The 2019 international judging panel of the respected Commonwealth Writers cultural initiative selected five regional winners from 5,081 entries, and a shortlist of 21 stories, for the 2019 Commonwealth Short Story Prize.

The winner of the prze for best story from the Caribbean was Bahamian writer Alexia Tolas with her short story entitled “Granma’s Porch” which tells the story of Helena who, abandoned by her father on her grandmother’s porch, fumbles along the delicate border between adolescence and adulthood, guided by the past traumas of her friends and family and her troubled first love.

Caryl Phillips, Chair of the Judges, said: “The regional winners of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize explore a remarkably diverse range of subject-matter, including stories about war, love, abuse and neglect. What unites the stories is a common thread of narrative excellence and dramatic intensity. The voices of a truly global cast of characters enable us to engage with, and recognise, universal emotions of pain and loss.”

Alexia Tolas was born and raised in The Bahamas. Her writing explores the intricacies of small-island life, particularly from the female perspective. She draws heavily on local folktales and mythologies in order to convey realities silenced by tradition and trauma. She is a graduate of the former College of The Bahamas and currently teaches Literature at Tambearly School.

CLICK HERE for more on the 2019 awards and ceremony.

Bahamian poets published in latest issue of Caribbean magazine

The poetry of two contemporary Bahamian writers appears in the third issue of Pree, a unique online magazine for new contemporary writing from and about the Caribbean, whose Editor-in-chief is Annie Paul, a writer and critic based at the University of the West Indies, Mona, where she is founding editor of Small Axe, head of Publications at SALISES and managing editor of the journal Social and Economic Studies. Pree publishes original works of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, essays, interviews and experimental writing, giving authors international visibility far beyond the islands. Featured Bahamian writers are Tanicia Pratt and Maelynn Seymour-Major.

The theme of this issue is: #TheCaribbeanIsNotARealPlace which tells the stories of how we live in the surreal/unreal/hyper-real home we call the Caribbean. Issue three asks the questions: What is the Caribbean beyond the visage it presents to the world? The hyper-hospitality zone fringing each island, frantically signaling ‘come hither’ messages to mostly white visitors is rarely as hospitable to its own citizens. ‘Just another day in paradise,’ sings David Rudder in a cynical moment. But it’s a valid point: for whom does the Bird of Paradise bloom?

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– Tanicia Pratt is a millennial, Bahamian-Muslim poet based in Nassau, New Providence. Her writing naturally explores the cultural experiences of Caribbean women. She cares about human wellness, the environment, and cultural preservation. Her work has been featured in Write About Now, POUI, Transforming Spaces, NE8, and Double Dutch. Tanicia loves coffee + horror films + staying in bed on a rainy day.

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– Maelynn Seymour-Major began writing poetry about the flowers in her grammy’s garden. Her poetry is still heavily influenced by nature, but she also writes about Caribbean and/or Black experiences of love. Maelynn has an MA in Poetic Practice from Royal Holloway, University of London. She has taught Creative Writing at the University of The Bahamas as an Adjunct Lecturer. She experiments with book-arts, is an avid reader, and loves her dog Violet.

CLICK HERE to read full Issue 3 of Pree.

On Sunday July 14th, the City of Pickering, Ontario, put on a free concert in true Bahamian style as a part of their annual summer concert series.

The Esplanade Park Concert titled “An Eric Minns Celebration”, was a true Bahamian celebration honouring the life and contributions of Bahamian musician and songwriter Eric Minns. The concert included performances by Bahamian band Ambasah and The Bahamas Junkanoo Legends. Ambasah flew into Ontario from The Bahamas for the event. The band played selections from Eric’s musical library: a mix of jazz, pop, and a wide variety of Caribbean rhythms. The Bahamas Junkanoo Legends represent Bahamian culture through dance, drums, with various percussion and wind instruments.

Putting things into perspective

by Kevanté A. C. Cash

Can we take a minute to reflect, to return to moments in childhood of being unjustly vilified by adults all in the name of superiority because adults “can never be wrong?” Compare that feeling you felt to those of whom may work in service-based industries where customers are supposedly never wrong… even when, sometimes, they may be. Imagine the disgrace one must endure for the sake of client satisfaction or a five-star rating. Imagine the same ignominy women must feel when they are thrown labels they must endure and wear proudly for the fulfilment of the male gaze. It is even more distasteful when these supposed compliments are coming from a touristic perspective. Words like “Bahama Mama” become double-fold and suddenly intolerable when they are taken out of the mouths of the people who have claimed it to be this powerful thing.

Research-based, multidisciplinary artist Jodi Minnis sought to investigate the layered meanings behind this time-worn Bahamian idiom in her new series of works, entitled “NOT YOUR BAHAMA MAMA”. She presented her findings at The Current’s latest gesture, “Conceptual Currency”, conceptualized by curatorial manager Angelika Wallace-Whitfield, last month.

“The ‘NOT YOUR BAHAMA MAMA’ series started as a response to the multidimensional meanings and connotations behind the phrase. Whether it was used as a term of exoticism, endearment or on racist iconography, I thought it important to highlight each facet and expose the audience to all of these layers,” Minnis said during her presentation.

She considers the weight of these words and also the likeness of people she holds dear to her, and compares and contrasts the two. “My grandmother was featured on the cover of a photo book by Sophia Whitehead titled ‘Bahama Mama’ and I found salt shakers fashioned like mammy archetypes with the words ‘Bahama Mama’ engraved on it, and that inspired a few things. [...]

CLICK HERE for full article in the Nassau Guardian.

by Anna Bryson

In March, Mineral Springs Park was officially recognized as a stop on the Underground Railroad Network by the National Parks Services’ National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom.

Daphney Towns, a native of The Bahamas, lived in Bradenton for 25 years before she knew that it was the land where her ancestors once lived.

The story taught in textbooks is that when slaves escaped their owners in the U.S. in the early 1800s, they went north to free states or to Canada. But researchers discovered that some of them went south, to Florida. Escaped slaves and Seminole Indians created a Maroon community along the Manatee River that became known as the Angola settlement.

Their colony of escaped slaves, at Manatee Mineral Springs, was an integral spot on the underground railroad, a network of safe places for escaped slaves from the South.

The Angola settlement existed from the early 1800s until 1821 when a Lower Creek Indian war party looted and burned their homes. Some of the survivors escaped to Red Bays, Bahamas, where their descendants still live today. [...]

CLICK HERE for full story at the Herald Tribune.

Related article:
“Festival celebrating history between Bradenton and The Bahamas prepares for second year...” – Bradenton Herald

From the NAGB Art Collection:

Chelsea Pottery

A Brief Bahamian History of Clay

by Natalie Willis

A beautifully formed piece of handmade ceramic work, produced at the Chelsea Pottery in Nassau in 1960, serves as a great point of departure for talking about some of our Bahamian art histories. Clay work, like drawing and painting, has a history almost as old as humanity itself. Our legacy of pottery here begins with the indigenous peoples of The Bahamas – the Arawaks, Lucayans, and Tainos. As Dr Erica M. James lays out in her key text on Bahamian art history in “Bahamian Modernism”, our background of creative visual culture is much richer and varied than we tend to hear about.

These nomadic and remarkably ingenious peoples carried pottery with them from South America until they reached our limestone archipelago around 500-800 AD. After that, the Spanish and British and even the French who settled in the Abacos in the 1500s would have brought with them their various styles of earthenware vessels. From colonialism to modern capitalism, clay goods have long been used to mark the presence and development of different societies.

Some might be complacent in thinking that our history begins and ends with slavery and colonialism – and while it has been perhaps the most momentous and impactful part of our history, the route from the first wave of colonialism with the Spanish and Christopher Columbus, the various attempts by other Europeans after that, British subjugation and slavery, is by no means the start or end of our story. [...]

CLICK HERE for full text at the NAGB.

by Nadja Sayej

“Is it possible to move Caribbean art, or art of the Caribbean diaspora, away from trauma and catastrophe?” asks María Elena Ortiz, who has co-curated a new exhibition tasked with doing just this, focusing on the future rather than the rocky, colonial past.

Working alongside Marsha Pearce, Ortiz has constructed The Other Side of Now: Foresight in Contemporary Caribbean Art, which showcases the works of 14 artists at the Pérez Art Museum Miami, opening this week.

The artists in the exhibition, mostly young, hailing from the English, French, Dutch and Spanish-speaking islands, all look to questions regarding the future of the region.

“I’m a black Latina born and raised in Puerto Rico, I curate work I identify with,” said Oritz. “There are so many great artists in the Caribbean; the goal was to include other voices in the conversation. If we have this platform, why not use it to support the work of young artists?”

One of the main questions behind the exhibit is how to think about the future of the Caribbean in present day. “Not tomorrow,” adds Ortiz. [...]

CLICK HERE to read full article in The Guardian.

A last look at Ebony’s archives, before they’re sold

The most significant collection of photographs depicting African-American life in the 20th century is being auctioned. Historians fear the archive could end up hidden away.

by Julie Bosman

For months, a stream of visitors — curious, cultured and deep-pocketed — have slipped into a drab brick warehouse on the West Side of Chicago. They have been escorted upstairs in a creaky elevator to a windowless room and handed blue gloves to wear.

Then they have lingered for hours or days over the most significant collection of photographs depicting African-American life in the 20th century.

In one folder, there is Coretta Scott King, cradling her daughter Bernice from a pew at the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s funeral. In another, Billie Holiday stands on a city sidewalk with a cigarette and a faraway expression. One box holds a black-and-white print of Ray Charles hanging out with a Chicago nightclub owner and playing dominoes, as the typewritten caption noted, “by feel.”

This week, one of the visitors to the warehouse could walk away with it all: the entire photo archive from Ebony and Jet, the iconic sister magazines. The collection of photographs, more than four million prints and negatives, will be offered at an auction on Wednesday conducted privately at a law firm downtown. [...]

CLICK HERE for full story in the New York Times.

Pérez Art Museum in Miami receives $1m gift for Caribbean Cultural Institute

by Alex Greenberger

The Pérez Art Museum Miami has been given a $1 million gift from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, a New York-based organization that regularly offers funding to arts institutions across the United States. The Mellon gift will be put toward the institution’s newly formed Caribbean Cultural Institute, which is intended to promote the research and exhibition of work by artists from the Caribbean and its diaspora.

“It’s something that is in our DNA, and we’ve been talking about this for a long time,” Franklin Sirmans, PAMM’s director, told ARTnews. “Now we’re really going to be able to move the dial.” He called the institute “an extended thinktank,” and said it is intended to further interest in emergent themes in art of the region. [...]

CLICK HERE for full article at Art News.

Jamaica going after artefacts

Jamaica is seeking to recover artefacts that are being held in other countries.

Culture Minister, Olivia Grange, explained that during early archaeological digs when Jamaica was still a British colony several artefacts were taken from the island.

Grange said among them was the Taíno piece called ‘bird man’ — which was carved from a solid piece of heavy and dark wood. There is also ‘Boinayel’ the Rain Giver, an important god of the Taíno.

Grange, who was making her contribution to the Sectoral Debate in Parliament on Tuesday, said that these pieces, and many others that have also been identified, are with the British Museum.

“They are not even on display. They are priceless, they are significant to the story of Jamaica, and they belong to the people of Jamaica. We are working—through the National Council on Reparations—to have them returned,” she said.

“At the same time, we have located several films—that tell the story of the development of our nation—in databases overseas. They belong to us and I have put a team to work along with Chappy St Juste on repatriating them,” Grange continued.

CLICK HERE for story at The Jamaica Gleaner.

Art Gallery of Ontario’s acquires 3,500 historic Caribbean photographs

by Victoria L. Valentine

A new acquisition has enriched both the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) and the communities it serves. Presented with the opportunity to help the Toronto museum acquire more than 3,500 historic photographs, members of the local black and Caribbean communities stepped up, helping to raise $300,000.

The largesse of 27 donors made possible the AGO’s acquisition of The Montgomery Collection of Caribbean Photographs through a gift/purchase arrangement, announced June 5. Spanning a century, the vast collection dates from 1840 to 1940, documenting the region and its people following the abolishment of slavery. The images provide a visual record of the period and the changing economic, political, and cultural environment.

Thirty-four countries are represented, including 23 across the Caribbean—Jamaica, Barbados, Martinique, and Trinidad and Tobago, among them—in addition to nations such as Colombia and Venezuela.

AGO describes the collection as the largest of its kind outside the Caribbean. Comprised of prints, albums, postcards, daguerreotypes, lantern slides, and stereographs, the collection was assembled over the past decade by Patrick Montgomery, a New York-based filmmaker, photography collector, and archivist. [...]

CLICK HERE for full article in Culture Type.