NASSAU, Bahamas — In 2014, Bahamian artist and curator John Cox had an idea.
Cox, founder of Nassau’s Popopstudios, had recently been named creative artistic director at the still-unopened Baha Mar. Popop had just become the first Caribbean gallery to participate in New York’s VOLTA art fair, where Cox exhibited his own work.
Speaking then about what might eventually be possible in The Bahamas, Cox imagined something considerably bigger: perhaps, one day, Nassau could host its own regional art fair — an event about the Caribbean, taking place in the Caribbean.
Twelve years later, that idea has a name.
FUZE.
The fourth edition of the FUZE Caribbean Art Fair returns to Baha Mar this October as part of the Bahamas Culinary & Arts Festival, which runs Oct. 21-25. FUZE describes itself as a first-of-its-kind regional fair designed to connect Caribbean artists with new audiences, ideas and markets.
But FUZE is also part of a much longer Bahamian story.
Before FUZE, there was Popop
Long before luxury resorts began putting Bahamian art prominently on their walls, much of Nassau’s contemporary art scene grew in smaller, decidedly less glamorous surroundings.
Popopstudios was one of its incubators.
Founded by Cox in 1999, Popop developed into an unusual combination of studios, gallery, residency programme, classroom and gathering place.
Artists worked there. Students came through. Exhibitions were mounted. Visiting artists interacted with Bahamian artists. Ideas were argued over.
Most importantly, people gathered.
Popop became one of the places where a younger generation could explore what Bahamian art might mean without necessarily having to reproduce what Bahamian art had looked like before.
Cox himself moved between many of the institutions shaping that changing landscape — teaching at the College of The Bahamas, working at the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas and eventually becoming its chief curator before moving to Baha Mar.
And then something significant happened.
The conversation moved from the edges of Nassau’s cultural life into one of the largest tourism developments in Caribbean history.
When Bahamian art entered the resort
From its beginning, Baha Mar made Bahamian art unusually visible.
Rather than treating local artwork simply as decoration, the resort developed galleries, artist programmes and a substantial collection of Bahamian work throughout the property.
For artists, that created something Popop could never provide on the same scale: audience.
Thousands of visitors who might never deliberately walk into an art gallery suddenly encountered Bahamian art simply by walking through a hotel.
It was a very different cultural model from Popopstudios.
But it grew from some of the same ideas.
Artists need places to work.
They need places to exhibit.
They need people willing to buy their work.
And perhaps most importantly, they need opportunities to encounter other artists, curators, collectors and ideas.
FUZE takes that concept beyond The Bahamas.
From Bahamian conversation to Caribbean conversation
The inaugural FUZE was held at Baha Mar in 2023.
The fair was conceived not merely as an exhibition of attractive Caribbean artwork, but as part of an art ecosystem — bringing together artists, galleries, museums, curators, collectors and audiences from throughout the region.
This year’s FUZE will again bring Caribbean visual culture into the same space through exhibitions, discussions, demonstrations, film and other programming. Baha Mar describes the fair as a showcase drawing work from seven Caribbean nations.
That distinction is important.
For generations, Caribbean artists often had to travel to New York, Miami, London or Europe to participate meaningfully in the international art marketplace.
FUZE reverses the journey.
It asks the art world to come here.
And that makes Nassau more than the location of the fair.
It makes Nassau a meeting place.
Art is culture. It is also business.
There is another reason BahamasB2B believes FUZE deserves attention.
Art is an industry.
Artists sell work. Galleries employ people. Collectors travel. Museums attract visitors. Exhibitions fill hotel rooms and restaurants. Designers, framers, photographers, printers, writers, curators and craftspeople participate in the same creative economy.
The Bahamas has spent decades talking about diversifying an economy overwhelmingly dependent upon tourism.
Culture offers an intriguing possibility because it does not necessarily compete with tourism.
It makes tourism better.
A visitor who encounters genuinely Bahamian art experiences something that cannot simply be duplicated at another Caribbean resort.
And a visitor who comes specifically to Nassau because it has become an important place to discover Caribbean art represents an entirely different kind of tourism opportunity.
FUZE therefore raises an interesting question:
Could Nassau become one of the important marketplaces for Caribbean art?
Miami has Art Basel.
London has Frieze.
New York has its fairs.
Why shouldn’t the Caribbean have a significant art marketplace of its own?
And why shouldn’t it be here?
Coming full circle
There is something particularly satisfying about tracing the journey from Popop to FUZE.
One was small, experimental and grassroots.
The other operates within a major international resort and brings together participants from across the Caribbean.
They are not the same thing, nor should they be.
But there is a line connecting them.
It is the belief that artists need more than talent. They need infrastructure, community, opportunity and an audience.
Back in 2014, while Popopstudios was representing The Bahamas at an international art fair in New York, John Cox imagined the possibility that someday the region might have a fair of its own.
An event about the region.
Taking place in the region.
This October, people will once again walk into FUZE at Baha Mar.
Some will be artists.
Some collectors.
Some curators.
Some tourists.
And some will simply be curious.
They may not know about the little Nassau art community that helped nurture many of the ideas that preceded it.
They won’t need to.
Because perhaps the greatest measure of what that earlier generation helped create is that something once imagined from a small art studio in Nassau no longer seems particularly improbable.
It seems inevitable.
FUZE Caribbean Art Fair runs as part of the Bahamas Culinary & Arts Festival at Baha Mar, Oct. 21-25, 2026. BahamasB2B plans on-the-ground coverage of FUZE during the October event.
