Join us for a conversation with the BYENVENI exhibition curator, Yvena Despagne and featured exhibition artists.
Yvena will lead us in a discussion about BYENVENI, CCCADI’s current multimedia exhibition that welcomes contemporary Haitian Diasporic art. This exhibition shines a spotlight on the creative expressions of eleven artists who focus on the theme of lakay (translated as home in Haitian-Kreyòl), and explore Haiti as both a cherished internal sanctuary, preserving cultural traditions and religious practices, as well as an external haven, a space of refuge, familial and communal development, a source of boundless joy, and the cornerstone of sovereignty.
This talk will feature BYENVENI exhibition artists Steven Baboun, Tania L. Balan-Gaubert and Madjeen Isaac.
There is no cost to attend but RSVP is strongly encouraged. Admission is based on space capacity.
This event is the first of three Curatorial Talks that will feature the BYENVENI exhibition artists in conversation with curator, Yvena Despagne. Mark your calendars for the following talks on May 18, 2024 from 2 - 3:30 p.m. and June 27, 2024 from 6 - 8: 30 p.m.
MEET OUR GUEST SPEAKERS:
STEVEN BABOUN
Steven Baboun is an artist, photographer, and creative director from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, based in New York City. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Film and Media Arts and a minor in Education Studies from American University, as well as a Master of Fine Arts in Photography from Parsons School of Design. Baboun works in photography, video, performance, textile + multimedia installation, and design. Currently, Baboun is the founder and creative director of Studio Baboun, a creative house based in Brooklyn, New York.
TANIA L. BALAN-GAUBERT
Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary conceptual artist, curator, and writer Tania L. Balan-Gaubert’s work explores race, transnational identity, and history through photography, mixed media, installation, and video. Born on the Council of the Three Fires and Miami lands (Illinois) to Haitian parents, Balan-Gaubert was raised between Chicago’s southside and the Flatlands neighborhood of Brooklyn on Lenapehoking land (New York). Guided by Haitian, African, and Indigenous-based cultural traditions, Balan-Gaubert creates works that are caught between several realms. She combines personal archive(s), history, lore, images, found and ready-made objects, and spirituality with craft materials to construct hybrid works.
Balan-Gaubert earned her MFA from California College of the Arts in 2018 and her MA in African American Studies from Columbia University in 2012. She has exhibited at the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD), San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI), Minnesota Street Project, SOMArts Cultural Center, Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art (MoCADA), CaribBEING House in residence at the Brooklyn Museum, Lefferts Historic House in Prospect Park, and Hobart and William Smith Colleges, The Davis Gallery at Houghton House.
MADJEEN ISSAC
Madjeen Isaac is a Brooklyn based Haitian-American artist whose practice is rooted in home, communality and land stewardship. Isaac reimagines and hybridizes landscapes by incorporating elements of her hometown Brooklyn and ancestral homeland Haiti. She centers diasporic experiences and practices such as agriculture and tending to the spaces they occupy in exchange of joy, leisure, and liberation challenging the constraints of reality.
Isaac is currently an artist in residence at Smack Mellon. She received a BFA in Fine Art from The Fashion Institute of Technology (2018) and an MA in Art+Edu & Community Practice at New York University (2021). Residencies completed include, BRIClab: Contemporary Artist Residency Program (2022/23), the Laundromat Project Fellowship (2021) and LakouNOU Artist Residency Program at Haiti Cultural Exchange (2018). Her work has been exhibited at Swivel Gallery (2023) Jenkins Johnson Projects Gallery (2023), The Frost Art Museum (2023), The Art and Design Gallery at FIT (2020) among others and has works in private collections. Isaac is a recipient of the Women of Distinction Award for Arts and Entertainment Award (2022) and New York City Artist Corps Grant (2021).
Lakay se Lakay
BYENVENI is part of CCCADI’s Lakay se Lakay, a year-long homage that celebrates the legacy of Haiti, Our Black Nation. Lakay se Lakay is a cultural odyssey through which we dedicate much of our programming. Using the lens of Haitian arts and scholarship, CCCADI explores home as a space for refuge, building family and community, preservation of traditions, a foundation for cultivating joy, and the roots of sovereignty.
You can support this work by making a donation to CCCADI. Help us advance Pan-Caribbean and Pan-African connections so that together we may build a brighter AfroFuture.