[Many thanks to Veerle Poupeye (Critical.Caribbean.Art) for bringing this item to our attention.] The National Gallery of the Cayman Islands announced Gram Bella’s as one of the host venues for the 4th Cayman Islands Biennial, “Archipelago.”
Poupeye explains: Gram Bella’s is a project space located in the district of North Side that hosts both exhibitions and community gatherings/events. It is “a site of inclusion and a stage for exploration, existing to create possibilities for local communities to speak for themselves and of their experiences.” Visit Gram Bella’s to see Biennial work by Elizabeth Paige Smith and Stefan Langlois. It is located on Rum Point Drive across from Chisholm’s Grocery Store in North Side, Grand Cayman. (Open 24/7 – Free admission.)
The 4th Cayman Islands Biennial: The National Gallery of Cayman Islands presents the 4th edition of the Cayman Islands Biennial [with their] themed exhibition, Archipelago. This multi-sited exhibition represents the best submissions from Caymanian artists across all three islands and the Diaspora to showcase the breadth of diversity and creativity in this Caribbean country.
The Biennial runs October 2, 2025-February 18, 2026 [. . .] at the National Gallery and across several satellite spaces across Grand Cayman, Little Cayman, and Cayman Brac. These sites include the Cayman Islands National Museum, Gram Bella’s, the Mission House on Grand Cayman, the Little Cayman Museum, and Brac Heritage House. Admission is free to the public, as is the suite of programming that will animate the venues throughout the exhibition run.
Inspired by the scattered formation and relative isolation of islands, the theme Archipelago foregrounds the interplay of the individual and the collective, just as an archipelago is simultaneously a single conglomerate and a chain of several distinct land masses. The exhibition will be organised according to multiple subthemes for this interplay of individuals within/against a collective. These include the ‘Culture Shift’ of heritage, memory, and belonging; “Social Dynamics” shaped by communication, politics, and technology; and “Ecological Legacies” as they pertain to preservation, sustainability, and environmental concerns.
This curated exhibition was juried from 165+ submissions by 100+ artists—a testament to the cultural growth since the first biennial in 2019, with 51 works by 41 artists. At the closing ceremony, artists will be selected for the Bendel Hydes and the Emerging Artist awards, with monetary and exhibition development for awardees.
For list of participating artists, see https://biennialfoundation.org/2025/09/archipelago/Participating%20artists20Heritage.
[Photo above by Jim Gates: Gram Bella’s.]
[Many thanks to Veerle Poupeye (Critical.Caribbean.Art) for bringing this item to our attention.] The National Gallery of the Cayman Islands announced Gram Bella’s as one of the host venues for the 4th Cayman Islands Biennial, “Archipelago.” Poupeye explains: Gram Bella’s is a project space located in the district of North Side that hosts both exhibitions
