Miami, Sept. 16, 2019—Museum of Art and Design (MOAD) at Miami Dade College (MDC) will present a series of public programs to accompany MOAD’s current exhibition Where the Oceans Meet. Events will include an exhibition tour by Martin A. Tsang on Sunday, Sept. 29; a reading and lecture by Raphaël Confiant on Saturday, Oct. 26; and a panel discussion with Guillermina De Ferrari, Erica Moiah James, Alfredo Perez-Triff and Rina Carvajal on Thursday, December 5.
Exhibition Tour with Martin A. Tsang
Sunday, Sept. 29, at 4 p.m.
Rather than a formal sit-down lecture, MOAD presents engaging, conversational, and scholarly exhibition tours led by a wide array of interdisciplinary experts. While discussing specific artworks and archival materials on view, Tsang will spark a conversation on “The Hidden Cabrera,” highlighting Cuban painter, scholar, and writer Lydia Cabrera’s biography and research methods.
Tsang is the Cuban Heritage Collection Librarian and Curator of Latin American Collections at the University of Miami, where he develops print and digital collections, teaches, curates exhibitions, provides consultative and instructional research support services, and assists the libraries in designing a new model for transformative library engagement with research and teaching communities. He joined the University of Miami Libraries as the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) Postdoctoral Fellow in 2015. Tsang is an anthropologist and received his Ph.D. from Florida International University. He has previously held fellowships at the Cuban Heritage Collection, and his doctoral dissertation focuses on the Chinese in Cuba, specifically how the legacy of Chinese indentured workers has influenced Cuban culture and Afro-Cuban religion. His active research and publishing interests include contemporary issues of race, health, and religion in the Caribbean and Latin America. Prior to his appointment at UML, Tsang was a postdoctoral research fellow on a National Institutes of Health-funded project investigating HIV and the tourist industry in the Dominican Republic using a “syndemics” framework.
Reading and Lecture by Raphaël Confiant
Saturday, Oct. 26, at 4 p.m.
Pioneer of the Créolité movement, Raphaël Confiant interweaves excerpts from his writings with musings on Martinican philosopher, poet, and literary critic Édouard Glissant to unpack issues underlying Where the Oceans Meet, such as the interplay between language and identity.
Confiant was born in Le Lorrain, Martinique. He studied English and political science at the Sciences Po Aix, and law at Paul Cézanne University in Aix-en-Provence, France. During the 1970s, Confiant became a militant proponent of use of the Creole language, and later worked with Jean Bernabé and Patrick Chamoiseau to create the Créolité movement. Together, the three authors wrote the movement’s seminal text, Eloge de la créolité (In Praise of Creoleness, 1989), in addition to other theoretical texts. The Créolité movement is often characterized as a reaction to the Négritude movement, which emphasized the African origins of the Antillean people. Créolité, on the other hand, emphasizes the diversity of Antillean ancestry and cultural heritage, which also includes Chinese, Indian, and European influences. The movement seeks to understand the diverse identities and histories of the people of the Antilles through the lens of literature and language and eschews the universal in favor of a diverse view of language and identity. Confiant is a well-known writer in both Creole and French and is currently a lecturer at the University of the French West Indies and Guiana (UAG).
Panel discussion with Guillermina De Ferrari, Erica Moiah James, and Alfredo Perez-Triff, moderated by Rina Carvajal
Thursday, Dec. 5, at 10:30 a.m.
Designed for those immersed in the writing of Cabrera and Glissant, as well as those encountering their work for the first time, this panel discussion is an opportunity to dive deeper into specific ideas, terms, or passages developed by the scholars who inspired Where the Oceans Meet. Each panelist will give a brief but illuminating presentation on a single topic and then engage in a lively group discussion to forge meaningful connections between their interpretations and the broader notions uniting works in the exhibition.
Guillermina De Ferrari is a professor of Spanish American and Caribbean Literatures and Cultures at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She is the author of Vulnerable States: Bodies of Memory in Contemporary Caribbean Fiction (Virginia, 2007) and Community and Culture in Post-Soviet Cuba (Routledge, 2014). She has published many articles on Cuban and Caribbean literature, visual culture, photography, and world literature. She directed the Center for Visual Cultures (2014–18) and curated the exhibition Apertura: Photography in Cuba Today at the Chazen Museum of Art in 2015. She is co-editor with Ursula Heise of the Routledge series Literature and Contemporary Thought. She is currently working on a book tentatively entitled Community Under Duress that explores the possibility of ethics in precarious conditions. By combining concepts of moral philosophy, disaster studies, and Glissant’s Poetics of Relation, this book project studies the aesthetic elaboration of the tension between overdetermination by historical, political, and ecological forces; and the demand for individual ethical stances toward one another, one’s history, and the viability of a livable planet. She is currently a Senior Fellow with the Institute of Research in the Humanities (2018–22).
Erica Moiah James is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Miami. Previously, she taught at Yale University, and was the founding Director and Chief Curator of the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas (NAGB). Her publications include, “Speaking in Tongues: Metapictures and the Discourse of Violence in Caribbean Art” (Small Axe, 2012); “Dreams of Utopia: Sustaining Art Institutions in the Transnational Caribbean” (Open Arts Journal, 2016); “Every Nigger Is a Star: Reimagining Blackness from Post-Civil Rights America to the Postindependence Caribbean” (Black Camera, 2016); and “Charles White’s J’Accuse and the Limits of Universal Blackness” (AAAJ, 2016). She recently coedited a special issue of Small Axe titled Art as Caribbean Feminist Practice (March 2017). James’s curatorial projects and essays include R. Brent Malone: Reincarnation: A Retrospective Exhibition (1954–2004) (NAGB, 2015); “Sun Splashed” for the exhibition Nari Ward: Sun Splashed (Perez Art Museum Miami, 2015); Caribbean Queer Visualities (Belfast, 2016, and Glasgow, 2017); and “Graham Fagen: Opus V” for the exhibition Graham Fagen: The Slave’s Lament (Galerie de l’UQAM, Université du Québec à Montréal, 2017). Her forthcoming book is titled After Caliban: Caribbean Art in the Global Imaginary.
Alfredo Perez-Triff is a professor in the Department of Arts and Philosophy at Miami Dade College and a lecturer in modern and contemporary art history at the University of Miami. He holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy and a Master’s degree in Music Composition from the University of Miami. Since 1999, he has been the art critic for the weekly newspaper Miami New Times, in which he has published more than 150 contributions.
Rina Carvajal is the Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Museum of Art and Design (MOAD) at MDC. Previously, she was visiting curator at the Instituto de Arte Contemporanea (IAC) in São Paulo, the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, the Instituto Moreira Salles in Rio de Janeiro, as well as the adjunct curator at the Perez Art Museum Miami. Carvajal served as the Executive Director and Chief Curator of Miami Art Central; was twice co-curator of the São Paulo Biennial; and was the Ahmanson Curatorial Fellow at the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles.
These public programs are part of Where the Oceans Meet, an exhibition of modern and contemporary art that resonates with the pioneering thought of two Caribbean writers, Lydia Cabrera and Édouard Glissant. The international group of 40 artists and collectives in the exhibition considers notions of shifting and porous borders—geographic, national, cultural, social, racial, ethnic, and linguistic—and how crossing borders has shaped our world. Where the Oceans Meet opened on May 26 and will be on view through January 12, 2020.
Organized by MOAD and Americas Society, New York, Where the Oceans Meet is curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Asad Raza, Gabriela Rangel, and Rina Carvajal. The exhibition is made possible by the support of the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, and the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners. MOAD gratefully acknowledge the collaboration of the Cuban Heritage Collection of the University of Miami Libraries; Diana Flatto, Assistant Curator of Visual Arts, Americas Society; Jose Antonio Navarrete; and Nadia Naami; as well as the generosity of all the lenders to the exhibition.
In April 2018, the Museum of Art and Design reopened with a renewed belief that art and design can change our communities and the world. MOAD offers groundbreaking exhibitions and programs that explore the challenges and opportunities we face locally and globally. Its programming convenes leading artists, designers, and thinkers to address the urgent questions of our time. MOAD strives to be a catalyst for action and a place that empowers people to rethink and remake their city. As the flagship museum of Miami Dade College, MOAD follows its lead in operating throughout the city. Based in Downtown Miami’s Historic Freedom Tower, MOAD considers itself a Museum Without Boundaries. Its programing takes place in many neighborhoods, inviting everyone to be a part of the conversation. MOAD’s aim is to foster a reimagined Miami, built by and with its citizens.
WHAT: Where the Oceans Meet Public Programs
WHEN: Sunday, Sept. 29, 4 p.m., (exhibition tour with Martin A. Tsang)
Saturday, Oct. 26, 4 p.m., (reading and lecture by Raphaël Confiant)
Thursday, Dec. 5,10:30 a.m., (panel discussion with Guillermina de Ferrari, Erica Moiah James, Alfredo Perez-Triff, and Rina Carvajal)
WHERE: Museum of Art and Design at MDC
Freedom Tower
600 Biscayne Boulevard, Second Floor
Museum Hours: Wednesday 1–6 p.m.; Thursday 1–8 p.m.; Friday–Sunday 1– 6 p.m.
Museum admission: $12 adults; $8 seniors and military; $5 students (13–17) and college students (with valid ID); free for MOAD members, MDC students, faculty, and staff, and children 12 and under. Accessibility challenges: please call (305) 237-7710 for details.
For updates and a full schedule of events, please visit http://www.mdcmoad.org/.
Press Contacts: Nicole Martinez, Marketing and Membership Manager, 305-237-7719, nmartin1@mdc.edu; JWI PR—Jessica Wade Pfeffer: 305-804-8424, jessica@jwipr.com; or Juliana Gutierrez: 305-991-4259, juliana@jwipr.com.