About Face

Submitted byJeeraik009 onFri, 11/16/2012 - 14:06

When the University of Florida's Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) approached fellow art historian Claudia Hucke and myself about a show to celebrate Jamaica's 50th Anniversary of Independence, an online exhibition was a logical and exciting choice. We decided to re-examine Face of Jamaica, an exhibition that toured Europe in 1963-4 but was never viewed in Jamaica. Working with Dr. Hucke's research material, the support of dLOC's web designer and permissions from artists, we have been able to reconstruct much of the original exhibition in an interactive multi-media format. On the About Face website, viewers can see the show, look at the original pieces displayed, study its catalogues, and understand how the tour was recieved through newspaper clippings and reviews. Text panels, photography and multimedia such as music and video are all used to help re-envisage this exhibition. With a simple click, we can provide access to an event only previously experienced in Europe. We hope the About Face website can serve as a research tool for understanding how the visual arts supported new definitions of the Jamaican nation. The About Face exhibition remains online for the year of our celebration, after which its material will be archived in dLOC.