Historic Overtown Serves As Cultural Hub For African Diaspora To Take Root and Flourish

Art Africa Miami Arts Fair Helps To Create Change Through Arts and Culture

Arts and culture are essential for building a community, supporting the development and contributing to economic opportunity. Collectively, arts and culture enable understanding of the past and envisioning of a shared, more equitable future. The 7th Edition of Art Africa Miami Arts Fair: Back To Black: No On/Off Ramps is set to kick off Miami Art Week and Art Basel 2017 on December 5-10, 2017.The art fair is housed between the Pan-African Pavilion at 919 Plaza at The Lyric and the Featured Artists Pavilion at 920 historic Clyde Killens’ building both on NE 2nd Avenue in Overtown. Art Africa Miami Arts Fair explores how Black Arts respond to the assaults that currently beset the global African Diaspora and the world at large and how artists of African descent and the global south create modes of intervention of radical autonomy. The event is sponsored by the City of Miami Southeast Overtown Community Redevelopment Agency(SEOPW) and the Greater Miami Visitors and Conventions Bureau. Twenty-five artists from the United States, Africa, Europe, the Caribbean and Latin America are confirmed to showcase their work.

ART AFRICA MIAMI 2017 is an example of the vibrant cultural legacy of Miami’s aesthetic landscape. D. Neil Hall, AIA, Founder of Art Africa, and a lifelong advocate for the transformational role art & culture plays within marginalized communities, has one of the most influential voices in the arts and culture arena. Clear about his vision seven years ago when he created the Art Africa Miami Art Fair platform, he knew then this art fair would be the anchor to help contribute to strengthening the cultural identity of Historic Overtown, as well as its resurgence as a cultural hub.

This year’s theme, BACK TO BLACK: No On/Off Ramps, is a multimedia presentation including paintings, sculptures, photography, installation, and video as well as performance exploring how alternative narratives confront the resurgence of oppression and the idea of Black arts’ intervention in the cultural sphere as both necessary and urgent.

BACK TO BLACK: No On/Off Ramps explores how Black Arts respond to the assaults that currently beset the global African Diaspora and the world at large and how artists of African descent and the global south create modes of intervention of radical autonomy.

BACK TO BLACK: No On/Off Ramps honors all participant artists whose works have been deemed retaining a truth dimension of liberation. There will also be a series of lectures by noted artists and scholars who are at the forefront of the African Diaspora movement such as Lyric Prince, etc.

Art Africa Miami Arts Fair 2017 Program Schedule
December 5th, ART AFRICA 2017

Noon-2pm- Media and Influencer Preview

December 6th, 2017 ART AFRICA PREVIEW (Parts 1 &2)

Part 1 Noon-2pm

Sotheby’s x Marcus Samuelson x Art Africa Luncheon (Invitation Only)

Part 2 7pm-11pm

Opening Night/ ART AFRICA ”The Black Party.”

Opening Night—- the signature night that transforms Historic Overtown for the ultimate Black Party. Come dance the night away to our resident DJ spinning Island beats & the cultural sphere of Black Arts to serve as your backdrop. Melo Groove Steele Orchestra Carnival costumes powered by Miami Carnival. Attire: Black.

December 7th, 2017 through December 9, 2017 (Panels and artists talk)

Panel 1.The Local and the Global: Black Aesthetics and the legitimization process in global contemporary Art

Panel 2. Centering the Margins: Contemporary situations and differences in African Diaspora: mutations, migration, multiculturalism.

FEATURED ARTISTS: Abdoulaye Konaté, Mali,Manuel (Tony) Peralta, Dominican Republic/USA,Phillip Thomas, Jamaica,Lyric Prince, U.S.A,Aisha T. Bell, Jamaica,Philippe Dodard, Haïti,Gregory Vorbe, Haïti,George Edozie, Nigeria,Juan Antonio Barrero, Colombia,Carlos Salas, Colombia,Rick Ulysse, U.S.A,Onajide Shabaka, U.S.A,William Cordova, Peru/U.S. A
José Bédia, Cuba, Doba Afolabi, Nigeria, Kofi Kayiga, Jamaica/U.S. A, Peter Wayne Lewis, U.S.A./CHINA, Antonius Robert, Bahamas, Miles Regis, Solomon Adufah

For more information visit: artafricamiamifair.com or call 954.338.8670.
Twitter:@ArtAfricaMia Instagram @artafricamia Facebook facebook.com/ArtAfricaMia

Media Inquiries and interviews contact: Harris Public Relations at 786.897.8854 or [email protected].