The National Gallery of Jamaica (NGJ), in collaboration with KADIST, is pleased to present ARAVARA, an audiovisual exhibition curated by Dominican curator Yina Jiménez Suriel. The exhibition opens on Sunday, June 28, 2026, with a public opening reception at 1:30 p.m. and music by DJ Iset Sankofa. ARAVARA will remain on view until September 13, 2026. The exhibition is free and open to the public. Gallery doors will be open from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on opening day. Caribbean artists in this exhibition include Simon Benjamin (Jamaica), Beatriz Santiago Muñoz (Puerto Rico), and the curator, Yina Jiménez Suriel (Dominican Republic).
Description: Featuring ten artworks from ten artists, ARAVARA was conceived as part of a series of simultaneous presentations across four countries within the Caribbean region: Honduras, Jamaica, Curacao and Trinidad & Tobago. The exhibition approaches time as a structure of political dispute. Through recurrence, repetition, and temporal layering, the works included in the exhibition encourages the audience to consider how promises of progress that have circulated since the early twentieth century continue to return, mutate, and remain active in the present. In doing so, the exhibition invites audiences to contemplate how these enduring narratives shape contemporary realities and influence the horizons through which more livable futures may be imagined and sustained.
Curated by Yina Jiménez Suriel, ARAVARA features moving image works by artists from across the globe, including Jamaican artist Simon Benjamin, alongside Julieta Aranda, Adrián Balseca, Soumya Sankar Bose, Bahar Noorizadeh, Beatriz Santiago Muñoz, Luiz Roque, Wang Tuo, Nancy Valladares, and Janaina Wagner. Through diverse artistic approaches, the exhibition explores questions of memory, history, labour, development, and futurity, highlighting the ways in which past aspirations and unresolved tensions continue to shape the present.
KADIST is an international non-profit contemporary art organisation dedicated to supporting artists and fostering dialogue around the critical issues shaping contemporary society. Through exhibitions, public programmes, residencies, and collaborations with cultural institutions worldwide, KADIST connects artists, audiences, and ideas across diverse geographic and cultural contexts.
Members of the public are invited to attend the opening reception and experience this timely exhibition, which offers new ways of thinking about the interconnected histories and futures of the Caribbean region.
For more information, see https://kadist.org/program/double-takes-aravara-jamaica/
The National Gallery of Jamaica (NGJ), in collaboration with KADIST, is pleased to present ARAVARA, an audiovisual exhibition curated by Dominican curator Yina Jiménez Suriel. The exhibition opens on Sunday, June 28, 2026, with a public opening reception at 1:30 p.m. and music by DJ Iset Sankofa. ARAVARA will remain on view until September 13, 2026. The exhibition is free and open to the
