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🖼 Who says Miami needs Art Basel to get artistic?
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🖼 Who says Miami needs Art Basel to get artistic?

Sun & Sand Comic Anthology is offering to send out free copies to Sunshine State residents. | Want to see your own picture in this space? Tag #thenewtropic to be featured in our Instagram of the Day.

💧What Miami is talking about

Florida residents can get a copy of Sun and Sand Comic Anthology for free. Originally made for Free Comic Book Day in May, like all things this year, the South Florida-themed collection had its original plans changed and delayed. Now, the 28-page anthology — which features 10 stories co-edited and curated by Jamila Rowser and Neil Brideau of Black Josei Press and Radiator Comics respectively — is available online. If you live in-state, they’ll even ship you a courtesy physical copy if you order within the next month.

Miami-born and based cartoonist Alec Castillo has shared the first episode of his spine-chilling new series, New Ghosts on The Haunt. The setting for the ’90s throwback was inspired in part by the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables.

Oolite Arts is offering a variety of online classes now open for registration. Many of the classes span four weeks and include everything from painting and portraits to honing your watercolor skills. And if you happen to be a member, classes are 50% off for the remainder of the year!

Locust Projects is presenting a number of virtual talks open to the public, including tonight’s chat at 7 p.m. with Black Radical Imagination co-founder Erin Christovale. Later this month, the Miami art advocates will also be hosting a webinar on how to protect and retain ownership of content you share online. Get acquainted with their calendar here.

Congratulations to the winner of our Club New Tropic giveaway with Beach Baby Green!

💚 Green motivation

Beach Baby Green makes it easier for you to get your recommended servings of greens each week. The new raw salad delivery service delivers farm-fresh, plant-based salad boxes that include six servings of organic mixed greens along with 10 cups of fruits, veggies, and seeds. This week, one lucky Club New Tropic member will be winning one such box from Beach Baby Green. Not a member yet? Join Club New Tropic today for your chance to enter this giveaway and get unlimited access to members-only raffles and perks.

International artist GeoVanna Gonzalez has set up a home base in Miami.

🎨 Commissioner kicks off Season 3 with GeoVanna Gonzalez

GeoVanna Gonzalez is a Miami-based artist and curator, and the first commissioned artist of Commissioner’s third season. Her practice explores shifting notions of gender and identity in our environment, and the relationships between the organic and the technological. She was born and raised in Los Angeles, California where she received her BFA at Otis College of Art and Design. 

You’re from L.A., exhibited all over, and were most recently based in Berlin. Now you’re doing multiple exhibitions in Miami in addition to displaying work at the ICA and the Bass, doing a residency at Fountainhead, and maintaining involvement with Miami’s arts scene by inviting people to experience art through Supplement Projects, for example. How did Miami become your home base?

When I arrived in Miami — which was kind of random initially — I immediately felt at home. And so for me, that was a clue that this is a place that I would want to give a chance in terms of living and working here.

I’ve been here for about three years now, and I love it. A lot of that has to do with the culture — there’s a huge mix of people from the Caribbean and Latin America, Central America, etc. that has really created a strong bond for me with Miami.

So much of your work as an artist and a curator seems to center on that idea of building connections, both as a community as well as personally. I am thinking specifically of your recent video series, Aesthetics of Mobility, in which you and your partner — artist Najja Moon — are living in your tiny home and inviting the larger community into your practice as an artist, as a curator, and also your life. How did that develop for you conceptually?

Community is a big part of my practice and also just my life. I come from an enormous family on both my mom and my dad’s sides. I’ve been doing independent curatorial work for quite some time now, and also [in] my personal artistic practice. At first I thought making art and curating were separate things, but I came to the realization that there isn’t any separation for me.

In terms of having an actual discourse around a work of art, we should stop separating creating and curating. This idea that you’re isolated as an artist — that you work solely in the studio by yourself, that you think creatively only by yourself – that’s the narrative that’s always been pushed. In actuality, for me, much of this is about my everyday experiences, interactions with people, conversations, and things that I’m reading. Everything that I’m digesting is influencing the work as well as myself as an individual.

A big part of my work is thinking about the things that are separating us and exploring ways in which we can experience different forms of intimacy, like different forms of care and collectivity. In general, throughout history, nothing great has ever been done by oneself alone. 

So you are very much driving toward participation, toward shared experiences and a kind of radical inclusion, in your practices?  

I am thinking about the work being something that you participate in purely and make connections through. I want you to walk into the space and there’s something there that draws you in enough and makes you feel comfortable enough to be a part of it. You are a participant in the work. And I think that’s the thing that I’m really trying to push, as well as creating new environments — breaking down these barriers of public and private space, not to mention reclaiming space.

My piece Play, Lay, Aye, for example, is a large modular pink, sculptural piece. I’m definitely thinking about creating space for queer people of color with it. Every programming [event] that I do with that structure is bringing those communities to the forefront of the work [through their participation], whether that be through a poetry reading, a vogue performance, movement or dance, or music along with the piece. The people that I’m collaborating with are essential for the piece to become a way of amplifying and inviting community. The same is true for Supplement Projects. If you look at past exhibitions, curators that have collaborated, or any of the programming, we are putting people of color at the forefront there as well.

We’re given opportunities as artists, as curators, and in life to create what we want to exist. I have the ability to choose who I work with and who I elevate, and I want to make those choices so it’s a reflection of my communities and a way to bring them together.

You’re the first Commissioner artist of Season Three. What can people expect from your work in the program?

There are some first-time things for me in this project. It’s my first time working on a large editioned piece. I was interested in how I take these monumental public pieces and make them intimate so that people have something to take with them and to build conversation, even on a smaller scale.

And again, I’m interested in the idea of community. My hope is that the work just constantly creates a conversation with whoever is around it.

The preceding interview was produced in partnership with Commissioner, a membership program that’s cultivating a community of new local art collectors and sharing the stories of Miami artists. The interview was conducted by Commissioner and WhereBy.Us co-founder Rebekah Monson and has been edited for length and clarity.

Today

🔦 Lace up your boots for a night hike and campfire at the Deering Estate (Palmetto Bay)

😅 Stretch and support the Everglades Foundation during this yoga class (Online)

Tomorrow

👻 Hunt for ghosts at the Deering Estate (Palmetto Bay)

🎨 Immerse yourself in sound, sculpture and audio performances at the opening of Raúl de Nieves' exhibit, Eternal Return and The Obsidian Heart at MOCA (North Miami)

Saturday

🎶 Groove to Jon Secada during the JazzAid Concert from Pinecrest Gardens (Online)

🎭 Round up the kiddos to watch a theatrical performance of The Wizard of Aaahs, presented by Fantasy Theatre Factory (Online)

🎨 The Black Artist Talk presents "Epistemological Apartheid in Dance Practice and Pedagogy: Decolonizing Methodologies", a virtual forum engaging Black artists, activists, and educators in discussions surrounding the decolonization of the artistic spaces. Register Now

✌️ That’s a wrap on Wednesday

Whether it’s today, tomorrow, or any day ending in ‘y’, make time to support your local artists, folks — they help our city keep its character.

Cheers,

— Zach & The New Tropic

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