Grenada prepares for Biennale di Venezia

After many months, and many artists’ applications, the curator and selection committee have chosen the artists who will represent Grenada at the prestigious Biennale di Venezia for its 58th edition in 2019.

The chosen artists followed the theme of “Epic Memory” taken from the acceptance speech of Caribbean Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott.

The speech speaks of the Caribbean as a place where our relationship with our landscape and the materials in it penetrate our collective souls in a way that facts from a history book or standing at the ruins of a fort could never do. The sights and sounds and smells of a place become genetically intertwined with who we are as people and when we can share stories about who we are, we reassemble the fragments of the epic memory. The landscape seduces us and compels us and manifests time resistant versions of ourselves to ourselves as if proposing over and over again, “do you remember?”

Congratulations are in order for Billy Gerard Frank, Dave Lewis, Shervone Neckles, and Amy Cannestra.  All very experienced artists, over the next months they will develop their projects.  International artists will also join the Grenada Pavilion under the care of Curator Daniele Radini Tedeschi.

Tedeschi, appointed by the Ministry of Culture and Minister Norland Cox, is an experienced curator, writer and television presenter for art in Italy. This third time exhibiting at this very prestigious world art event proves Grenada as a leader in the Caribbean. Only Cuba has exhibited as a country more often. Commissioner Susan Mains said, “Grenada can only benefit from this kind of high-end exposure. The 60,000 people who passed through our pavilion in 2017 now know where Grenada is, know that we have vibrant artists, and know that we take the development of our people seriously.”

The exhibition of the Biennale di Venezia will open in Venice Italy on 11 May and continue through the end of November in Venice.

Grenada Arts Council