The Betsy Writer’s Room welcomes Prizm Art Fair Founder and Director Mikhaile Solomon and Artists in Residence Nyugen Smith and Ibrahim Ahmed.
Universal Belonging: Transcending Borders through Visual Arts Practice
Prizm Art Fair will begin art season with a panel of estimable contemporary artists, Nyugen Smith and Ibrahim Ahmed, whose works share common narratives including, exploration of identity through their cultural histories and contemporary lives, religion, and politics. We will discuss how their research and lived experiences, migratory, ethnographic, and religious, have shaped the direction of their arts practice. María Elena Ortiz, Associate Curator from PAMM, joins the panel and William Cordova moderates.
SPECIAL GUESTS
WILLIAM CORDOVA
William Cordova was born in Lima, Peru in 1971 and moved to Miami, Florida at an early age, also spending time in Houston, Chicago, and New York. He graduated with a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1996 and went on to earn an MFA from Yale University in 2004. He has participated in numerous artist residencies including Artpace, San Antonio, TX; The Core program, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX.
MARÍA ELENA ORTIZ
María Elena Ortiz is Associate Curator at the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), where she curated At the Crossroads: Critical Film and Video from the Caribbean (2014) and the upcoming exhibition, Firelei Báez (2015). Previously, she worked as the Curator of Contemporary Arts at the Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros in Mexico City, where she organized several projects including Carlos Motta, The Shape of Freedom and Rita Ponce de León: David.
ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE
NYUGEN SMITH
Drawing heavily on his West Indian heritage, Nyugen
is committed to raising the consciousness of past and present political struggles through his practice which consists of sculpture, installation, video and performance.
IBRAHIM AHMED
Born to Egyptian parents living in Kuwait in 1984, Ibrahim Ahmed spent his childhood between Bahrain and Egypt before moving to the US at the age of thirteen. He now lives and works in Cairo. Working with both traditional and non-traditional media, he has developed a personal aesthetic that represents his journey as artist and migrant.
CULTURE BREAKS AT THE BETSY: Over the years, we have explored a variety of convening models as part of our Writer’s Room Program: from Breakfast Salons and Luncheon Roundtables to formal and informal readings - all with lots of success. This year we're exploring something brand new. We're proud to introduce The Betsy's Culture Break Artist Talks. This will be our lead creative convening model for the 2017-18 season, featuring visiting artists, as well as creatives from the greater Miami community.
