ART OF BLACK MIAMI VIRTUAL CONVERSATION: BUILDING UNITY AND CREATING ECOSYSTEMS
Creating Artworks that build on a distinctive combination of culture, commerce, and design.
Miami’s ascendance as a global tourism destination and a cultural landscape offers a unique canvas for artistic expression which continues to influence our neighborhoods and communities. Motivated by the desire to connect our communities in an environment built to encourage collaboration, and foster creativity centered around the visual, performing, and social arts; artists strive to be allies in support of Miami’s field-wide growth of ever-evolving creative traditions.
Date & Time:
Friday, January 22, 2021
6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Hosted via Zoom – Virtual meeting details provided after registration.
Join us as we explore in conversation with some of these influential panelists:
Register Here
Xenobia Bailey
Born and raised in Seattle, Washington, Xenobia Bailey studied ethnomusicology at the University of Washington, where she became fascinated by the craftsmanship and sounds of the cultures of Africa, Asia, South America, and India. She later studied Industrial Design at Pratt Institute, in Brooklyn, New York, where she was introduced to lifestyle possibilities through design. Today, the New York City-based Bailey is best known for eclectic crocheted hats, large-scale mandalas, and tents consisting of colorful concentric circles and repeating patterns. Her designs draw influences from Africa, China, and Native American and Eastern philosophies, with undertones of the domestic aesthetic of her mother and other African American rural and urban homemakers, and of the 1960’s and funk visual aesthetic. Many pieces are connected to her ongoing project Paradise Under Reconstruction in the Aesthetic of Funk.
Bailey has been artist-in-residence at Pittsburgh’s Society for Contemporary Craft, at the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation in New York City. She has exhibited at the Studio Museum of Harlem; the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York City; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; and the Jersey City Museum. Her work is in the permanent collections at Harlem’s Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture and Museum of Art and Design, in New York City, and the Allentown Art Museum, Pennsylvania.
Evelyn Politzer
Evelyn Politzer, originally from Uruguay, now lives and works in Miami, Florida. After attending Law School in Montevideo, Uruguay and moving to the United States, she pursued her passion for art.
Working with wool was only natural in her native country, where the number of sheep far exceeds the number of inhabitants. Through investigations of color, materiality and concepts, she seeks to engage with both global and local issues, establishing universal narratives.
Evelyn is a 2020 recipient of the Ellies Creator Award from Oolite Arts Organization and a 2021 MFA in Visual Arts candidate from Miami International University of Art and Design.
Working in fiber art allows her to foster community, bringing people together to knit for different causes. Politzer has co-organized World Wide Knit in Public Day in Miami from 2016 till 2019. During the 2020 pandemic, Evelyn felt compelled to create a platform for others to share their textile art journey. Together with two other local artists FAMA-Fiber Artists-Miami Association- was born, with the mission to educate and advance contemporary fiber arts in Miami.
Every morning she wakes up with a drive to create with her hands, knit the impossible, and give voice to the voiceless.
Special Performance: Marcia Anderson
Marcia Anderson received her B.A. in Classics and Biology from the College of the Holy Cross. She then earned her M.A. in Classical Philology from Florida State University, where she was Valedictorian. In her second year at Florida State University, she was selected as the Trench Supervisor for the Cetamura del Chianti archaeological excavation in Radda, Italy. Her work with late Etruscan and early Roman artifacts helped land her a vital position with the Mary Brogan Museum of Art and Science in Tallahassee, FL., where she developed exhibits and installation pieces. After receiving her Masters, she moved to Miami, FL and became an Adjunct Latin Professor at Florida Atlantic University. After five years of conducting the sole Latin classes at FAU, Marcia began work at Florida Virtual School as a Latin instructor. Today, she is the Latin curriculum writer for Florida Virtual School, the largest virtual school in the country, and a school which reaches eight million students worldwide.
In Miami, Marcia was selected to the 2008 Miami Fellows Initiative program, recognizing her as one of Miami’s future leaders; in 2009, the National Trust for Historic Preservation selected her as a 2009 Diversity Scholar. She also helped spearhead the research for the Historic Virginia Key Beach Park cultural museum with the British design team, Haley Sharpe. Her work in the community led her to be a founding member of the South Florida CARES Mentoring program, a group mentoring and wellness program for middle school and high school youth launched under the leadership of Susan L. Talor, Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of Essence Magazine. Marcia once served on several non-profit boards, including the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Miami Science Fiction Festival, HistoryMiami, and the Dade Heritage Trust. She is the past National Technology Chair for The Links, Incorporated and is the current Vice-President for The Greater Miami (FL) Chapter of The Links, Incorporated.
Today, Marcia is a PhD Candidate in Latin and Roman studies at the University of Florida. Her academic work focuses on classical reception studies in interpreting Greek and Roman literature’s comparative symbolism in modern culture. Her dissertation topic on the silent narrative genre transposed from classical literature onto the 21st century cultural phenomena has helped her become a burgeoning voice in the field of classics. It also has enabled her to explore other cross-cultural ties; for example, she has been offered a research role for newly imagined classical plays at the Classical Theatre of Harlem.
It is only natural that Marcia has ventured into the artistic realm, since this is where her life work began in her hometown of Cincinnati, OH. Marcia began studying classical ballet with the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music at the age of four and continued until the age of eighteen. She then began playing classical violin at the age of six. She was a member of the Cincinnati Junior Strings Orchestra and the Cincinnati Youth Symphony Orchestra. In Miami, she taught violin at the Fine Arts Academy and Ray’s Guitar. She also has her own musical trio, Tuesday Night Trio. Marcia enjoys combining all of her passions into one format to create artistically rich moments which can not be defined by one single genre.
Moderator Bio: Rosie Gordon-Wallace
Rosie Gordon-Wallace, Founding President | Curator, Diaspora Vibe Cultural Arts Incubator since 1996 has initiated and produced transnational creative programs that redefine concepts of “diaspora” including the International Cultural Exchange program, the Caribbean Crossroads Series, the Artist-In-Residence program, an ongoing Contemporary Exhibition program, and numerous community-based outreach projects.
She is a member of the Independent Curators International. Her curatorial research focuses on cultural heritage and memory and their influences on contemporary artistic practice in Miami Florida and the wider Caribbean spaces. November 14, 2019 Rosie curated the Inter | Sectionality: Diaspora Art from The Creole City exhibition at the Corcoran School of Art and Design which runs through March 20, 2020.
