The National Gallery of the Cayman Islands is proud to partner with the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (Washington DC), the Disapora Vibe Cultural Arts Incubator (Miami), the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas, and Memorial ACTe (Guadeloupe) to support the regional virtual exhibition ‘COVID: Collecting Our Voices in the Caribbean and its Diaspora’, which has been conceived and developed by the Museums Association of the Caribbean
The virtual art exhibition, which is a first for MAC, features work by artists from the English, French, Spanish and Dutch-speaking Caribbean. Responding to the pandemic and its impact on the creative sector, the project seeks to bring together voices from across the region to illuminate how people in the Caribbean and its Diaspora are living and moving through this crisis through creative expression.
Following the successful completion of MAC’s COVID Response program in 2020, MAC extended a regional “Call to Artists” in the Caribbean and its Diaspora, seeking to document the profound impact that the museum and creative sector was experiencing. The result of the Call is the COVID exhibition.
“The COVID pandemic has created an unprecedented moment within our time; its impact has been felt across museums throughout the region. As we move through the pandemic, collaboration and the building of opportunities for open dialogue is critical. We are proud to support this regional art project and commend the three Caymanian artists for being selected to participate,” says NGCI Director Natalie Urquhart who also serves on the MAC Board and the COVID Exhibition Committee.
Following a competitive juried review process, 27 artists from four linguistic regions of the Caribbean and a total of ten countries are featured in the exhibition. They include: The Bahamas, Cayman Islands, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, Puerto Rico, and Suriname. The diverse range of artworks include painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, digital artwork, video and sound installations, and written word. The Cayman Islands are represented by Simon Tatum, Teresa Grimes and Megan Ehman.
The project can be viewed on MAC’s newly redeveloped website as a virtual exhibition until November 26, 2021.
