Another post on the Annabella and Peter Proudlock Collection exhibition, which continues until November 4.

Harmony Hall was originally built in 1886 and was renovated and restored in 1980-81, opening on November 14, 1981 as a gallery and craft centre, with a restaurant on the ground floor.

Harmony Hall attempted to bridge the gap between what has at times been disparagingly referred to as “tourist art” and the local and regional art worlds. It quickly became the premier North Coast gallery, known for its promotion of a wide variety of mainstream artists and craftsmen, but primarily the Jamaican Intuitives, and featured works by artists such as George Rodney, Colin Garland, Albert Huie, Zaccheus Powell, Everald Brown and Mallica “Kapo” Reynolds. That Annabella Proudlock, who was Harmony Hall’s Managing Director, and her husband Peter Proudlock, who was also a partner in Harmony Hall, collected most of the artists they exhibited at Harmony Hall reflects the close and supportive working relationships they maintained with these artists and their collection thus also tells the story of Harmony Hall.

The handsome Victorian-style Harmony Hall building quickly became a landmark, and was recognized as a national monument by the Jamaica National Heritage Trust in 2003. It appears as a subject in the work of several of the artists in this exhibition and these tributes also stand as a testament to the lasting and productive relationships that were built by its proprietors. Welcome to Harmony Hall (2006) by Michael Parchment depicts an active, cheerful space filled with patrons; Irise’s Blue Hole at Harmony Hall (1987) reflects on the beauty of the building, and several of Jonathan Routh’s raucously politically incorrect works place Harmony Hall in various fictitious historical contexts and pay tribute to the rising profile of the gallery.

Another post on the Annabella and Peter Proudlock Collection exhibition, which is on view at the NGJ until November 4.

The thematic structure of this exhibition is designed to encourage the viewer to approach the works on display for their potential to tell particular aspects of the story of Ogden-Proudlock family, and it is important to note that they lived with all of these works at their Te Moana home, in configurations which were often quite different from what is presented in these galleries. This gallery attempts a more intimate look at what it meant to “live” with this extensive collection and the installation in this section reflects less of the conventional gallery aesthetic and more of the reality of living with a large collection.

There were interesting demarcations within the Proudlock home, with the more public areas of the living room displaying their beloved Jamaican Intuitives, most of which are to be found in Gallery Four, but which are represented here by the works of Zaccheus Powell and William “Woody” Joseph. The living area also featured works by friends such as Lisa Remeny, whose surreal work depicted daily life at Te Moana itself, Graham Davis, and Jonathan Routh (whose works on the Harmony Hall theme can be seen in Gallery Two). The exuberance found in the colours and subject matter of the “tourist” art that was mounted in their large kitchen reflected their travels to locales such as Haiti and Costa Rica, while the more intimate areas of the bedrooms held works that were more restful or of personal significance, such as Angela Landels’ portraits of Annabella, Sebastian and Jessica in Gallery One, or works by close friends and frequent Harmony Hall exhibitors such as Colin Garland, Albert Huie and Graham Davis.

This is, for now, our final post on the Annabella and Peter Proudlock Collection exhibition, which continues until November 4.

Jamaica has a long and rich history of popular and self-taught art but this has not always been fully valued and documented. There have however been several major efforts over the years to recognize the artistic mastery and significance of artists who have come out of this sphere. This started with the recognition of John Dunkley and David Miller Senior and Junior by the nationalist intelligentsia in the 1930s and 40s. In the 1960s, as Mallica “Kapo” Reynolds—a Revivalist bishop — received significant support from the young politician Edward Seaga and Jamaica’s first Director of Tourism, John Pringle. Kapo’s personality and work were, for instance, used in the Tourist Board Board advertising, as part of a campaign to convey that Jamaica was more than just a beach but had a rich and distinctive culture – a campaign which paved the way for later cultural tourism initiatives such as Harmony Hall. The emergence of the Rastafari movement in the 1960s also helped to validate and give visibility to popular cultural production.

The defining moment of what is now labelled as Intuitive art came with the National Gallery of Jamaica’s ground-breaking Intuitive Eye exhibition in 1979,which featured the work of a wide range of self-taught, popular artists such as Dunkley, the Millers and Kapo, as well as several newer exponents.  This exhibition was curated by David Boxer, the National Gallery’s Director/Curator at that time, who coined the term “Intuitive,” as an alternative to derogatory terms such as “primitive” and “naïve.” While the National Gallery’s promotion of the Intuitives was not uncontroversial, it was supported by a passionate group of collectors and enthusiasts. This included Annabella Proudlock, who had been friendly with artists such as Kapo since the 1970s, and Harmony Hall, which opened in 1981, quickly became the main private counterpart of the National Gallery in the promotion of the Intuitives.

Harmony Hall is best known, locally and internationally, for its association with Intuitive art, and particularly its Harmony Hall Intuitives exhibitions, which were held annually from 1982 to 2014. Annabella and Peter Proudlock maintained a close, supportive relationship with the Intuitive artists they exhibited over the years. Not surprisingly, the Intuitives are very well represented in their collection, with many of the works acquired from the Harmony Hall Intuitives exhibitions or directly from the artists.

This gallery highlights works by Mallica “Kapo” Reynolds, Albert Artwell, Allan “Zion” Johnson and Birth “Ras Dizzy” Livingston – all major exponents of Intuitive art. It includes early works by these artists that were acquired before Harmony Hall was established and owned by Annabella, which also illustrates that there was a longer history of association which paved the way for what was later achieved at Harmony Hall.

The National Gallery of Jamaica’s Last Sundays programme for August 27, 2017, will feature the Annabella and Peter Proudlock Collection exhibition as well as a musical performance by Janine Jkuhl.

The Annabella and Peter Proudlock Collection exhibition features selections from the collection of Annabella and Peter Proudlock, who were the principals of Harmony Hall gallery in Tower Isle, St Mary. It documents some fifty years of collecting, mostly of Jamaican art but also of art and craft from elsewhere in the Caribbean and Central America. The exhibition tells the story of Harmony Hall, which holds a unique position in the history of Jamaica’s commercial galleries as it has served the local and tourist markets, and focuses on its role in the promotion of Intuitive art. And it also tells the story of a particular group of people who made their lives in post-Independence Jamaica and who were deeply immersed in the cultural and artistic developments of that moment, to which they actively contributed.

Janine Coombs, also known as Jkuhl (pronounced Jay-Cool), is an eclectic singer-songwriter and also an eclectic listener who is influenced by many genres of music. She describes herself as “a beatific musician, songwriter and singer of Classical and IndiePop.” A graduate of the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, Janine Jkuhl recorded her first Album, STAR GAZE, in the summer of 2009. This album consists of ten inspirational Indie-Alternative-Fusion tracks, to inspire, heal and soothe the mind and soul of listeners. Since then, Janine has written numerous songs showcasing her developing style which she calls “Jkuhl.” She has been featured in RJR 94 FM’s Music Week Acoustiks Live Concert, the Gungo Walk Alternative Music and Art festival, the French Embassy’s Fete De La Musique, the JARIA Reggae Month Show, and the MUZAK Heart and Soul Noise Talent Show at the California State University, just to name a few. She has also been a guest soloist for the Diocesan Festival Choir of Jamaica Concert Series as well as the National Choral of Jamaica’s Elijah Tour. Her single Tempted was rated in the top ten songs of May 2016 on the USA Indie radio show, The John Wayne Show, Maven FM.

Visitors will also be able to view two other temporary exhibitions consisting of selections from the National Collection: New Dialogues and Art of Independence. Doors will be open to the public from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm; the musical programme will start at 1:30 pm. As is customary, admission will be free, along with free guided tours of the exhibitions. Our Gift and Coffee Shops will also be open for business. Proceeds from these as well as contributions to the National Gallery’s donation box are, as always, appreciated and are used to help fund programmes like Last Sundays as well as our exhibitions .

We have met before. Four centuries separate our first meeting when Prospero was graced with the role of thief, merchant and man of God. Our hero was ‘the right worshipfull and valiant night Sir John Haukins, sometimes treasurer of her Majesties navie Roial’; and it is his first Voyage in search of human merchandise.

George Lamming – The Pleasures of Exile (1960)

We Have Met Before, which will be on view at the NGJ from September 22 to November 4, reflects on the question of historical forgetfulness and the capacity of art to unearth and to shed new light on what is forgotten or supressed. The four artists—Graham Fagen from Scotland, Joscelyn Gardner from Barbados and Canada, Leasho Johnson from Jamaica and Ingrid Pollard from Guyana and England— and the works selected for this exhibition represent a conversation on the histories of Slavery, the Transatlantic trade, and its present-day implications. Each artist brings a distinctive perspective to this subject area, with work that was created in different locales, different media, from different experiences, and at different points in time.

These subjects are of course not new and commonly appear in modern and contemporary art from the Caribbean and its Diaspora, as well as in other art forms such as dance, drama, literature and music. In Jamaica, the subjects hold a central position in Garvey and Rastafari culture, which has produced a recognizable African Zionist iconography that is prominent in the popular visual culture and the visual arts. The histories of slavery have been very contentious as a subject area in Caribbean art and this is particularly pronounced in public art, as was best illustrated by the intense controversy about Laura Facey’s Redemption Song (2003), Jamaica’s de facto Emancipation monument. This controversy raised many questions about the representational choices and the equally contentious issue of who can legitimately speak about this subject.

We Have Met Before revisits this complex and contentious territory, and acknowledges that much has been suppressed and left unsaid, especially by the former colonizers. The exhibition argues that the subject area needs to be approached as part of an ongoing conversation, in which there is no final word and in which it must be possible for various perspectives to be expressed. The resulting conversations may be difficult but they are necessary, as they are central to the histories that have shaped and continue to shape the contemporary Caribbean world, and it is hoped that this exhibition will contribute to this process.

We wish to thank the British Council wholeheartedly for its support of this exhibition. We have benefitted from traveling exhibitions and staff development opportunities funded and organized by the British Council before, but this exhibition marks a new way of collaborating, as we have been partners in its development rather than recipients of a pre-existing exhibition project—a new model on which we hope to build in the future. We are particularly grateful for the support of Juliet Dean, Visual Arts Advisor, British Council Scotland, Annalee Davis, Caribbean Arts Manager, British Council, and Andrea Dempster-Chung, Arts Project Manager, British Council. We also need to thank the artists Graham Fagen, Joscelyn Gardner, Leasho Johnson, and Ingrid Pollard, as well as Stephen Murray.

We Have Met Before, which opens on September 22 and continues until November 4, is staged in partnership with the British Council. The works selected for this exhibition represent a conversation on the histories of Slavery, the Transatlantic trade, and its present-day implications. Graham Fagen is one of the four artists featured.

Bio

Graham Fagen, who was born in Scotland in 1966. He studied at the Glasgow School of Art (1984-1988, BA Hons) and the Kent Institute of Art and Design (1989-1990, MA). He is Professor of Fine Art at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design in Dundee. He has exhibited internationally and in 2015 he was selected to represent Scotland at the 56^th Venice Biennale. He lives in Glasgow, Scotland.

Graham Fagen

About the Work

Graham Fagen is represented by a multi-channel video and sound installation The Slave’s Lament, which was also shown at the 2015 Venice Biennale. The work is based on a 1792 song written by Scotland’s national poet Robert Burns, in which an enslaved man in Virginia expresses his longing for his distant homeland of Senegal. Burns himself had been contracted to work as a book-keeper at a plantation in Jamaica several years before he wrote the song but never actually departed Scotland and his attitude towards slavery appears to have been ambivalent, caught between complicity and revulsion. In Fagen’s interpretation, The Slave’s Lament is performed by the reggae singer Ghetto Priest, a Rastafari, and this brings home the song’s uncanny resonance with the lyrics of exile in classic reggae. Fagen’s work also acknowledges the Scottish involvement in plantation slavery in the Americas, which may be relatively well-known in the Caribbean but is still part of the unacknowledged histories of Scotland.

Credits

Originally produced for Scotland + Venice 2015, commissioned and curated by Hospitalfield, Arbroath.

Composer: Sally Beamish
Production: Adrian Sherwood and Skip McDonald
Vocals: Ghetto Priest
Violin: Jonathan Morton
Cello: Alison Lawrance
Double Bass: Diane Clark
Guitars: Skip McDonald
Drums: Lincoln ‘Style’ Scott
Sound Recording: Hywel Jones
Sound Edit: Laurie Irvine
Sound Engineer: Dave McEwan
Mixed at On U Sound Studios, Ramsgate
Cinematography: Holger Mohaupt
Video Edit: Holger Mohaupt
AV Advisor: Simeon Corless

With thanks to The Scottish Ensemble and On U Sound

In memory of Lincoln “Style” Scott 1956 -2014

Graham Fagen website: www.grahamfagen.com

We Have Met Before opens at the National Gallery of Jamaica on September 22 and is staged in partnership with the British Council. The exhibition features Graham Fagen (Scotland), Joscelyn Gardner (Barbados/Canada), Ingrid Pollard (Guyana/UK), and Leasho Johnson (Jamaica) and revisits the challenging but important subject of trans-Atlantic slavery and its afterlives in the contemporary world, interpreted by four artists with distinctive perspectives.

As part of the accompanying programmes for We Have Met Before, the National Gallery of the Jamaica and the British Council will present a panel discussion on the issues raised by the exhibition on Saturday, September 23, starting at 1:30 pm. The panel will consist of three of the artists in the exhibition, Graham Fagen, Joscelyn Gardner and Ingrid Pollard, while Deborah Anzinger will speak about Leasho Johnson’s work. The panel will be moderated by Shani Roper, acting Director/Curator of Liberty Hall, the Legacy of Marcus Garvey.

The panel discussion, which will take place at the National Gallery of Jamaica, is free and open to the public and those in attendance will also have the opportunity to view the exhibition, which continues until November 4, 2017.

Joscelyn Gardner is one of four artists featured in We Have Met Before, an exhibition staged in partnership with the British Council. The exhibition is on view from September 22-November 4, 2017.

Bio

Born in Barbados, Joscelyn Gardner works both in the Caribbean and in Canada, where she is Professor of Art at Fanshawe College. She has held solo exhibitions in the USA, Canada, Spain, and throughout the Caribbean and has participated in numerous international biennials, exhibiting both prints and multimedia installations. Her work has also appeared in curated group exhibitions at museums in the USA, France, Puerto Rico, Martinique, Spain, India, China, Barbados, and the Netherlands, and is in public collections in the USA, Europe, and the Caribbean. In 2013 she received the Grand Prize at the 7th International Contemporary Printmaking Biennial in Trois Rivières, Quebec. She holds an MFA from Western University, and a BFA (in printmaking) and a BA (in film) from Queen’s University.

Joscelyn Gardner

About the Work

Joscelyn Gardner  is represented by two full series of lithographs – Plantation Poker (2004)and Creole Portraits II (2007)—and a selection of lithographs from the Creole Portraits III (2009- 2011) series – which are exhibited as installations that also include other elements. In these prints, which conform to the conventions of natural history illustrations, intricate African braided hairstyles morph into the instruments of torture that were used during slavery. A more specific reference to sexual abuse is added in the imagery in Plantation Poker, where the triangular shape of the hair references female pubic hair. The lovely flowers in Creole Portraits III are plants that were used by enslaved women to secretly end unwanted pregnancies. While deceptively delicate and exquisitely beautiful, the prints powerfully invoke the dehumanizing cruelty of plantation slavery. Gardner’s body of work is inspired by the infamous diaries of Thomas Thistlewood, a plantation overseer in Jamaica in the mid-18^th century, who recorded with scientific precision his many forced sexual exploits and the cruel punishments he inflicted on the enslaved.

Joscelyn Gardner website: www.joscelyngardner.com

The National Gallery of Jamaica’s Last Sundays programme for June 25, 2017 will feature the Quilt Performing Arts Company. Visitors will also be able to view the We Have Met Before and the Annabella and Peter Proudlock Collection exhibitions.

The Quilt Performing Arts Company was born out of a need for a fresh, new, innovative way of creating performance art. Using Caribbean rhythms, merging poetry, music and dance, the Quilt performers have developed their own unique performance style and an evolving theatre technique. Artistic director Rayon Mclean and his team continue break boundaries and redefine performance spaces, and this time the women in the company will be quilting from their heART through music, poetry and dance. The show is called #POW- Patches of Women. This is Quilt’s third time at the National Gallery.

We Have Met Before opens at the National Gallery of Jamaica on September 22 and is staged in partnership with the British Council. The exhibition features Graham Fagen (Scotland), Joscelyn Gardner (Barbados/Canada), Ingrid Pollard (Guyana/UK), and Leasho Johnson (Jamaica) and revisits the challenging but important subject of trans-Atlantic slavery and its afterlives in the contemporary world, interpreted by four artists with distinctive perspectives. The exhibition brings these perspectives into dialogue and invites the public to participate to the ongoing and crucially important conversations on the subject.

The Annabella and Peter Proudlock Collection exhibition features selections from the collection of Annabella and Peter Proudlock, who were the principals of Harmony Hall gallery in Tower Isle, St Mary. It documents some fifty years of collecting, mostly of Jamaican art but also of art and craft from elsewhere in the Caribbean and Central America. The exhibition tells the story of Harmony Hall, which holds a unique position in the history of Jamaica’s commercial galleries as it has served the local and tourist markets, and focuses on its role in the promotion of Intuitive art. And it also tells the story of group of people who were deeply immersed in the cultural and artistic developments of post-independence Jamaica, to which they actively contributed.

The National Gallery of Jamaica’s doors will be open from 11 am and close at 4 pm on Sunday, June 25, 2017 and the Quilt performance will start at 1:30 pm. As is customary, admission will be free and there will also be free tours of the exhibitions. Contributions to the National Gallery’s donations box are as always appreciated. The National Gallery gift and coffee shops will be open for business and proceeds from these ventures help to fund programmes such as Last Sundays as well as our exhibitions.

Leasho Johnson is one of four artists featured in We Have Met Before, an exhibition staged in partnership with the British Council. The exhibition is on view from September 22-November 4, 2017.

Bio

Leasho Johnson was born in St James, Jamaica, in 1984. He attended the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, where he obtained a BFA in Visual Communication in 2009. He is a founding member of the Dirty Crayons collective, which held local group exhibitions in 2012 and 2013. Johnson’s other exhibitions include Young Talent V (2010, National Gallery of Jamaica); Jamaican Pulse: Art and Politics from Jamaica and the Diaspora (2016, Bristol, United Kingdom); and the National Gallery of Jamaica’s Biennials since 2010. He has also participated in a number of artist residencies. In 2016, he participated in an artists’ residency at Bluecoat, a contemporary arts centre in Liverpool, United Kingdom, and he was awarded a residency at Residency Unlimited in New York City by the Davidoff Art Initiative. Johnson works in various media to explore the tensions and contestations in Jamaican culture and society, particularly in dancehall and its associated tropes. He resides in Kingston, Jamaica.

Leasho Johnson

About the Work

Leasho Johnson is the youngest artist in We Have Met Before and presents a visually and conceptually explosive mix of history and contemporary popular culture, with strong references to Dancehall and graffiti. Like the other three artists, he often uses historical source material – visual material in his case – but forces this into a dialogue with a repertoire of cartoon-like female and gender-ambivalent figures in various provocative poses, other recurrent characters such as fighting and copulating dogs, and sexual metaphors such as bananas, sugar cane, palm trees and fish. In some of his recent work, drowned bodies with provocatively placed palm tree extensions become sexualized tropical islands, reminiscent of the violent histories of the Caribbean archipelago. Johnson examines the politics of sexual objectification and the contradictions of gender and sexuality in contemporary Jamaican culture and not only points to the roots of these issues in the histories of colonization, slavery, exploitation and social inequality, but also acknowledges their revolutionary potential in the present as an agent of social change.

Leasho Johnson website: www.leasho.com

We Have Met Before opens at the National Gallery of Jamaica on September 22 and continues until November 4. The works selected for this exhibition represent a conversation on the histories of Slavery, the Transatlantic trade, and its present-day implications. The exhibition is staged in partnership with the British Council. Ingrid Pollard is one of the four artists featured.

Bio

Ingrid Pollard was born in 1953 in Georgetown, Guyana and is based in London. Pollard completed a BA in Film and Video at the London College of Printing in 1988. She went on to complete an MA in Photographic Studies at Derby University in 1995 and obtained a PhD from Westminster University in 2010. She lectures in Photography at Kingston University. Ingrid Pollard played an important role in early 1980s photography in Britain, documenting black people’s creativity and presence in photographic series that question social constructs such as Britishness and racial difference. Her work is included in major collections internationally and nationally in Tate Britain and the Victoria & Albert Museums in the UK.

Ingrid Pollard

About the Work

Ingrid Pollard works mainly in analogue photographic media, with emphasis on the materiality of the photographic media and processes. The Boy Who Watches Ships Go By (2002) is the oldest body of work in We Have Met Before and consists of images of land, sea, boats and historical documents that subtly evoke the histories, visible and invisible, of Sunderland Point in northern England, which was once a thriving seaport in the Triangular Trade. The resulting narrative revolves around the story of Sambo, a young boy and servant, presumably enslaved, who travelled with the captain of the Globe from Kingston, Jamaica, who fell ill and died when he arrived in England. His death, it was believed, was from a disease he allegedly contracted in England to which he had no immunity; and acts as a metaphor for the fate of those who lost their lives and freedom as a result of their contact with European slave traders. Sambo was, according to local lore, buried at Sunderland Point in 1739.

Ingrid Pollard website: www.ingridpollard.com

The exhibition We Have Met Before: Graham Fagen, Joscelyn Gardner, Leasho Johnson and Ingrid Pollard, a collaboration between the National Gallery of Jamaica and the British Council, is accompanied by an e-catalogue publication. This publication was edited by Melanie Archer and was designed by Kriston Chen. It contains commissioned essays by Tiffany Boyle and Shani Roper, along with forewords by Olayinka Jacobs-Bonnick, Annalee Davis and Juliet Dean, and Veerle Poupeye and O’Neil Lawrence. The We Have Met Before e-catalogue can be found here. The exhibition opens tonight at 6:30 pm and continues until November 4, 2017.

Miniature Shanties by Eddie Harris

The National Gallery Gift Shop is an integral part of the National Gallery of Jamaica experience. Just like the museum, the gift shop allows visitors to discover and learn about appreciating Jamaican art. It is the ideal place to shop for your Christmas gifts and to support Jamaican artists and the National Gallery in the process.

The gift shop has a great selection of goods and gift items for every taste and budget, with decorative accessories and art, as well as exclusive jewellery, made by local designers. We also have a wide selection of books on Jamaican and Caribbean art and culture, as well as many high quality publications developed by the Gallery staff of art historians and designers over the years, and children’s books. We also carry a large selection of art reproduction posters and greeting cards, many of which feature works of art from our collections.

Ceramics by Andranique Morgan

The National Gallery Gift Shop regularly updates its offerings and we are pleased to introduce some of our newest products. Handmade coin purses, clutches and backpacks created by Edna Manley College graduate Khristina Godfrey under her Heavymannaz brand are show stoppers. There are also miniature vernacular shacks and shanties of the island made by Eddie Harris, who was recently featured by the Observer as part of Design Week.

New publications in the gift shop include, “Usain Bolt: Legend,” by the Gleaner Company (Media) Limited and “Dewdrop” by Courtney Hogarth. Leonia McKoy and Andranique Morgan have added great products to our ceramics collection and Carol Campbell, Reve, The Girl and the Magpie, and Purple Jade have supplied exquisite new jewellery designs.

Handmade Clutch by Khristina Godfrey/Heavymannaz

There’s always something new at the gift shop so visit us today and support brand Jamaica, with your purchase of a unique, one-of-a kind gift item that will show your loved ones that you care. Revenue earned from the Gift Shop helps to support the National Gallery of Jamaica’s education and exhibition programmes.

The Gift Shop is open Tuesdays to Thursdays, from 10 am to 4:30 pm and on Fridays from 10 am to 4 pm. On Saturdays, 10 am to 3 pm and every last Sunday of the month from 11 am to 4 pm.

Ceramics by Leonia McKoy

The National Gallery of Jamaica is pleased to present the panel discussion We Have Met Before, Revisited, which will take place at the National Gallery on Friday, October 13, 2017, starting at 1:45 pm. The discussion is presented as part of the Edna Manley College’s Rex Nettleford Arts Conference 2017, for which the National Gallery serves as a partner institution. The panel discussion will be chaired by Nicole Smythe-Johnson, Independent Curator. The panellists are: Moji Anderson, Lecturer, Sociology, Psychology and Social Work, Faculty of Social Sciences, UWI-Mona; Olayinka Jacobs-Bonnick, British Council Country Director, Jamaica; Leasho Johnson, Jamaican artist in We Have Met Before; and Herbie Miller, Director, Jamaica Music Museum, Institute of Jamaica.

The panel discussion is part of the programming for We Have Met Before, which on view at the National Gallery until November 4, 2017 and which is presented in collaboration with the British Council. The exhibition explores a group of contemporary and artistic interpretations of legacies of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and chattel slavery in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean. Each of the four featured artists – Graham Fagen (Scotland), Joscelyn Gardner (Barbados), Leasho Johnson (Jamaica) and Ingrid Pollard (Guyana/England) – delves into archival material, popular culture and personal perspective to develop and substantiate visual iconographies that present actual and imagined narratives about the African enslaved and their descendants. Combined, their work invites new perspectives and dialogues on what is well-established subject in Caribbean art. We Have Met Before is presented in collaboration with the British Council.

The present panel discussion is the second such event to accompany We Have Met Before. The first panel discussion was held on September 23, the day after the exhibition opening, and focused on the perspectives of the artists in the exhibition. The second edition, We Have Met Before, Revisited, explores the broader implications of what is addressed in the exhibition, in terms of its cultural, social and political implications, including the gender dimensions and the critical responses to date. The panel will also consider other cultural expressions of Slavery and its afterlives, especially in the literary and performing arts, and the ways in which creative forms can contribute to the engagement or re-engagement of those histories with contemporary audiences; especially for those who may believe themselves to be chronologically and psychologically removed from those events.

In keeping with the conference theme, the discussion will consider the relationship between these issues and the “millennial” – a term that has come into vogue in the last decade or so and coined to identify the generation of individuals who came of age at the beginning of the 21^st century or who were born since. The social and cultural experience of the “millennials” coincides precisely with a number of human achievements, for example the advances of the digital age, which have significantly transformed the ways in ideas and narratives can be expressed, accessed and perpetuated. This experience is also framed in a widening array of urgent global crises—social, political and environmental—that call for new forms of engagement and activism, even though most of these crises are rooted in histories such as those addressed in We Have Met Before. Bearing this in mind, this discussion considers that cultural representations of slavery for 21^st century Jamaica and the wider Caribbean must resonate with the social and cultural experiences of such groups and the urgencies of the present moment, in tandem with the changing roles and responsibilities of the artist.

The panel discussion We Have Met Before, Revisited is free and open to the public. Visitors will also have the opportunity to view the We Have Met Before exhibition, as well as the other exhibitions that are currently on view at the National Gallery, including the Annabella and Peter Proudlock Collection. The panel discussion will also be live-streamed on the National Gallery’s main Facebook page.

There will exceptionally be no Last Sundays programme for the month of October 2017, but the National Gallery of Jamaica will present a special “First Sundays” programme on November 5 instead. The programme on November 5 will feature a musical performance by Jamila Falak and visitors will also have a final chance to view the Annabella and Peter Proudlock Collection and We Have Met Before exhibitions, which are both being extended by one day for this special event. The November 5 programme is part sponsored by CB Foods.

We Have Met Before is presented in partnership with the British Council and features works by artists Graham Fagen (Scotland), Joscelyn Gardner (Barbados/ Canada), Leasho Johnson (Jamaica) and Ingrid Pollard (Guyana/ UK). The exhibition offers four distinct and contemporary perspectives on Plantation Slavery and its afterlives and the works invite the public to engage in the still pertinent and difficult conversations surrounding the subject.

The Annabella and Peter Proudlock Collection features selections from the personal collection of Annabella and Peter Proudlock, who operated the celebrated Harmony Hall Gallery. Their collection spanned some fifty years, from the 1960s to the early 2010s, mainly featuring Jamaican artists, but also art and craft collected in their wide ranging travels around the Caribbean and Central America. The exhibition documents the history of the Harmony Hall Gallery which held a unique position in the development and promotion of the arts in post –independence Jamaica. 

The featured performer for November 5, Jamila Falak James studied voice, violin and upright bass at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts and is an alternative Jazz/Pop/Reggae Fusion singer, songwriter, musician and bassist. The Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts awarded her an Honours Recital in April 2015 and 2016, for outstanding solo performance in voice. Jamila has a very eclectic taste in music, and is inspired by singers such as Ella Fitzgerald, Bob Marley, Lianna La Havas, Beyonce, Tori Kelly, Björk etcetera. She is no stranger to the stage and has provided supporting vocals for popular local Jamaican artistes such as Denyque, the late J Capri and Cherine Anderson just to name a few.

As is now customary for our Sunday programmes, the doors will be open to the public from 11 am to 4 pm and Jamila Falak’s performance starts at 1:30 pm. Admission and guided tours will be free. Complimentary refreshments will be offered, courtesy of CB Foods. The gift and coffee shop will also be open for business.

On Friday, November 3, 2017, the Researchers and Curators Committee of the Institute of Jamaica (IOJ) will be hosting the Annual IOJ Research Symposium 2017, to be held at the IOJ’s Lecture Theatre, 10 – 16 East Street, Kingston. Registration will begin at 9:30 am and is open to the public at no charge. The symposium features a series of presentations from IOJ divisional representatives on a variety of research areas pertinent to the work of the Institute as well as the wider local cultural landscape and infrastructure. The National Gallery of Jamaica will be represented by Mr. Dwayne Lyttle, Curatorial Assistant in the NGJ’s Education Department.

For this year’s symposium, the presentations will be made under the theme Research, Museum Education and Outreach. In today’s world, museums make important interventions in the field of education and community development, though this is not generally recognized by the wider community in Jamaica. Given the current focus on financial sustainability, research (especially within the museum space) is dismissed as being academic and not contributing to the overall wellbeing of society. Within the institutional structure of the IOJ, research and education outreach is integral to the IOJ fulfilling its mandate as cultural and educational space. Presentations will focus on the ways in which research and education outreach contributes to and enriches the conceptualization of IOJ exhibitions and displays, and educational programming associated with the national collection.

The IOJ Researchers and Curators Committee cordially invites the public to attend the symposium to listen and our presenters, as well as to enliven the follow-up discussion segments.

The National Gallery of Jamaica is pleased to announce that due to popular demand we are extending the Annabella and Peter Proudlock Collection and We Have Met Before  exhibitions to November 26, 2017.

The National Gallery of Jamaica’s Last Sundays programme for the month of November will feature a musical performance by Alex Gallimore, more popularly known as Alexx A-Game. November 26 will also be the last opportunity to see the Annabella and Peter Proudlock Collection and the We Have Met Before exhibitions, which had both been extended.

Alexx A-Game’s career as a musician began as the lead singer of Di Blueprint Band, which became popular in 2012 after winning the Global Battle of the Bands competition in London. They went on to appear at major music festivals in Jamaica and toured the United States, the Caribbean, Suriname and Europe. Alexx began his solo career a few years afterwards and released his first official single, the motivational anthem A-Game Everyday. His mixed tape of the same name soon followed, and more recently he released the 10-track Real ‘N’ True Vol. 1. With his lyrical prowess, catchy hooks and witty freestyles, Alexx A-Game is making a significant mark on Jamaican music while opening up a door to international urban music. His music is inspired by Jamaican legends such as Damian Marley and Shabba Ranks as well as US and UK Hip-Hop culture.

The Annabella and Peter Proudlock Collection chronicles the contributions made to the Jamaican artistic community by the principals of the north coast based Harmony Hall Gallery, while displaying their personal art collection gathered over nearly fifty years. We Have Met Before, which is presented in collaboration with the British Council, features the work of Graham Fagen (Scotland), Joscelyn Gardner (Barbados/Canada), Ingrid Pollard (Guyana/ UK) and Leasho Johnson (Jamaica). The work of each of these artists creates contemporary platforms for engaging with the difficult conversations that still surround the histories and legacies of the transatlantic slave trade.

As is now customary for our Sunday programmes, the doors will be open to the public from 11 am to 4 pm and Alexx A-Game’s performance starts at 1:30 pm. Admission and guided tours will be free. The gift and coffee shop will also be open for business and the gift shop features Jamaican craft and other gift items that make wonderful Christmas gifts.