Women’s Artist Archive Miami (WAAM)

A platform that documents the contribution of women and female-identifying artists using principles of participatory archiving and digital preservation strategies.

These models emphasize democratic processes of selection and curation, where the artist or cultural producer is in control of shaping their living legacy. By creating peripheral archival access points within the community, WAAM will reframe how archival institutions can engage and support local artists, obtaining content from artists across all career stages.

WAAM continued to expand its database after the pilot year by inviting artists to upload content to the digital archive to reflect the diverse and rich cultural production in Miami. Learn more

GET A CLOSER LOOK into this artist’s own writing on the blog.

The Queer Theory Library

The Queer Theory Library is a free community library and collective space for discussion, experimentation, creation, and knowledge. Hosting texts, books, essays, and zines--and making them available to the public--The Queer Theory Library will provide a scene for greater community dialogue. The Queer Theory Library will also function as an actively growing archive for local artists, writers, and residents to submit their work, writings, and ephemera.

With a mission to radically shift and create new possibilities for queer thought, culture, and creation, the library is focused on futurism. How we frame our past and present influences our future-building; how we perceive and write our realities creates new worlds. The Queer Theory Library, through education and collaboration, aims to enable, empower, and inspire our queer community.

GET A CLOSER LOOK into this artist’s other work on the blog.

Variety Reinspires

Moving into a senior living community can make older adults feel as if their freedom is limited. Research has shown that social isolation is as detrimental to health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. In fact, more than 50% of senior-living residents will experience depression or isolation during their stay, making loneliness among seniors a modern mental health epidemic.

Variety Reinspires aims to overcome social isolation through the power of virtual reality and shared experiences. Our project provides opportunities for senior residents to virtually leave the four walls of their community. A curated selection of experiences, each with a discussion guide, will help staff lead conversations.

Auto-Mariachi

Auto-Mariachi will bring a performance and related cultural programming to Homestead, Florida, a community that is often excluded in relation to other sites closer to the urban core of the city. The project aims to disrupt typical presentations of mariachi and to show how folk tradition is not static but actively reflects present socio-political conditions. This performance and related programs work to untangle colonial legacy, folk tradition, constructions of masculinity, and conceptual frameworks as a means of understanding Mexican and Latin-American/Latinx identity.

The culminating performance will bring several mariachi groups to serenade each other in the context of the Redland Market Village, a publicly accessible site that boasts a family-friendly environment and free parking. A music workshop organized with the Homestead-Miami Mariachi Conservatory and the Mexican American Council will be organized to introduce the instruments and basic song patterns to an all ages audience. An accompanying lecture will be delivered by Jonathan Clark, UCLA ethnomusicology professor and mariachi historian, to present a more formal analysis of the development of the musical form and traditions.

GET A CLOSER LOOK into the project on the blog.