<div><p>In Nassau and San Juan, a host of new spaces are showcasing a revitalized arts scene</p></div><p><strong></strong></p>

Marina Reyes Franco 

Islands in the stream – arts ecosystems in The Bahamas and Puerto Rico

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	In 2020, as monuments to problematic figures were toppled around the globe, many in the Caribbean wondered when statues would fall in their country. It happened first in Martinique in July 2020, when activists tore down a statue of Napoleon’s wife Joséphine. Then, in October 2021, a man took a sledgehammer to the Christopher Columbus monument in Nassau in The Bahamas. In January this year, the statue of Ponce de León in San Juan’s San José Plaza was torn down just hours before the Spanish king was due to arrive in Puerto Rico. For many, these colonial symbols represent a history that should not be erased, and they see the toppling of these statues as a disturbance to visitors to the islands.
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<p>
	How outsiders perceive the Caribbean is sometimes crucial for economic survival: In a region where tourism is an important source of revenue, fulfilling expectations comes with the territory. But the art scenes in Nassau and San Juan have been building on years of hard work to expand or counter those expectations, both at home and abroad. Art communities on both archipelagos are determined to provide alternative narratives (or any narrative at all) about art and life in the region. The two scenes share the challenge of a lack of long-term support, but projects and initiatives vary in spirit and organization.
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<p>Contrasting this multitude, the region first appeared in the Western art canon through a single-minded fraternity of city-based painters known as the Hudson River School. Proponents such as Frederic Church and British-born Thomas Cole were products of mid-19th century America, a time of rapid industrialization and the escalated displacement of Native people. They were also devout Protestants, as convinced that nature was God’s gift to man as they were infatuated with the Sublime: an aesthetic theory on the pleasure of sensing incomprehensible vastness and intensity, which reason would succumb to or overpower. Often juxtaposing ethereal views of ‘settled land’ with shadowed tangles of wilderness, their unpeopled pastorals reimagined the lands of the Lenape and Muh-he-con-ne-ok so that nature would appear mighty but conquerable by the Western intellect. However, as some theorists of the Sublime emphasized, nothing we see justifies this sentiment: the Sublime exists only in our minds.</p>

<p>
	Establishing The Bahamas as a center where visitors experience Bahamian art, culture, and heritage beyond the typical sun, sand, and sea has long been a goal of <strong>Doongalik Studios</strong>, a gallery that is also is home to the nonprofit groups <strong>Creative Nassau</strong>, which advocates for creative tourism, and <strong>Transforming Spaces</strong>, an annual art tour of galleries in Nassau. The shift toward rebranding The Bahamas as a cultural destination is mostly driven by institutions – national, grassroots, and private – although many also wonder how committed the government is to supporting more cultural projects around the archipelago.
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	Established venues include <strong>The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas</strong><strong> (NAGB)</strong>; the private collection at the <strong>D’Aguilar Art Foundation</strong>; <strong>Contemporary Art Bahamas</strong>; and <strong>Project ICE</strong>, an incubator and art studio founded by artist <strong>Antonius Roberts</strong>. The country’s splashiest space is <strong>The Current</strong> at Baha Mar, a 2,000-room luxury resort and casino, which opened to the public in 2017. Its art initiatives include commissions, a gallery, and curatorial services run by artist and curator <strong>John Cox</strong>, who was a curator at NAGB before leaving to join Baha Mar and is currently navigating collaborations between both venues. ‘Whether or not you work in hospitality, if you do anything in The Bahamas, you work in hospitality,’ he explains. While some artists have actively avoided being pegged to the Caribbean and its tourism industry, they have also realized that they want to be Bahamian, in all their complexity. It’s all about ‘turning the sweater inside out and putting it back on,’ says Cox.
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<p>Coulson說：「當我回到巴哈馬工作時，藝術界可能只有四份體面的工作，而現在大約有40個了。」根據她在2017年拜訪期間與策展人Natalie Willis的談話，現在的目標是廢除那些曾經通過種族主義、殖民主義和父權主義視角看待巴哈馬人的前人所創造的等級制度和歷史，「使我們自己也能立體地把活力呈現出來」。</p><p>在波多黎各，多年的經濟危機、緊縮措施、大規模移民、颶風和地震，以及現在的流行病，這些理應成為藝術產業不繁榮的理由。然而，它們似乎只是給在過去25年間增長迅速的合作性藝術場景劃上了一個句號。島上最重要的藝術建設者之一是<strong>M&amp;M Proyectos</strong>，一個由策展人Michy Marxuach建立的聖胡安項目空間，在1999年至2004年間開放，並在2000年、2002年和2004年舉辦了雙年展。<strong>瑞牧德斯．馬拉薩斯卡（Raimundas Malašauskas）</strong>、<strong>巴勃羅．萊昂．德拉巴拉（Pablo León de la Barra</strong><strong>）</strong>、<strong>Antonio Zaya</strong>、<strong>阿羅拉與卡扎德拉（Allora &amp; Calzadilla）</strong>、<strong>Pedro Reyes</strong>、<strong>卡洛琳娜．凱塞多（Carolina Caycedo）</strong>、<strong>茱莉安塔．岡薩雷（Julieta González）</strong>、<strong>比特裡茲．聖地牙哥（Beatriz Santiago）</strong>、<strong>弗德里克．埃雷羅（Federico Herrero）</strong>、<strong>Jesús ‘Bubu’ Negrón</strong>和P<strong>ablo Helguera</strong>只是其中一些在這裡舉辦過展覽的藝術家和策展人，他們開啟了關於當代藝術可能性的對話。在這裡相識的人們產生了具有持久影響的合作。2009年，<strong>Marxuach</strong>、<strong>Tony Cruz Pabón</strong>和比特裡茲．聖<strong>地牙哥．姆諾茲（Beatriz Santiago Muñoz）</strong>建立了<strong>Beta-Local</strong>，這是一個非營利組織，致力於通過包括藝術家駐場和實驗學校在內的計劃支持討論和實踐。事實證明，它通過其獎學金和再撥款計劃，以及其資源網路的力量在發展藝術計劃方面發揮了作用。</p>

<p>Over the years, an unofficial arts district has emerged around <strong>Santurce</strong>, a San Juan neighborhood where modern and historic buildings create a kaleidoscope of both urban decay and beautification. The <strong>Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (MAPR)</strong> and the <strong>Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico (MAC)</strong>, along with the newer <strong>Museo de Arte y Diseño de Miramar (MADMi) </strong>provide the institutional backdrop, while several artist studios and project spaces have grown into professional galleries. Initially a studio and exhibition space, <strong>El Kilómetro</strong>’s program includes collaborations with Latin American artists, exhibtions and film screenings. The gallery has expanded to a second venue, which includes a bar,&nbsp;Bar Cero Punto Dos,&nbsp;and recently opened 'Across The Horizon,' a show of female abstract artists featuring works by <strong style="background-color: initial;">Awilda Sterling Duprey</strong>, <strong style="background-color: initial;">Olga Albizu</strong>, <strong style="background-color: initial;">Frances Gallardo</strong>, and <strong style="background-color: initial;">Livia Ortiz</strong>. Another space is <strong style="background-color: initial;">Pública</strong>, cofounded in 2018 by <strong style="background-color: initial;">Naíma Rodríguez</strong> and curator <strong style="background-color: initial;">Natalia Viera Salgado</strong>, it is a hip cultural center that presents established and emerging artists.</p>

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	‘I’m glad that more and more spaces have opened and that they are more integrated into people’s daily lives,’ says <strong>Agustina Ferreyra</strong>, owner of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/17506/Galer%C3%ADa-Agustina-Ferreyra">the eponymous gallery</a> in San Juan. Founded almost ten years ago, this year it returned to Santurce after three years in Mexico City with a triumphant show of works by <strong>Dalton Gata</strong>. Like its owner and many of its artists, the gallery has a hybrid identity that speaks to collaboration (it currently keeps a presence in Mexico through a partnership with Los Angeles’&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/8560/Commonwealth-and-Council">Commonwealth and Council</a>).
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	Artist and curator <strong>José López Serra</strong>, who runs Hidrante gallery, sees a small but vibrant art scene, but cites lack of funding as its major hindrance; ‘you can do well if you’re good at improvising and maintain a constant DIY spirit,’ he says. In recognition of this, the <strong>Mellon Foundation</strong> has provided multiyear financial and administrative support to artists and cultural workers who run art spaces and community projects through Maniobra, a partnership with Puerto Rico’s <strong>Center for Creative Economy</strong>. The three-year, eight-million-dollar initiative launched in May 2022 and employs 37 artists at 25 organizations across the Puerto Rican archipelago. Mellon, the Ford Foundation, and <strong>Flamboyan Arts Fund</strong> have all become major players in providing institutional support to local museums as well. The Puerto Rican Arts Initiative, another Mellon-funded project developed by <strong>Ramón Rivera Servera</strong>, <strong>Arnaldo Rodríguez Bagué</strong>, and <strong>José ‘Pepe’ Álvarez</strong>, has been a catalyst for performance and curatorial projects.
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<p>Besides El Kilómetro, other galleries are also deepening their roots and expanding their footprint. <strong>Hidrante</strong>, for example, highlights performance art and other site-specific practices that often cannot find space in traditional white cube spaces in San Juan (El Nuevo Hidrante is an additional gallery for more straightforward exhibitions). <strong>Embajada gallery</strong>, founded in 2015 by <strong>Manuela Paz</strong> and <strong>Christopher Rivera</strong>, bought a building in 2022; with so many displacement issues around housing and tax incentives that benefit foreign investors, owning a space shows deep commitment to developing the scene. In its inaugural exhibition, ‘Tamo Aquí (We Here)’, works by old friends and new collaborators spread around the house’s porch, rooms, and back patio. ‘Trying circumstances and limited resources associated with the politics and economics of colonialism are a given for both artists and most cultural institutions in the island,’ says MAC Director <strong>Marianne Ramírez Aponte</strong>. But for her, the scene has always been thriving, even with limited institutional support, little art press, and a lack of art education programs.</p>

<p>Toppling statues is certainly a bold gesture within the broader reckoning with colonialism and its continued impact here. But Bahamian and Puerto Rican artists, curators, and cultural workers, both at home and abroad, all contribute to the construction of fairer, better, more nuanced narratives.</p><p><strong style="background-color: initial;">Marina Reyes Franco</strong><strong style="background-color: initial;"></strong>is a curator at the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Puerto Rico (MAC).</p>

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In Nassau and San Juan, a host of new spaces are showcasing a revitalized arts scene 

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In Nassau and San Juan, a host of new spaces are showcasing a revitalized arts scene

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