Above: An event at The Light Box. Photos courtesy of Miami Light Project. Beth Boone has been at the helm of Miami Light Project, as both its artistic and executive director, since 1998. I sat down with Boone at Zak the Baker in Wynwood for a one-on-one interview. Over an eggplant skillet, rugala and powdered donuts, we talked family, local politics and PBS, as well as the past, present and future of the South Florida-based cultural organization. Even before Boone found a semi-permanent home for the Miami Light Project at The Light Box at Goldman Warehouse, she had already curated watershed moments in cultural programming in Miami. From Nina Simone to the Tiger Lillies, the Knight Arts grantee has and continues to present some of the most innovative and significant musicians and performers from around the world–all in the name of bringing Miamians together through the performing arts. Beth Boone. “Human beings have an innate desire to commune with others–to collectively experience ethos, pathos. That’s why theater has been going on for thousands of years. As human beings, we’re just trying to figure out what it all means,” says Boone. “Theater can be a positive experience in the communion between the audience and the artist, which is what I think everyone is looking for.” Boone views the stage and the artists who inhabit it as realizers of the human experience. “Through their experiments, artists show us the human experience. Sometimes they show us the answer. Sometimes they just call up the question and leave it up to us to decide what’s next,” Boone says. “Miami Light Project exists for those moments.”

Above: A scene from Prizm art fair. Photo by Rod Deal. During last December's art fairs, I checked out Prizm Art Fair, a 2015 Knight Arts Challenge winner, and had the opportunity to speak with its founder and director, Mikhaile Solomon. Solomon, who established Prizm in 2014, curates cutting-edge multidisciplinary art fairs that promote artists from the African diaspora and emerging markets. Solomon founded Prizm because she saw a need to foster the careers of artists who have been traditionally marginalized from and fetishized by the art world. “There wasn't enough representation of artists of color being shown in a professional manner,” Solomon said. “Having gone to quite a few art venues, including Art Basel Miami and in Switzerland, I found few examples of work from artists from the diaspora, and their voices were grossly underrepresented.” For a combination of reasons, the art community hasn't, until more recently, made substantial and broad enough investments in the careers of black artists, especially those emerging and mid-career artists who are at a critical juncture in their professional development. Without a platform, there's little room for these marginalized voices to be heard. “Just recently there's been a heightened interest in African and African diaspora art,” said Solomon. “Prizm is one of just a few institutions that represents these artists and this kind of work. Prizm seeks to establish that African and Africa diaspora art is not a trend, but a real and thriving component of the art world.”

In an era of iPads and Kindles, Tom Virgin yearns to return to an analog form of publishing. The founder of Extra Virgin Press, Virgin won a 2015 Knight Arts Challenge grant in support of his plans to help preserve the art of letterpress printing by bringing it to Miami. Invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century, letterpress printing revolutionized the literary world, and the culture writ large, by enabling works to be copied and widely distributed for the first time. But letterpress printing fell out of fashion by the mid-20th century, and the digital age, with its on-demand printing and e-books, further pushed it to the margins. Despite the commercial demise of the letterpress, however, Virgin sees a bright future for this ancient art form. Why is the art of letterpressing still relevant in the digital age? Choices are vital, for a number of reasons. This time of year, after a week of Art Basel Miami Beach, followed by a couple more weeks of holiday glitz, it would be easy to conclude that everyone likes big, bright, shiny, colorful things to hang in every corner of every room. Some do. But for each outfit decked in glitter, rhinestones and patent leather, we see a black silk dress or cashmere sweater that quietly steals the show. As Miami moved into the 21st century, most of the deluxe mid-20th-century printing technology moved out. The ease of desktop publishing in the digital age has supplanted the esoteric, anachronistic practice of hand printing on a proof press. It has not, however, matched the quality and visceral attraction of letterpress printing. I proposed and was funded to bring a letterpress to Miami, so that I can teach this practice to a new generation. Ceremony, heirlooms and craftsmanship that have been handed down for generations celebrate our history and values. We appreciate the craftsmanship of objects when we can see it and feel it. True, art is beautiful when it is posted on Facebook, and of course the words are brilliant when they are tweeted. However, a small, finely bound, poetry chapbook that includes only a poet’s favorite poems in a letterpress-printed volume offers a different hierarchy of quality. Actually seeing, smelling and touching the letters embossed into the cotton rag paper with an aromatic, opaque, deep black ink is more powerful than reading it on your cell or a tablet. Things that are made to last a long time, take a long time to make. Reproductions are placeholders for the originals. Letterpress printed cards, posters, broadsheets and other printed forms carry the active hand of the artist into the work. Multiple originals is another eu­phemism for editioned prints or multiples. The artist and printer together must figure out, step by step, how to translate an original work into a small, faithful copy of the original with multiple runs through the press. However old the technology of letterpress may be, it has a wide range of skills and tech­niques available to recreate with the press what was originally created by hand. A Vandercook 4 Proof Press is a precision instrument that was among the best printing machines for over a half century. The work that is printed lasts, and wears well. We print party invitations on the laser printer at work (in color, if we are lucky). Wedding invitations that are designed to honor a union for generations are printed on a letterpress. Posh? Yes.

South Florida-based author Michèle-Jessica (M.J.) Fièvre self-published her first novel in Haiti at 16. Since then, she's published nine books, including a children's book “I Am Riding.” Her latest title, “A Sky the Color of Chaos,” marks her first memoir. The book is a coming-of-age story that documents Fièvre's turbulent relationship with her father and his violent mood swings during a time of fierce political upheaval in Haiti. From the balcony of her childhood home, Fièvre witnessed her first politically motivated killing—a man set on fire in the middle of the street. This would be the beginning of a childhood punctuated by daily violence at home, on the streets, in school and especially after midnight, when thugs loosely aligned with the 'government' would terrorize neighborhoods with impunity. Because of, or in spite of, this violence, Fièvre carried a pocketknife on her way to her all-girls Catholic school. From that day on, she became a bit of a bully, eventually stood up to her father–and, well, you'll have to read the book to find out the rest. On Jan. 29 at 8 p.m., Miami audiences can experience Fièvre's work in person. She will be participating in a panel discussion, “Chaos, Dictatorship and Rebirth,” at Knight Arts grantee Books and Books in Coral Gables. Author M.J. Fièvre.  How has your perspective of Haiti changed since you left, and how much of it never leaves you? In Port-au-Prince, I felt like I was both holding the knife and under it. The striving for control—and fumbling with violence—is a central theme in “A Sky the Color of Chaos.” The violence still inhabits me: I have terrible night sweats, and pain, and suffer from the phantom limb that is my motherland.

Every night through Nov. 15, a series of “experiments in light, color and sound” will dance across the entire 19-story facade of the InterContinental hotel in downtown Miami. Described as performative architecture by the project’s creators, the installation, which is known as “Newt Miami,” takes inspiration from Isaac Newton’s theory and lifelong obsession with light. Beyond the science, which I could spend all day getting lost in, “Newt” promises to bring more than flashy colors to Miami’s skyline. According to co-founder and producer Dejha Carrington, “Newt” will connect the community to the project with a series of ancillary events scheduled for this week, including a self-explanatory event called Caffeinated Conversations and a panel and Q&A session about transforming spaces through technology and art. Knight Arts Challenge winner Nu Deco Ensemble is the orchestra for the installation. “Newt Miami” co-founders Dejha Carrington and Kelly Nunes at Primary Projects, with artwork by Gavin Perry. Photo by Peter Vahan, courtesy of “Newt Miami.” What do you hope will be the cultural impact of “Newt”? How we choose to use our public and privately owned spaces plays a defining role in how we experience our communities and our social interactions. In the same way that my partner, Kelly Nunes, and I imagined the InterContinental Miami’s exterior facade as a canvas for an art installation, we hope that our creative take on performative architecture will inspire others to pitch their ideas, and will help illustrate the value of artistic collaboration to corporate groups. Through social practice, there’s a unique opportunity to make residents and audiences participants and decision makers in the creative process. We’re interested in sparking more talk about the relationship between spaces, public art and locals, and how projects such as “Newt Miami: Experiments in Light, Color & Sound” can serve the dual purpose of activating a static structure and creating connections through meaningful programming and activities. What were some of the unique challenges getting “Newt” up and running? There was a very real learning curve, both for us and the InterContinental Miami, because there was no precedent for such a project. Kelly and our team worked closely with them and Fresh Juice Global, their production and content support company, to push the existing technology beyond its intended use. “Newt” was built from the ground up and workshopped for almost one year before we even knew what was possible with the digital canvas.