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 alongside four featured exhibition artists. Each artist will share insights into their process of expression and their source of inspiration. The works that will be discussed are featured in the BYENVENI gallery areas of Lespri: The Concept of Vodou and Te Nou: The Concept of Preserving Haiti as an Internal Sanctuary.
This talk will feature artists Metres Riva N. Precil, Fabiola Jean Louis, and Okai Musik (Oyasound).
There is no cost to attend but donations at the door are strongly encouraged. Admission is based on capacity of space. Walk-ups are welcome, register at the door.
6:30 - 7:30 PM - Guided Exhibition Tour
7:30 - 8:30 PM - Curatorial Talk
This event is free to attend, but a donation is encouraged.
MEET OUR GUEST SPEAKERS:
Metres Riva Nyri Precil
Riva Nyri Precil is a Haïtian multi-disciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, New York. After receiving a degree in Music Therapy from Loyola University in New Orleans Riva began a dynamic career that includes work as an author, a visual artist and jewelry maker, a musician, and dancer. Her work creates connections that not only honor Haitian traditions but present them as relevant today. Her Altar Art and Wearable Altar projects position these customs as necessary practices for contemporary living.
A solo artist and a member of the band Bohio Music- she is widely known throughout Haïti and its Diaspora for her unique fusion of Haïtian music with African roots, American R&B, Soul, and Jazz. As the director of Tout Se Pa she offers dance education around the world. Riva’s practice is about elevating and preserving Caribbean culture, promoting wellness, facilitating healing, and offering ways to engage spirituality through her music and dance therapy.
Fabiola Jean-Louis
Fabiola Jean-Louis was born in Port Au Prince, Haiti and moved to Brooklyn, NY at a young age. While attending the High School of Fashion Industries, her passion for the arts flourished. Today, her practice is focused on experimentation through the use of different techniques, disciplines, and even art styles.
Her love of Afro-futurism, science/ science fiction, pre and post-industrial eras, elves, fairies, and history and folklore, are also central themes in her work. Her series, Rewriting History, a body of work consisting of period paper gowns, painterly photographs, and Polaroids, opened as a solo exhibition at Smithsonian affiliates, DuSable Museum of African American History, Alan Avery Art Company, and Andrew Freedman Home to critical acclaim. It also earned her acceptance into the highly sought-after residency at the Museum of Art and Design (MAD), New York City, and in September 2019, LUX Museum, San Diego. In 2021, The Metropolitan Museum of Art commissioned a paper sculpture for a two-year exhibition, “Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room''. It debuted on November 5th, 2021 - making her the first Haitian, female artist to show in the prestigious institution. That same year, the Yale Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, acquired Jean-Louis’s entire Rewriting History print collection - along with three paper sculptures.
Fabiola now sets her sights on entirely new projects beyond Rewriting History that include short films, pottery, large-scale installations, and a new photographic series titled, “Atonement”.
Okai Musik (OYASOUND)
Okai is a vocalist/percussionist who embodies all the music of the African Diaspora. Brooklyn born with Haitian descent young Okai was beating on anything that he could get his hands on to help his imagination grow. His ears became infected with the hard boom bap drum loops of Hip Hop, and roots music from the Caribbean. Those sounds led him on a musical path to find rock, Jazz, samba, salsa, rumba and pretty much anything that involves percussion. Okai began his path of percussion on the trap set playing for various churches. He then played Congas for his High School band for several years. Once he was introduced to the West African Djembe he concentrated on that for more than 10yrs.
Okai's cultural background shaped him into being the full round artist he is today. He is Currently the lead singer and percussionist of Brown Rice Family who won “The Battle of the Boroughs” in NYC in 2012. Okai is also co-founder of Strings N Skins who are currently finishing an album to be released in the fall. He is an active percussionist in New York always sharing his voice and energetic rhythms.
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.