National Gallery Hosts Global Conversation April 23

The second episode in the National Gallery of Jamaica (NGJ) virtual Global Conversation series will take place on Friday, April 23 at 12 noon.

The implications for national self-definition as diasporas grow will be among the topics to be discussed. The event will be held under the theme ‘The Post-Colonial Museum, Global Art and National Self-Definition’.

Persons wishing to participate can log on to the NGJ’s YouTube channel. The conversation will feature a 30-minute segment for audience participation.

Panellists will include Professor of History and African American Studies at Yale University, United States of America, Kobena Mercer and Writer and Art Historian, Partha Mitter, who is specialising in the reception of Indian art in the west, modernity, art and identity in India and, more recently, global modernism.

The panel will also look at the roles museums and national galleries should play in the context of globalising art as well as “problems of representation, neo-colonialism, competing nationalisms and their impact on art institutions today”.

Chief Curator of the NGJ, O’Neil Lawrence, told JIS News that the gallery has been taking advantage of the new virtual situation to have discussions around the arts.

He said there have been virtual talks and webinars for students and teachers due to the closure of the gallery as a result of the social distancing being promoted by the Government as one of the ways to contain the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

“We have been trying to provide something for everybody at all levels,” he added.

Referring to the role of museums in society, Mr. Lawrence said it is important for museums in the world to focus on its local and international communities.

He said that the NGJ has been involving people in the Caribbean and the diaspora in its conversations, especially those who have links to the Caribbean and who have been making waves internationally.

“We think that it is necessary for our audience to be aware of the perspectives that they can bring to the table,” he added.

The NGJ is the largest and oldest public art museum in the English-speaking Caribbean. It is a division of the Institute of Jamaica, which falls under the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport.  It currently operates from two locations in Kingston and Montego Bay.