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    29 Knight Arts Challenge winners flipping Detroit’s script

    Published October 25, 2017 by

    Detroit is a city characterized by transformation, but also reclamation. Through sheer creativity and grit, Detroiters flip the script on the city’s narrative and its physical spaces, building on the region’s cultural legacy while moving people to see Detroit with a fresh lens. Nowhere is this more evident than in the ideas proposed by the  29 winners of this year’s Knight Arts Challenge.
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    St. Paul’s first Youth Poet Laureate gets personal in new book

    Published August 29, 2017 by

    Watching clips of Donte Collins reading poetry online, the first thing that stands out is the straightforward beauty of the words, the carefully observed imagery and perfectly chosen descriptors that immerse the audience immediately in Collins’s world. The second thing that grabs the attention is the confidence and nuance of Collins’s stage presence. The poet generates a captivating aura that befits a long-time veteran of literary performance, and is well beyond what some people might expect of a reader young enough to claim the title of St. Paul Youth Poet Laureate.
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    A musical bridge between Miami and Havana

    Published August 14, 2017 by

    Miamians turned out in force for “Mozart in Havana,” the South Florida debut of Havana Lyceum Orchestra, under the baton of José Antonio Mendéz Padrón and appearing with its champion pianist Simone Dinnerstein in a refreshing, meaningful performance at Miami Beach’s New World Center.
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    When your phone is the stage: new play takes place entirely via text message

    Published July 12, 2017 by

    Every morning during the usually merry month of May, I received a text message from a mysterious source asking me to draw a card. After exchanging pleasantries, this entity, named The End, would provide me with a password to enter a web portal. There, I’d find a link to a video of a New Orleans funeral, say, or to a portrait gallery of adults recreating decades-old photographs taken during their youth. Primed to muse on the special people, places and things in my life, I was ready to pursue a quest.
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    Arts groups help Detroit explore how the summer of 67 changed the city forever

    Published June 26, 2017 by

    Detroit.July 23, 1967.Twelfth Street and Clairmount.3:15 a.m.Police raid a speakeasy.An uprising breaks out.Rioting. Looting. Anger. Frustration. Fear.Forty-three dead; 1,189 injured.Five days.A city forever changed.Changed in the way you’ve heard – accelerated flight from the city, abandonment by a generation of Detroiters – but also in ways you may not. That night indelibly marked Detroit’s future as the city’s narrative cleaved in half.For some, a riot occurred. “Black power militants promoting a revolution,” as one man told the Detroit Historical Society in an oral history collected for the “Detroit 67: Looking Back to Move Forward” exhibit.
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    Meet the local winners of the 2017 #InsideOutUSA photo contest

    Published June 15, 2017 by

    Update: Congratulations to the winner of the national contest, @tistheseasontv of Akron, Ohio! See the winning photo, chosen by the participating museums, below.Instagrammers in five cities this week participated in the #InsideOutUSA photo contest, taking creative photos highlighting the national program that brings high-quality replicas of the art in museum’s collections into neighborhoods.Today, the six participating museums in the Knight-funded program – the Akron Museum of Art, the Detroit Institute of Arts, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pérez Art Museum Miami, Bechtler Museum of Modern Art and the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture – announced the winners.Together, they took pensive portraits, mixed tai-chi with their art, and used the natural foliage to enhance iconic works in museums’ collections.
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    Philly museum launches summer program to expand artistic literacy

    Published May 31, 2017 by

    What exactly is contemporary art? Although the inquiry is straightforward, it proves that directness doesn’t always parallel simplicity. Such a profound and open-ended question would likely yield responses so varied and complex that the casual art viewer, let alone an individual uninitiated in the arts, might abandon the answer altogether in exasperation. That is where Philadelphia’s Institute of Contemporary Art comes in. Supported by Knight Foundation, the institute plans to begin a new educational series, Extra Credit, this summer to bridge the gaps of understanding that tend to hold people back from a more full and rewarding appreciation of the art world.
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    Tips on applying to Knight’s Community Arts Grantmaking program

    Published May 31, 2017 by

    The June 16 deadline for arts funding in Macon, Georgia, San Jose, California, Philadelphia and Charlotte is fast approaching. I’ve loved hearing from potential grantees over the past two weeks during the open office hours and have received lots of great proposals across the four cities. We’re excited to read the applications. Through my conversations with applicants, several themes have arisen, and I wanted to share some important tips to help applicants submit a strong proposal. As I mentioned when we opened the application period for this program, one of our priorities is to make sure residents in our cities have access to and engage with high-quality arts experiences. We want to strengthen the overall arts ecosystem in these cities. Keep these two goals top of mind, in addition to the following tips.
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    HistoryMiami exhibit remembers Hurricane Andrew, 25 years after the storm changed Florida forever

    Published May 30, 2017 by

    Michele Reese is the marketing director for HistoryMiami Museum, a multiple winner of the Knight Arts Challenge. Hurricane Andrew. It struck South Florida 25 years ago this summer, and I can remember it like it was yesterday, especially watching meteorologist Bryan Norcross on television telling us to prepare for the worst.I was 11. It was my first hurricane, and I had no idea what to expect. As the night grew dark, the rain started, and the winds began to howl. Sheets of plywood started flying off my home, windows were opening, and I remember my parents using their strength to keep them shut. When the hurricane passed and I walked outside, I realized just how lucky we were. Our house survived, but I knew South Florida had changed forever. In the aftermath of the storm, though, one thing stood firm, the resilience of our community.
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    Miami’s Little Haiti Book Festival celebrates literature, culture and community

    Published May 25, 2017 by

    Jan Mapou sounds almost giddy when discussing the Little Haiti Book Festival—and with good reason. The event, which started with a Knight Arts Challenge award, is now in its fifth year. It has grown steadily and is now a partnership between Sosyete Koukouy of Miami, the Society of the Fireflies, the Haitian cultural organization Mapou founded in 1985, and Miami Dade College’s Miami Book Fair.The festival is Saturday and Sunday, May 27-28, at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex.“The Miami Book Fair is now the best book fair in the nation, but [in 1984] it also started small, as Books by the Bay,” noted Mapou with a smile.