Artists’ cry

A veteran artist is pleading with the Mia Mottley administration to establish the long-promised and “desperately needed” Barbados National Art Gallery (BNAG) a reality, as she expressed frustration that successive governments have failed to fulfil promises to the creative community.

Heather-Dawn Scott made the appeal as she expressed concern that because of the absence of a permanent home for their work, artists and the amount of work they produce here are on the decline and Barbados is losing its creative people.

“It is time, it is past time. It is past due,” she told Barbados TODAY as she reiterated the importance of having the BNAG up and running.

“We desperately need one because the collections are just sitting there in the dark and have been for tens of years . . . . The public has paid for it through their taxes and there’ve been requests from collectors. Some of it is in government offices and embassies abroad, but the fact is that the arts here are in decline.

“Any serious artist seems to only want to show abroad or leave the island altogether. So we are getting the art creamed off. If we had a national art gallery, we could bring artists in from the region, from Africa, from South America and we can have exchanges and cross-fertilisation,” she said.

The artistic community has long advocated for a national gallery, and successive committees and boards of the BNAG have worked with governments since 2007 when the Barbados National Art Gallery Act was proclaimed to make it a reality.

Scott, who has been putting up posters at Block ‘A’ of the old Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) building which is BNAG’s promised home, said she was disappointed that the art gallery has still not been built.

She contended that a purpose-built facility catering to all art forms would not only serve as an income generator for individuals and empower artists but as a foreign exchange earner for the country.

“For sure, that will get you a different type of tourist and put us on the map in the Caribbean as well,” Scott said, estimating that such a facility would require up to $10 million in investment.

The artist said some private sector individuals had considered investing in an art gallery but she insisted it was “the Government’s responsibility”.

In July 2020, the keys to Block ‘A’ were handed over by the Ministry of Housing, Lands and Rural Development to the then Minister with responsibility for Culture John King.

King said that in addition to the building becoming the permanent home of the BNAG, a section of the Old Town Hall Building in Cheapside, Bridgetown would be made available for additional exhibition space.

Though giving no timeline for the opening of the facility, King told Barbados TODAY in an update in August last year that the plan for the new art gallery was still on the cards but it would require some “outside” funding.

“We have begun the process but we are also seeking some assistance from outside donors so that we can modernise it more than what was anticipated in the first concept of it,” he said then.

The proposed building for the art gallery was sandblasted last year but no work has been done since.

Pointing out that the artists that remain in Barbados have been investing their time and energy into their work with the hopes of getting a permanent home, Scott, who trained in Britain to create sculptures, said she was prepared to continue her protest indefinitely.

Curator Norma Springer told Barbados TODAY she too was concerned that the planned BNAG was taking too long to be established. She said it was another avenue through which young people could create wealth.

“We don’t just want to go and earn money and go to the supermarket and come back home. We want to create wealth, we want to create generational wealth and legacies,” she declared.

“A national art gallery is long overdue. Unfortunately for us, we think that unless we are doing something for the tourist dem it is not development. No other country in the world does these things for tourists, they do it for themselves and visitors then come along to enjoy it. So, because tourism can’t calculate the economic return on the national art gallery probably means we cannot get the national art gallery up to now.”

Springer suggested that a shift in mindset was needed, as she pointed out that many people still see art as “something to do when you can’t do anything else”.

She also pointed to the need for greater interaction between authorities and stakeholders to determine how best to go about building out the industry.

marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb