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KBH.G, Basel, 27 August to 15 November
KBH.G, the new art and cultural centre in Basel, opens with the first-ever exhibition in Switzerland to survey the work of Caribbean artists. A co-production between the institution and the Caribbean Art Initiative, one month after being known in that island, along with its extensive public programme, seeks to advance CAIs work promoting arts and culture from the Caribbean region locally and internationally. The indeterminate time and place of the exhibitions title formulates possible opportunities for reinvention, individual interpretation and the potential of what or who Caribbean people are - as well as the sense of groundlessness, of having no time and no place.
Bringing together the works of 11 artists, this large exhibition subtly reveals the ties that bind the land-locked Switzerland to the numerous islands of the Caribbean Sea. On the face of it, the exhibition seems to be about alerting European audiences to the fact that the Caribbean continues to be a rising destination of artistic thought and practice. However, it is currently a place where, due to the pandemic, livelihoods have been seismically disrupted by a fall in tourism, the income from which normally accounts for up to 90% of the regions GDP. But the exhibition raises the story of the hidden financial links between the Caribbean and Switzerland, of how money in foreign bank accounts in the Caribbean is not spent in the islands, and where luxury villas and private islands which typically house foreign elites or expatriates are...