Speakers
D. NEIL HALL, AIA
Architect | Urban Planner | Producer
TIME: Thursday, December 1st, 5:30pm
TOPIC: “Disruption or Preservation of Historic Overtown’s Cultural Landscape"
Neil Hall, AIA is a licensed architect with a graduate degree from the University of Florida in Architecture and Design. Over the past 27 years, his architectural practice, The Hall Group, has developed an extensive resume in Urban Development Consulting, Urban Planning, Interior Design, and Architecture. Out of his passion for good design, Mr. Hall created The Urban Collective, an urban lifestyle boutique and design studio highlighting the rich aesthetics of African art, as well as, other unique handmade treasures from around the globe.
In 2010, alarmed by the lack of diversity of artists and galleries featured in the country's largest and most prestigious art fair “Art Basel Miami”, The Urban Collective produced “Art Africa Miami Arts Fair”, the first large scale art fair solely featuring artists from the African diaspora in an eight thousand (8,000) square foot tent located in Miami’s historic Overtown neighborhood. From its inaugural year in 2010, the Art of Black initiative was born, with now over a dozen additional fairs, art exhibitions, art talks and panel discussions in neighborhoods throughout South Florida, highlighting the contributions of artists from the diaspora.
As a lover of art and a collector with a passion for community involvement in the arts, Mr. Hall has received numerous awards for his dedicated service to his community and profession.
FELECIA HATCHER
Entrepreneur
TIME: Friday, December 2nd, 4pm
TOPIC: Youth Art Initiative, “Virtual Reality“
Powered by Code Fever Miami
Felecia Hatcher is a White House Award winning entrepreneur, badass business rainmaker, bestselling author, globally sought-after speaker, media darling, mother, and Founder of Code Fever and BlackTechWeek. Breathe. She is also the rather awesome former Chief Popsicle at Feverish Pops, a gourmet ice pop boutique and manufacturing brand with a Fortune 500 client roster that would make your head spin.
For the past decade, Felecia has dedicated her life to inspiring a new generation of leaders to do epic shit, through her conversational talks on Entrepreneurship, Tech Innovation, Funding and Personal Branding. As the founder of Code Fever and Black Tech Week, Felecia Hatcher is on a mission to rid our communities of innovation deserts by working with community leaders and government to create inclusive and diverse startup ecosystems. Felecia has spearheaded the inclusive innovaton and startup movement within the Miami Startup ecosystem focused on getting marginalized groups to become major players in the innovation economy.
Hatcher has been featured on MSNBC, The NBC Today Show, The Cooking Channel, Essence Magazine, Entrepreneur, Inc, BET, Black Enterprise, and the Miami Herald.
BABACAR MBOW
Curator
TIME: Saturday, December 3rd, 11:30am
TOPIC: AFROTOPIA Curatorial Lecture
Babacar MBow is the Executive Director of the Florida Africana Studies Consortium (FLASC) and Managing Editor of the Encyclopedia of African Diaspora: Origins, Experiences and Culture Vol. I, II, III. His research focuses on Africa and African Diaspora, and the philosophy of interpretation and culture (PIC). Grounded on decoloniality his publications include: Philippe Dodard: The Idea of Modernity in Contemporary Haitian Art (2008), Plugging: Identity in Contemporary Haitian Art (2011). His new book The End of the African Postcolonial State is forthcoming with Ediciones Jaime Vargas, Bogota Colombia.
JACK TRAVIS, FAIA, NOMA
Architect | Interior Designer | Adjunct Professor
TIME: Saturday, December 3rd, 1:30pm
TOPIC: “Intersections - Aesthetic Collisions between BLACK Culture + Environmental DESIGN"
Jack Travis established his namesake design studio in June, 1985. Since that time Jack Travis, FAIA NOMAC has completed proposals or has been involved in over 100 projects of varying scope and size. To date the firm has completed several residential interiors projects for such notable clients as Spike Lee, Wesley Snipes and John Saunders of ABC sports. Commercial and/or retail interiors clients have included: Giorgio Armani SPA, Cashmere Cashmere of New York as well as the Sbarro family of the famed pizza parlors.
Mr. Travis encourages investigation into Black history where appropriate and includes forms, motifs, materials and colors that reflect this heritage in his work. Travel throughout the United States, Europe, the Caribbean to West and South African countries has given Mr. Travis a most unique focus. Through his work, he continues to make a distinctive and definitive enrichment to the existing American design vocabulary. Mr. Travis' interests have broadened in recent years to include design issues not only concerning cultural content but sustainability in environmental design as well as alternative educational practices that seek to insure the entrance of more students of color into the profession.
Jack Travis is currently an adjunct professor of interior design at The School of Visual Arts, New York School of Interior Design, Pratt Institute and at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
In 1992, Travis edited, African American Architects: In Current Practice the first publication to profile the work of black architects in the United States.
In 1977 he received his Bachelor of Architecture degree from Arizona State University and in 1978 a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana.
In 2004, Jack Travis received his "Fellowship" in the AIA, and in 2006 Mr. Travis was inducted into the Council of Elders" of the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA), the highest honor that each organization bestows upon its individual members.
BAHIA RAMOS
Director, Arts Program, Knight Foundation
TIME: Saturday, December 3rd, 3pm
TOPIC: “Art Collecting 101—Who, How, Where do We Start?”
Knight Foundation works to preserve the best aspects of journalism and use innovation to expand the impact of information in the digital age. As program director for arts, Bahia manages Knight’s $35 million annual investment in the Arts and develops strategy for the Knight Arts Challenge and Community Arts Grantmaking initiative.
A native of Brooklyn, New York, Ramos lived in London for two years, consulting with Man Group PLC in its corporate responsibility department. She has also worked as director of government and community affairs for both the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the Brooklyn Children’s Museum. Her work with Brooklyn Children’s Museum helped to double the size of the museum, raising its profile as a world-class institution and improving engagement with the community. Working with Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Ramos garnered government support for a new visitor center, helping the garden reach out into the city to attract more guests, and connecting it with anchor institutions in the neighborhood.
Ramos earned a Bachelor of Arts in history from Williams College and a Master of Public Administration from the Baruch College School of Public Affairs, as a National Urban Fellow.
PATRICIA J. SAUNDERS
Art Collector | Associate Professor | University of Miami
TIME: Saturday, December 3rd, 3pm
TOPIC: “Art Collecting 101—Who, How, Where do We Start?”
Patricia J. Saunders is an Associate Professor of English & Caribbean Cultural Studies at the University of Miami, Coral Gables where she is the Co-Editor of Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal. She is the author of Alien-Nation and Repatriation: Translating Identity in Anglophone Caribbean Literature (2007) and co-editor of Music. Memory. Resistance: Calypso and the Caribbean Literary Imagination (2007).
Her work has appeared in journals such as: Plantation Society in the Americas, Calabash, Small Axe, Transforming Anthropology, The Journal of West Indian Literature and recently, Feminist Studies. Her second book, Buyers Beware: Epistemologies of Consumption in Caribbean Popular Culture, examines a range of contemporary Caribbean popular cultural modes of expression to argue that the bonds between consumption and citizenship in the region is stronger now than ever before despite higher rates of unemployment and social and economic inequity. Buyers Beware is forthcoming with Rutgers University Press.