A Hybrid Art Gallery, Bookstore, Café, Rum & Wine Bar
Bajo El Sol Gallery is the home of the Gri Gri Project, founded in 2015, its mission is the creation of interpretive exhibitions, critical writing, events and archives related to the cultural patrimony of the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Founded by curator Priscilla Hintz Rivera Knight and writer David Knight Jr. The Gri Gri Project has been involved in arts-related projects and exhibitions in the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, the United States, Aruba, Denmark and Cuba.
Projects
"Our Masks in the Aftermath: Mask Making as a Tool for Community Expression and Healing."
In the recovery year following the disastrous 2017 Hurricanes Irma and Maria the Gri Gri Project took a leading role in "Our Masks in the Aftermath: Mask Making as a Tool for Community Expression and Healing." The project mirrored a variety of community public art and art therapy projects that have been successful in supporting the emotional and social recovery process after disasters. The project targeted students, senior citizens and other community members, schools and organizations on St. John. The goal was to reach as many residents, youths and organizations as possible. Participants were encouraged to imagine new identities, new selves, new ways of being in the storms’ aftermath. Over 500 people participated in making masks that were then publicly displayed on St. John and at the Department of Interior in Washington D.C. This process helped to build community and introduce an aesthetic to the recovery that suggests both newness and is rooted in cultural heritage.
Masks In the Aftermath Documentary Film
A 12-minute documentary about the project was directed and edited by Crystal L. Fortwangler and produced by Priscilla Hintz Rivera Knight and Kurt G. Marsh Jr. filming by William Stelzer (with Crystal and Mëř Sprauve supporting on additional cameras). We are especially grateful for the incredible music by Victor Provost. and support of the St. John Community Foundation for the project and the film.
"My Islands Do Not Make A Nation"
Casa Las Américas in Havana, Cuba
In May 2017, the Gri Gri Project curated and staged the exhibition "My Islands Do Not Make a Nation" at Casa de las Américas in Havana, Cuba. The exhibition was part of the sixth edition of the institution's International Colloquium on Cultural Diversity in the Caribbean entitled "Memory and Border Conflicts." It featured works by Virgin Islands contemporary artists Shansi Miller, La Vaughn Belle, Jon Euwema, David Berg, Janet Cook-Rutnik, Sigi Torinus and Cooper Penn. The exhibition sought to offer a glimpse into how some artists in the U.S.V.I. were approaching history and identity in 2017, the centennial year of the islands’ transfer from Denmark to the U.S, from one colonial power to another, and to better position the USVI to collaborate artistically with the greater Caribbean region.
"Unfinished Histories: Art, Memory, and the Visual Politics of Colonially"
Copenhagen, Denmark
In December, 2017 the Gri Gri Project presented at the University of Copenhagen during the two-day international conference "Unfinished Histories: Art, Memory, and the Visual Politics of Coloniality." The Gri Gri Project's presentation was titled "Strange Dreams in the Afterglow: Contemporary Art from the U.S. Virgin Islands."
"An Ocean of Dignified Dust"
St. Thomas, Virgin Islands
An Ocean of Dignified Dust is a both a history and contemporary art exhibit that debuted on St. Thomas on March 31, Transfer Day, 2016. It takes its name from a line in the poem “Coal Carriers” by early 20th-century Virgin Islands poet, Cyril Creque. Its subject matter is the cultural legacy of St. Thomas’s iconic coal carriers, primarily women, who have become popular icons of resistance in the Virgin Islands thanks in large part to a successful workers’ strike lead by coal carrier Queen Coziah in 1892.
The exhibition was a partnership between the curatorial team The Gri Gri Project and The Dollar fo’ Dollar Culture and History Tour, a group that commemorates the 1892 coal carrier strike with a walking tour yearly.
Part of the exhibit features artifacts from the turn of the last century, when St. Thomas was an important refueling center for steamships crossing the Atlantic. These artifacts include historical images, first-hand written accounts, vintage film footage, recreations of costumes, tokens that served as payment for coal carriers, and artworks related to St. Thomas’s coal carriers done in the last century by Virgin Islands modernist master Albert Daniel.
The exhibit also consists of works related to the legacy of the coal workers that has been commissioned from Virgin Islands contemporary artists. Artists that have been featured include photographers Aisha Zakiya Boyd, T’meed El, and Lamont Blake; installation/assemblage artists Jon Euwema and Janet Cook Rutnik; multimedia and conceptual artist La Vaughn Belle; painters John Obefemi Jones, Ensor Colon, Eunice Summer and Shansi Miller; and video and performance artists Jahweh David and Dena Fisher.