition (NE) 6: Kingdom Come is currently on display in T1 and T2.

Feature From The Exhibition: Northeast Gallery 2

The triptych by Susan Moir Mackay, Anthropology 2012: Human, System, Object breaks the reality of human life into these three specific categories. It examines the relationship between people, their social networks and the apparatus of everyday routines. Mackay’s work offers a means of location and charting the diversity of society through a kind of modern excavation that reveals the symbols of collection preoccupations that ultimately obstructs us from a much meaningful existence.

Anthropology 2012: Human, System, Object by Susan Moir Mackay

Heino Schmid’s, This Is Remembering takes the viewer to a space of dreams where the suggestion of reality gets turned upside down. The large-scale mixed media piece becomes a portal through which our minds find new perspectives and possibilities outside the gravity of the mundane. Possibly through our levitation we will find a sense of balance and realignment.

This Is Remembering by Heino Schmid

Ascension, Suspension, Descent, Scharad Lightboune’s triptych looks into one’s identity and through mentioning Joseph Campbell it is said that a heroic crossing over or through water was usually a pivotal scene in a myth or epic, since it signals the hero’s encounter with his own unconscious. Lightbourne explores submerging oneself into water and its significant to a kind of death and a sense of rebirth.

Ascension, Suspension, Descent by Scharad Lightbourne

Never Again Shall This Beautiful Land Experience The Oppression Of One By Another, Lavar Munroe’s sculpture investigates how chaotic the world is or has become due to human manipulation. It deals with the societal, physical and psychological ways it has all come together. Munroe’s piece scrutinizes how our impact and the natural disasters have recreated it all to what it is today.

Never Again Shall This Beautiful Land Experience The Oppression Of One By Another by Lavar Munroe

-AW

National Exhibition (NE) 6: Kingdom Come is currently on display in T1 and T2.

Feature From The Exhibition: The Pathways

Jace McKinney’s work visually echoes the Biblical narrative of the Hebrews being delivered by God from the hands of the Egyptians where they sang a song of praise that became known as “The Song of Moses”. Mckinney’s choir is constructed from plaster molds made from the heads of young children from a grass-roots community and subsequently turned into 21 makeshift lamps. McKinney’s work acts as a metaphor for the innate divinity of the culture of youth and a call for us to elevate ourselves from our collective cynicism.

 

The Song of Moses by Jace McKinney

Jeffrey Meris’ Cradle explores human notions of death and finality. Meris’ coffins are reminiscent of standard coffins used in funeral practices. However, upon entering the piece and closing the two doors, visitors are confronted with their own eternalness as their image is replicated to infinity through the use of visual trickery and mirrors. Once your experience is over, you are able to exit the coffin through a different door. Meris’ work acts as a passage, one that forces the individual to confront their understanding of death. By exiting the coffin, Meris metaphorically speaks on spiritual continuity and the opportunity for a new, different life after the finality of death.

Cradle by Jeffrey Merris

In Lillian Blades’ Mystic Veil visitors experience a partial view of the Gallery. Large sections of Blades’ four veils are obscured by patchwork fabric designs, whilst smaller sections of sheer tulle allow visitors a glimpse of their surroundings. The veil’s random construction explores human understanding of the known and unknown- by randomizing the sections of the tapestry, Blades comments on the human need and effort to compartmentalize, order and construct knowledge, the known and unknown.

 
Mystic Veil by Lillian Blades

-AK

National Exhibition (NE) 6: Kingdom Come is currently on display in T1 and T2. 

Feature From The Exhibition: Northeast Gallery

This gallery delves into the sub-theme of balance, which in matter of Kingdom Come itself is tied to spirituality; be it societal, individual or the lack thereof. Finding Balance, Tyrone Ferguson’s aluminum sculpture distinctly focuses on this theme. The balancing of a white disc and a black disc shows the constant point of equilibrium that we all try to find in our lives on a daily basis, and seeing that the figure is on a tight rope this stability is reiterated with other things that may be occurring in the world/society, that we walk the tight rope in hopes to survive.

 

Finding Balance by Tyrone Ferguson

Toby Lunn’s Alchemy and Samadhi makes the connections to spirituality; directly points to heaven and hell, with the language of the title alone being from a Psalm and the lightness/whiteness of the heavens in the top of the diptych and hell being in the darker colors at the bottom. Lunn’s piece speaks directly to the biblical words of the coming of the Kingdom.

Alchemy and Samadhi by Toby Lunn

Night and Day-O looks at the correlations between living and dying inside Bahamian society. The images that we reflect to the world and some social issues that actually occur at an alarming rate. Dave Smith’s message in this piece is very strong and the balance of good and bad, right and wrong is seen blatantly. The justice of it all and our attempt at survival looks directly into our identity.

Night and Day-O by Dave Smith

-AW

National Exhibition (NE) 6: Kingdom Come is currently on display in T1 and T2.

Feature From The Exhibition: Northwest Gallery

Resurrection by Claudette Dean

Claudette Dean’s Resurrection explores our societal understanding of human identity. Metaphorically, Dean’s piece speaks to the sameness that we are all born into. However, in the passage of life our very being becomes fragmented through the use of labels. Visually, Dean speaks personally to the visitor as she dissects her fragmented identity by boldly stating that she is “more than” each societal label ascribed her to her body. This notion of fragmentation is echoed in Candis Marshall’s Pilgrimage. Upon a cursory glance, Marshall’s piece appears to be a close up of a plant, with the plants body in the faded background. Metaphorically, the piece speaks to the passing of time, as two human-like figures appear to be making a pilgrimage together. Through the use of bold colors the two beings are made part of a large collective whole, and in their pilgrimage they are fragmented and made different from the whole.

 

View of the Northeastern Gallery

Steven Schmid’s pregnant female in Gedankenexperience visually echoes the works of the old masters, with a female softly clutching her swollen belly as her head is bowed in reverence and peace. Despite her peaceful pose, Schmid’s piece is awash in dark elements that speak to the fragility of one’s cultural acceptance and place in society upon birth of a child that is not societally deemed appropriate or acceptable. Apryl Burrows’ Independence 4.0 also echoes cultural acceptance and the struggle for equality. Burrows’ female is clad in a flesh colored gown of fabric strips and chains. Each strip contains an element from The Bahamian constitution pertaining to women’s rights and their right to vote. Despite the empowering words written on these strips, the gown is also awash in chains, which reflect women’s ongoing struggle for full freedoms and equality in The Bahamas.

 

Gedankenexperience by Steven Schmid

-AK

National Exhibition (NE) 6: Kingdom Come is currently on display in T1 and T2.

Feature From The Exhibition: The Ballroom

How do you rise above life’s dramatic changes and transitions with a smile on your face or a shred of hope? Some suggest that we don’t rise above them at all but instead move with these changes, these minor and major apocalypses. Joseph Campbell philosophizes that we have to dive into the fire to find our treasure. Many of the artists in this space have dived into an abyss of some kind. Whether it be the exposure of Bahamian societal issues in Kishan Munroe’s Beacon of Hope, physical and emotional turmoil in Kendra Frorup’s installations Duran Duran and A Constant Internal Smile or Dede Brown’s study of rebirth in her installation Chaos is the law of nature; Order is the dream of man, on the most basic level these works speak to our natural human instinct for persistent survival in the midst of change.

Munroe explores contentious topics and issues within his painting Beacon of Hope. We are a country that is “in the way” of many Haitian’s desperate for escape to the United States. As a result, Haitian immigration has become an inevitable and chronic problem that became exacerbated by shipwrecks, capsized boats and shanty towns burning to the ground. Munroe is concerned with those whose lives are threatened to be crushed under the weight of this and similar issues. Child abuse, oil exploration and women’s rights are only a few tensions that Munroe visualizes. One may ask where is the hope? Munroe believes that those who have survived are this hope, those who have risen above the many shipwrecks that have crashed into the reefs of this country, both beautiful and deadly. Only these persons, who are indeed beacons of light, can guide out those of us with flickering flames.

Beacon of Hope by Kishan Munroe

“Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.” These words by philosopher Joseph Campbell are an ideal frame for Frorup’s double installation. Duran Duran is a visual representation of the past that forms the life of the moving man and the maze of roads one take to get to a better future. Each step is a literal and figurative weight on our shoulders. There does exist moments in time when we must fight for our future. The red foreground on one of the two panels of Duran Duran speaks to this violence and its necessity; this hustle and flow that is a must for any person intent on survival. A Constant Internal Smile addresses the micro to the macro blows that seem to strike with the force and efficiency of Muhammad Ali with a speed ball. Births, deaths, a job lost, a job gained, a love lost, a love gained; small and large calamities that disturb worlds already peppered with chaos. Frorup asks and answers the question; When the dust settles, what will we find in the end?

Duran Duran and A Constant Internal Smile by Kendra Frorup

Dede Brown’s installation, Chaos is the law of nature; Order is the dream of man speaks to battling forces that have a mysterious existence and strange tension; chaos and order. The moment one morph into the other is Brown’s definition of an apocalypse. Rightly so since Campbell wrote that “Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again”. Where else can one find themself but at the tail end of a chaotic experience? A dramatic rebirth and realignment at the human and universal level are similar discoveries that Brown explores through her installation. The sum of each part of Brown’s installation is representative of a rebirth and change. Each suspended feather and their cumulative composition suggest a sense of alignment that is constantly in motion. And motion is a prerequisite for change.

Chaos is the law of nature; Order is the dream of man by Dede Brown

-NP

National Exhibition (NE) 6: Kingdom Come is currently on display in T1 and T2. The National Art Gallery Of The Bahamas will be closed on Monday, December 24th, Tuesday, December 25th and Wednesday, December 26th.

Highlight: Pictures from our Current Exhibitions

To celebrate Amos Ferguson: Bahamian Outsider, we are sharing some great gallery shots of the exhibition, as well as The Bahamian Landscape below!

Amos Ferguson: Bahamian Outsider

Permanent Exhibition: The Bahamian Landscape

Visit The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas to see Amos Ferguson: Bahamian Outsider and Permanant Exhibition: The Bahamian Landscape on the second floor! For further information on the exhibition, tours, education and cultural programs, please call 328-5800/1.

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