School of Art X Independent Curators International / Collaborative and transcultural Artistic Practices

A Critical Conversations Event

The Dean of the School of Art, Jorge Oliver, is pleased to invite you to RSVP for a special professional development workshop on Collaborative and Transcultural Artistic Practices being presented alongside this year’s SoArt Exhibition, Pieces of You, Pieces of Me. This satellite programming is a partnership between the School of Art and Independent Curators International and will bring three prominent contemporary curators, Sabine Blaizin, Tumelo Mosaka and Ernestine White-Mifetu, to campus to present on their practice as curators and engage in group discussions with students. This event aims to explore the crucial role of collaboration in advancing artistic practices. To join this workshop please RSVP here. Lunch will be provided. Please know that space is limited and registration will be accommodated on a first come first serve basis.

What to expect: The workshop will unfold in two parts. First, each curator will deliver a 30 minute presentation. Second, each curator will lead an interactive breakout session with a small group of students. For this second part be prepared to bring a brief artist statement and up to five images of your artwork for review and feedback by the facilitator of the breakout session you will be assigned to. The material you bring will be shared openly by you with your group for no more than 5 minutes.

Date and time: Friday September 20, 2024 at 10:30 am – 2 pm Location: Memorial Hall Innocent Ekejiuba, who is the faculty advisor to co-curators Nande Walters and Skye Prosper will facilitate this workshop and is available to you directly for any guidance you might require in preparing your materials in advance of the workshop. His email: iekejiub@pratt.edu.

Please find listed below brief biographies of the curators and the topics each will discuss at the workshop. We are very excited about this opportunity for you to meet with these curators and show them your work and hope that you will consider joining. Please reach out with any questions you might have. Looking forward to seeing you there and thank you!

Sabine Blaizin, Preparing for the Future: The Role of Artistic Trans-national Collaboration in Afrofuturism

As Director of Programs at Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute, Sabine oversees the strategic direction of CCCADI’s public, education and fellowship programs. A New Yorker of Haitian descent and self-coined Artivist, Afrofuturist, and Pan-Africanist, Sabine ultimately seeks to create new scholarship through the African and Haitian diasporic lens of music, culture and spirituality. She has over 15 years experience in non-profit organizations, and has been instrumental in developing innovative and high-impact marketing and branding, event planning, and programming strategies. Prior to joining CCCADI, she served as the Director of Programs at Ifetayo Cultural Arts Academy, Inc. and, an alumnus herself, she served AmeriCorps Public Allies New York (PANY) as the Director of Alumni Relations and Community Engagement. Sabine completed a fellowship with the Haiti Cultural Exchange and is the NYC Chapter Ambassador for She Builds Initiative, a social network of like-minded individuals who are creators, innovators, and entrepreneurs building platforms that can positively impact Haiti and the world. Currently she is also a Holistic Health Practitioner/Coach and DJ/Producer/Event Curator (Oyasound). Sabine holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Urban Sociology from Eugene Lang College at The New School, a Master of Arts degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine from Tri-State College of Acupuncture, and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Performance Interactive & Media Arts from Brooklyn College.

Tumelo Mosaka, Transnational Collaborations: The Why, the How, and its Importance

Tumelo Mosaka is a Johannesburg-born and New York City-based independent curator. He is the Mellon Project Director and Curator in African American and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia University, New York. Mosaka has worked within and outside museums exploring global transnational artistic practices especially from Africa, the Caribbean, and North America. He is the Resident Curator at Opa-locka Community Development Corporation in Miami, FL, and an advisor to Prospect.6, New Orleans, LA. As an independent curator, Mosaka has curated numerous exhibitions including: Beyond Tradition: Contemporary Sculpture from Africa, Opa-loka, FL (2022); YAKHAL INKOMO, Javett Art Center, South Africa (2022); Usha Seejarim, A Solo Exhibition, Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam (2020); Turning Tide, Mémorial ACTe Museum, Guadeloupe (2017); Andrew Lyght: Full Circle, Dorsky Art Museum, New York (2016); Poetic Relations, Perez Art Museum, Miami (2015) amongst many others. He also worked for the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina where he co-curated the exhibition Listening Across Cultures (2001) and Evoking History (2002).

Ernestine White-Mifetu, Collaborating Across Time: Digging into Archives and Respecting Histories

Ernestine White-Mifetu is the Sills Foundation Curator of African Art at the Brooklyn Museum. She is formerly the Curator of Contemporary Art at the Iziko South African National Gallery. Her professional accomplishments include being the Acting Director for the Iziko South African National Gallery, serving on the National Arts Festival’s artistic committee responsible for coordinating the visual arts programme at the Grahamstown Festival and selecting the Standard Bank Young Artists winner for the Visual and Performance Arts categories. Recently Ms. White has been judge and adjudicator for competitions such as the Vuleka art competition, the Taxi Art Award and the Sanlam Portrait awards. A career highlight has been the inclusion of her work into the permanent collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Ms. White completed a four-year Bachelor degree at the State University of Purchase College in New York, a two-year Master apprenticeship at the Tamarind Institute of Lithography in New Mexico to become a Tamarind Master printer. Ernestine White returned to South Africa in 2001 to complete her Masters degree in Fine Art and in 2014 completed an Honours in Curatorship diploma at the University of Cape Town’s Michaelis School of Fine Art.

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This event is part of Critical Conversations: creating space for and educating one another about our multiple cultural contexts, activism, civil discourse, and academic engagement.