This year DVCAI inaugurated a new destination, Bermuda. Throughout our exchanges with Bermudians across the socioeconomic spectrum they defined themselves by referring to the Atlantic World Experience. What constitute the Bermudian identity? Bermuda is an island, but it is not in the Caribbean. Many islanders have lived, studied, or travelled to North America. They do so regularly. The closest land mass to Bermuda is North Carolina but the island is not American or Canadian. Bermuda is part of the British Commonwealth but it’s not in the UK. Many citizens have an American or Canadian accent. Some sound British. This positions the place in a unique situation...

Empire has always relied on foundational narratives, myths, and archival documents for its authority. Narratives work to establish the “order of things” in newly conquered territories. When we think of imperial powers like Britain and the United Sates, there are a plethora of icons that come immediately to mind, for ill or good. These icons range from the everyday and the mundane to symbols imbued with political and cultural significance which go unquestioned because their historical presence is so enduring. The edifices such as the U.S. Capitol and the White House are among some of the most widely admired and recognized icons of American identity. What is less known about many of these iconic national symbols is the degree to which America’s history of slavery is intimately ingrained in them. Enslaved Africans were integral to the clearing of the grounds, the cutting of sandstone, and the construction and sym- bolic sculptures that adorn the United States Capitol. The deep irony of an enslaved African named Philip Reid, who actually forged the Statue of Freedom that sits atop the of the Capitol dome, is that he becomes a free man only by the time he completes the casting and it is erected in 1863.36 The most iconic landmarks of the United States are embedded in the legacy of slavery, and until recently these (and other) historic contributions to American history were buried in the archives while memorials to confederate soldiers grace the grounds of numerous cities and towns across America.

In the article, “Unfinished Migration: Reflections on the African Diaspora and the Making of the Modern World,” African Diaspora Studies scholars Tiffany Ruby Pat- terson and Robin D. G. Kelley state, “As a process Diaspora is being constantly re- made through movement, migration, and travel, as well imagined through thought, cultural production, and political struggle.” 17 Inter | Sectionality: Diaspora Art in the Creole City is both a statement and an invitation to art and visual culture con- stituencies.

The burgundy convertible Cutlass Supreme pulled up at the stop light; top down, leather seats, its exterior spit-shined. 24 karat gold rims spun on shiny tires treated with Amor-All. The driver, a sturdy black man wearing a white singlet tee, his hair in untamed dreadlocks, looked tired, as if this was an unusual time for the world to see him. He devoured a breakfast sandwich, cleared his teeth and gave a sort-of smile, revealing a full gold grill that perfectly matched his car rims in tone and shine.

Painted with broad as well as, highly nuanced brush strokes, this is a comprehensive essay.
Initially, it traces and later weaves within the larger discussion, the influences of Marcus
Garvey’s philosophy and his lasting contributions to Africans in the diaspora. As importantly,
the essay highlights the exceptional works of two Jamaican-born artists who reside in the USA.
Thirdly, the essay explores some of the Miami-based Diaspora Vibe Cultural Arts Incubator’s,
(DVCAI’s) intercultural exchanges, in which artists challenge dominant Western perspectives.
Fourthly, the essay summarizes key aspects of DVCAI’s international cultural exchange in
Jamaica. The recent, transcultural arts’ exchanges exemplify, reciprocal dialogues between the
DVCAI’s representatives and the Jamaican arts community, specifically, with artists who adopt a
Freirean pedagogy and focus on significant social justice issues in a postcolonial country...

It is Summer 2022. We mark two and half years into a devastating global health crisis that has affected millions of people across the globe. While it has been centuries in the making, we are also two years into an explosive reckoning with race, equity and true justice. We are also at least five and half years into what could be called a targeted strategic political erosion of basic civil liberties and deliberate miscarriages of the laws of the land by particular factions in American politics. This is an equally startling, painful and hopeful time. A moment that requires us to simultaneously sift through and cleave to elements of our past that keep us grounded, in order to heal and progress into a future in full color. This is the crux of Depth of Identity: Art as Memory and Archive, a groundbreaking exhibition featuring 19 multidisciplinary visual artists from three continents and ten countries many of whose routes and roots trace through the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia. Part of a years-long inquiry instigated by curator Rosie Gordon-Wallace into migration and its emotional, metaphysical, practical and political implications, Depth of Identity leans into engagements with liminal spaces and hybridized social experiences born of diasporization and the transformational processes of breaking and remaking of worlds inherent within it.

“We are coming home, Rosie” this is the exuberant cry from artists after spending four years
away at college and headed home to Miami-Dade to launch successful careers in the arts.
I remember when…. In 1996 I had a dream that acted out the beginning of providing a place
for Caribbean artists to create and dream and where there were no overseers, and they would
experience true freedom to laugh and grow and play. I worldwide community dedicated to
the appreciation of the magic of melanin. This  rst place was the Bakehouse Art Complex,
dilapidated former bakery, now artists studios, no air-conditioning, termite eaten wooded
 oors and bathrooms that worked periodically. A devoted caretaker, Joe Gideon, who was
constantly patching the building with glue and spit. This was the beginning. In a central
Miami neighborhood called Wynwood, in 1996. Streets were scary, abandoned cars and
garbage and Hud housing sprinkled with homes owned by primarily Puerto Rican families. It
was the residence of these homes that kept me returning and where the Caribbean artists
found space to create and work and thrive within their community. Uncannily, the grandparents
kept us safe, and the children kept us engaged.

Contemporary Caribbean artists must at once contend with a long history of misrepresentation of the Caribbean and ignorance of local artistic traditions, as well as an art market primed to consume readymade images of Caribbean fauna and tropical objects. Likewise, queer artists negotiate erasure from the Art historical and popular record, or staid figuration as either monstrous or easily consumable trends. Kearra Amayra Gopee defies these limits. Their beautiful and generative work, “Tutorials on Radiance” presented at Diaspora Vibe’s historic exhibit, “Inter|Sectionality: Diaspora Art from the Creole City” demonstrates what can happen when artistry is invested in interiority and complexity, rooted in experience. The multimedia artist has provided us with a bit of a primer: “Thus far, I have manifested … a series of environmental portraits, where those imaged perform a calculated refusal of the lens, both in form and in gesture. Working in this way shifts the viewer's’ focus from the singularity of the oft (de)sexualized queer Caribbean body and allows for consideration of the elements that surround and subsequently constitute parts of their lived experience as well.”

Inter/sectionality: Diaspora Art from the Creole City opened in our nation’s capital in November 2019 and will travel to four other art venues around the United States.1 The exhibition comes out of a specific social history of alternative artmaking in Miami. A decisive part of that history began in 1996 when Rosie Gordon-Wallace, a Black Jamaican-immigrant, opened Diaspora Vibes Gallery in the Bakehouse Art Complex, and then later relocated to stand alone storefront locations in the pre-gentrified Design District.2 Foundational to the creative landscape of Wynwood, Diaspora Vibes provided vital infrastructure for local Miami artists who were invisible to established galleries. In founding Diaspora Vibes, Gordon-Wallace sought both to support and to expand the networks of such marginalized young talent whose identities often sat at the intersections of black, immigrant, people of color, women and queer. From its inception, the gallery’s mission prioritized the dialogic: through international exchanges between contemporary artists and regional institutions it placed Miami in conversation with the region and vice versa. In 2012, the gallery refashioned its name to Diaspora Vibes Cultural Arts Incubator, closing its physical space, but continuing its work as an alternative, decolonial arts organization—developing talent, hosting national and international artists in Miami as well as taking Miami artists to international locations. Today works by many of the artistic talent nurtured by Diaspora Vibes are a part of permanent collections in national museums as well as

Traveling to Guadeloupe for the third time provided some insight into the geography of the
art and culture landscape on the island both literally and figuratively. The landmass has the shape
of a butterfly with the two wings separated by a body of water, the Rivière Salée. From our base
at the tip of the east side of the archipelago, we drove to artists’ studios, art galleries, cultural
centers, museums, and organizations’ headquarters across the land. As we engaged a new pool of
artists and collaborated with entities different than in 2015 and 2017, we acknowledged the
diversity of working arrangements and the variety of exhibition and conservation centers. Also,
our innovative collaboration with the art association Agence Kultur’Tour led to a pop-up art
gallery/museum experiment. The partnership fostered a deeper reflection on the animation of
public places in a/the Caribbean context...

This year, our first International Cultural Exchange to Belize took its inspiration from the
country’s motto “Sub Umbra Florero” meaning “under the shade we/I flourish.” According to the
Encyclopedia Britannicus, “the Latin motto is a reference to the area’s forest and its establishment
as colony under British protection.” While we visited the Image Factory Art Foundation gallery
space in the heart of Belize City, its co-founder Yasser Musa stated in his introductory remarks,
“Belize has 9,000 years of art practice.” It was a reminder that Belize was the center of Maya
civilization. The Maya developed astronomy, calendrical systems and hieroglyphic writing. They
were also known for elaborate and highly decorated ceremonial architecture, including temples,
palaces and observatories. The Maya were equally skilled as weavers and potters and cleared
routes through the jungles and swamps to establish trade networks with distant people...

In a 1924 speech in Harlem, NY, Marcus Garvey, the founder of Garveyism stated,
The world today is indebted to us for the benefits of civilization. They stole our arts
and sciences from Africa. Then why should we be ashamed of ourselves? Their
modern improvements are but duplicates of a grander civilization that we reflected
thousands of years ago, without the advantage of what is buried and still hidden, to
be resurrected and reintroduced by the intelligence of our generation and our
posterity...

Despite its vibrancy, Antillean (from Guadeloupe and Martinique) visual art has not integrated the mainstream American art discourse due in part to unawareness and the language barrier (these are Francophone islands). Since 2002, the year the Art Basel fair was launched in Florida, Miami has been recognized by art critics and other professionals as a leading art city, that according to its director Samuel Keller “brings (to South Florida) the art scenes of Europe and the Americas”1. However, despite its phenomenal success situated at the intersection of “art, intellect, glamour, and money”2 and its claim to showcase the arts of the Americas, more effort is still required to educate the public on the Antillean art scene. In 13 years of existence only one full exhibit, The Caribbean Crossroad IV, held in 2013 at the Little Haiti Cultural Center, has focused on artists (14) from the French West Indies and French Guyana. But more recently, in 2015, Guadeloupean Kelly Sinnapah Mary was included in the Caribbean: Crossroads of the World show at the Perez Art Museum Miami.