Creative Time Summit Brings Artists Together in Miami

Immigration, climate change, racial violence, and gentrification — these are issues that need to be addressed both in Miami and throughout the rest of the world. Creative Time, a New York-based public arts organization, saw an opportunity to explore these issues from a local and global context at the 11th Creative Time Summit, whose theme this year is "On Archipelagos and Other Imaginaries: Collective Strategies to Inhabit the World." The event will take place for the first time in Miami this November 1 through 3.

“Miami is one of the great arts cities in the U.S., but most people know it in the context of the art fair. We want to highlight the cultural wealth of the city outside of that context," says Justine Ludwig, executive director of Creative Time. "It’s also an opportunity to highlight the historical connection to the Caribbean and Latin America, which is exciting for us."

This year’s event includes a series of panels, workshops, and discussions about the summit’s four themes: “Facing climate realities, reimagining a green future,” “toward an intersectional justice,” “resisting displacement and violence,” and “on boundaries and a borderless future.” Explains Ludwig: “We’re using Miami as a jumping-off point and inspiration for these issues. We look at how these issues are exemplified within the context of Miami but how they also speak to larger sociopolitical issues that we engage with as a nation.”

The Miami edition of the Creative Time Summit will kick off with an opening-night party at Pérez Art Museum Miami, where audiences will be entertained by performances from drag icons Bhenji Ra, Kunst, Miss Toto, Lolita Cabrón, Andro Gin, Dang Ho Yu Sickning, Queef Latina, Karla Croqueta, Jupiter Velvet, Ded Cooter, Persephone Vonlips, and Juleisy Inbed.

The first full day of the summit consists of a series of presentations and discussions by participants such as professor Timothy Morton, who will speak about the intersection of philosophy and ecology; author Vijay Prashad, who will deliver the keynote for the section “Towards an Intersectional Justice”; and 2009 MacArthur Fellow Edwidge Danticat, who will discuss gentrification. At the end of the day, audiences will be treated to a performance by Krudas Cubensi, a queer Afro-Cuban hip-hop group that uses its music as a form of activism for LGBTQIA black women.
On the second full day of Creative Time, participants and audiences will break out into sessions in various locations around Miami. At the Little River Cooperative, participants can learn about urban farming in Miami. At Locust Projects, attendees can learn about the role of arts organizations in helping artists create socially engaged works. At the Edouard Duval-Carrié Studio, the artist himself will lead a conversation about the “global Caribbean.” Other locations to participate in the breakout sessions include YoungArts, PAMM, Little Haiti Cultural Complex, MOAD, Mana Contemporary, the Wolfsonian, Simpson Park, and ArtCenter/South Florida.

In the evening of the final day, Creative Time will host its inaugural film series at SoundScape Park in Miami Beach. The program will feature works by filmmakers from Miami and other parts of South Florida, as well as the Caribbean, Latin America, and beyond.

Ludwig hopes the Creative Time Summit this year will provide an opportunity for audiences to reflect and refuel in troubling times. “People are divided and overwhelmed by the current sociopolitical situation," she says, "and I hope the summit provides a jumping-off point and a way to move forward.”

Creative Time Summit. Thursday, November 1, through Saturday, November 3, at locations around Miami-Dade; creativetime.org. Passes cost $25 to $300.