Performers at the Juneteenth Jubilee 2020 in Harlem, New York Courtesy The Blacksmiths and the Wide Awakes. Photo by Pascal Perich
This weekend, the arts groups The Blacksmiths and the Wide Awakes have teamed up to co-host Juneteenth Jubilee 2021, a free outdoor event in Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn celebrating Black culture, liberation, and resiliency. The programme includes live music, with a performance stage located near the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument, and an art walk of outdoor installations and participatory experiences by Black women artists.
A highlight of the event will be the unveiling of the Ethiopian American artist Helina Metaferia’s new mural on the site of the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art’s forthcoming sculpture garden at 48 Lafayette Avenue. Titled Headdress 21 (2021), the mural features a portrait of the Wide Awakes artist Wildcat Ebony Brown under a collaged crown of images of civil rights activism. The mural, part of Meta
Helsinki Biennial will take place for the first time from
12 June to 26 September 2021 on Vallisaari island, located in the Helsinki Archipelago. Uniting the maritime island with the city of Helsinki, the inaugural edition of the biennial, titled The Same Sea, will also extend to the mainland, with artworks and events invigorating the Finnish capital.
An extensive programme of real-life contemporary art exhibitions, workshops, events, and educational activities will be available to in-person audiences as permitted by COVID-19 restrictions, as well as a vast array of digital initiatives accessible for remote audiences, including a new collaboration with Facebook Open Arts. Despite the challenges posed over the last year, all announced artists and artist groups will exhibit their artworks as originally envisioned.
Jessica Shaefer. Photo by Miguel Arzabe.
In these turbulent times, creativity and empathy are more necessary than ever to bridge divides and find solutions. Artnet News’s Art and Empathy Project is an ongoing investigation into how the art world can help enhance emotional intelligence, drawing insights and inspiration from creatives, thought leaders, and great works of art.
Facebook’s art curator Jessica Shaefer, the daughter of a New York-based artist, was once reluctant to become a part of what she had long viewed as a challenging and veiled industry. But after following her own pursuits for many years, she was pulled back to art in her mid-20s when she began working for Vito Schnabel, the Manhattan art dealer who was at the time just beginning his art career. For a long time, Shaefer worked as a curator, art dealer, and “almost every other art world job you could possibly have,” taking time to get to know the ins and outs of the the industry and thinking she would
Facebook Messenger brings artist-designed 360 backgrounds
February 1, 2021
Facebook has tapped its Facebook Open Arts creative community to create artist-designed custom 360 backgrounds for Messenger Rooms and video calls. This way you will be able to customize your video calls based on which of the artistic backgrounds you will choose. They are teaming up with six artists from diverse and underrepresented communities who will be creating art that will incorporate their cultural influences and their own personal stories. They are doing this not just to give users more options but to “celebrate diversity, creativity and vibrancy in the arts.”
If you’re not yet familiar with Messenger Rooms, it’s a feature within Facebook and Messenger where you can create a room to host a group video call for up to 50 people, with no time limit, and best of all, it’s free. You are able to create and join a room from within the main Facebook app (News feed, Groups, or Events) or the Messen