Saltwater in their Veins

As an island nation located in the heart of the Caribbean Sea, our identity is intrinsically tied to the surrounding ocean: a place of potentiality and poetic imagination, of trauma and loss, of threat and salvation – at once familiar and strange.

Historically, the sea provided us with sustenance and prosperity via seafaring, shipbuilding, and turtling. Later, remittances sent home by seamen during the ‘Southwell Years’ helped lay the foundations of our modern economy. More recently, however, this has been eclipsed by marine tourism, as well as a reliance on the maritime-based import of nearly all the Islands’ food and consumer goods. It is an ever-evolving relationship and, as we look forward as a society, the question of environmental sustainability comes to the fore: how will the threat of global warming and concerns about rising sea levels shape our future?

As an ongoing source of inspiration, this legacy is examined here by 75 artists in the Cayman Islands National Collection. Loosely assembled by decade, their work reflects a complex relationship and traces a historical and stylistic journey from a variety of historical, cultural, economic, and ecological perspectives. Together they articulate new meanings for contemporary Cayman’s maritime identity and highlight the responsibility we all share as stewards of our precious natural environment for future generations.