What’s new at MoDA 2016? MoDA art, that’s what! The launch exhibition, Falling Wood, Rising Water, curated by gallerist Susanne Fredricks, shows works by Jamaican sculptors Laura Facey and Traci Wong, and St Vincentian photographer Nadia Huggins. The show’s intention is to evoke the real and conceptual space through which artists engage with the natural world, acknowledging and remembering humans’ place in that realm, and articulating reflections and shadows of people in relationship to it. It also calls viewers to consider the threatening future of climate change, with the hope of reconnecting them with nature’s beauty and power.

Within the installed sculptural works is a specific exhibition space for MoDA art, which will show works that fall into the curatorial intent, both by Jamaican artists and artists from the wider Caribbean region, along with a collectors’ wall with highly desired master and contemporary works.

“Staging the visual arts in the MoDA context has held a multiplicity of challenges,” says Susanne Fredricks. “We have had to consider the pulse of the MoDA audience, and ensure the wider art public will also be excited and interested in what MoDA wants to offer, in terms of development of this specific creative industry. I think we’ve succeeded in pulling various dynamic strategies together to achieve this, and I am looking forward to the inclusion of other islands’ artists and gallery spaces next year.”

Editor’s Note: Collection MoDA, presented by the Jamaica Yellow Pages, takes place at The Worthington at Spanish Court Hotel, November 19-20.