Shantrelle P. Lewis | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Shantrelle Patrice Lewis June 13, 1978 |
| Citizenship | American |
| Alma mater | Howard University Temple University |
| Occupation(s) | Curator Africana Studies Scholar Critic Filmmaker Social Entrepreneur |
| Website | ShantrellePLewis.com |
Shantrelle Patrice Lewis (born June 13, 1978) [1] is an American curator, scholar, critic and filmmaker. She is a 2012 Andy Warhol Curatorial Fellow and a 2014 United Nations Programme for People of African Descent Fellow. [2] [3] [4]
Lewis was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, to computer analyst father Wayne Lewis and retired social worker mother Patricia Scott.
Lewis was introduced to African American history by her father through her own genealogy as a child where she learned she was a descendant of Henri Christophe, the first king of free Haiti in 1811. She comes from a family of teachers: Her paternal great grandfather, Nathan Lewis, was a student at Tuskegee University, and later taught at Southern University A&M and her paternal great grandmother, Della Atkinson, was a professor at Straight College, which is known today as Dillard University.
In 2000, Lewis received a bachelor's degree from Howard University in African American Studies. By then, her childhood experience with Black history grew into a career, teaching African-American Studies at Hyde Leadership Public Charter School in Washington, D.C. Lewis then earned a master's degree in African American Studies from Temple University in 2006. She returned to her hometown after the Hurricane Katrina disaster to help with revitalization and taught African World Studies at Dillard University. [2]
After returning home to Louisiana in 2007, Lewis became Executive Director and Curator of the McKenna Museum of African American Art. [2]
From 2009 to 2013, Lewis was the Director of Exhibitions and Programs at the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI) in New York City. [2]
In 2010, Lewis began working on The Dandy Lion Project, curating images of black dandies that has taken the form of an international traveling exhibition, a film series and a book. [5] [6] The project connects the subversive contemporary fashion and lifestyle movement to historical images and has dated the movement that blends African aesthetics with European menswear back to the fifteenth century in Africa. [7] Women dandies and trans men are also featured, further complicating the idea of black masculinity. [8] [9] Lewis focused on curating images authored by over 30 photographers of the African Diaspora, thus reclaiming the authorship of images that in another context might have historically been seen as exploitive. This project has been exhibited at Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago, [10] Silver Eye Center for Photography in Pittsburgh, [11] the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, [12] the Brighton Photo Biennial, [13] and Lowe Museum of Art in Miami. [14] [15] [16] [17]
Lewis gained attention as a cultural critic when Beyoncé's Formation video went public, critiquing its colorism, use of Bounce music, and the use of images from New Orleans that viscerally evoked the Hurricane Katrina storm where Lewis lost her grandmother and great-grandmother. [18] [19] [20]
Lewis has also curated: SOS: Magic, Revelry, and Resistance in Post-Katrina New Orleans Art,Life After Death: A Multi-Media Analysis of the Persona that Was/Is Fela Anikulapo Kuti, [2] Wearing Spirit: Aesthetically Personifying the Feminine in African Sacred Traditions, Sex Crimes Against Black Girls, [21] and Black Pete, Zwarte Piet: The Documentary. [22] [23] [24]
Lewis is also on the Board of Directors for the Black Star Film Festival and is the Chief Philadelphia Dream Director at The Future Project. [25] [26]
Lewis lives and works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Lewis' exhibition, "Sex Crimes Against Black Girls," was partly inspired by her personal experience with abuse as a child. [21]
In 2016, Lewis married business owner Tony Oluwatoyin Lawson with a wedding they called the "Royal Wedding of Zamunda" inspired by the blend of their Yoruba Nigerian, New Orleanian and Lucumi cultures with a nod to the film, Coming to America. The wedding included a traditional second line. [27] [28]
Tremé is a neighborhood in New Orleans, Louisiana. "Tremé" is often rendered as Treme, and the neighborhood is sometimes called by its more formal French name, the Faubourg Tremé; it is listed in the New Orleans City Planning Districts as Tremé / Lafitte when including the Lafitte Projects.
Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic, philosophy of science, and history that explores the intersection of the African diaspora culture with science and technology. It addresses themes and concerns of the African diaspora through technoculture and speculative fiction, encompassing a range of media and artists with a shared interest in envisioning black futures that stem from Afro-diasporic experiences. While Afrofuturism is most commonly associated with science fiction, it can also encompass other speculative genres such as fantasy, alternate history and magic realism. The term was coined by American cultural critic Mark Dery in 1993 and explored in the late 1990s through conversations led by Alondra Nelson.
Clarence Raymond Joseph Nagin Jr. is an American former politician who was the 60th Mayor of New Orleans, Louisiana, from 2002 to 2010. A Democrat, Nagin became internationally known in 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Ekow Eshun is a British writer, journalist, broadcaster, and curator.
Leyah (Leah) Chase was an American chef based in New Orleans, Louisiana. An author and television personality, she was known as the Queen of Creole Cuisine, advocating both African-American art and Creole cooking. Her restaurant, Dooky Chase, was known as a gathering place during the 1960s among many who participated in the Civil Rights Movement, and was known as a gallery due to its extensive African-American art collection. In 2018 it was named one of the 40 most important restaurants of the past 40 years by Food & Wine.
The first round of the New Orleans mayoral election of 2006 took place on April 22, 2006; a runoff between incumbent Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu took place on May 20, resulting in reelection for Mayor Nagin. The Mayor of New Orleans is the top official in New Orleans' mayor-council system of government.
Skip Bolen is a Southern photographer of musicians, architecture, lifestyle and the culture of New Orleans. Born in Lafayette, Louisiana, he moved to New Orleans where he began his publishing career as a designer and art director. After moving to New York City, he began working at House & Garden, renamed HG, as Senior Designer in January 1988 with Anna Wintour and Alexander Liberman at Condé Nast Publications. Spending evenings in jazz clubs, he began photographing jazz musicians in New York City and often when he regularly returned to New Orleans. After three years at Condé Nast Publications in New York City, he returned to New Orleans to pursue his jazz photography full-time. In 1998, he moved to Los Angeles where he became art director of House of Blues for seven years while photographing at night and weekends. He continued photographing jazz musicians and had his first major solo exhibition at the Jazz Bakery in Los Angeles on August 9, 2002. On July 4, 2006, he returned to New Orleans to pursue photography full-time documenting the recovery and rebuilding of New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina, documenting the jazz scene, night-time photography and other photographic projects.
Celestine Beyoncé Knowles-Lawson, better known as Tina Knowles, is an American businesswoman, fashion designer, and philanthropist known for establishing the brands House of Deréon and Miss Tina by Tina Knowles. She is the mother of singers Beyoncé and Solange Knowles, and, until 2011, was married to their father Mathew Knowles, the manager of Destiny's Child.
Elenora "Rukiya" Brown is an artist from New Orleans who has appeared in several art shows and exhibits around the country. In 2008 she was featured in the African American Fine Arts Show. Her style of crafting dolls is unique and contributes to education in art of the African diaspora.
"Formation" is a song recorded by American singer Beyoncé for her sixth studio album Lemonade (2016). It was written by Beyoncé, Mike Will Made It, Swae Lee, and Pluss, and produced by the former two. It served as the album's lead single, surprise-released on February 6, 2016, through Parkwood Entertainment. "Formation" is an R&B song with trap and bounce influences, in which Beyoncé celebrates her culture, identity and success as a black woman from the Southern United States.
Lemonade is a 2016 musical film and visual album by American singer Beyoncé, and serves as a visual companion to her 2016 album of the same name. Beyoncé also contributes as a director and executive producer for the film. The film was released on April 23, 2016, premiering on HBO, and bundled with the album on CD/DVD, Tidal and iTunes Store, which released on the same day.
The 57th Venice Biennale was an international contemporary art exhibition held between May and November 2017. The Venice Biennale takes place biennially in Venice, Italy. Artistic director Christine Macel, the chief curator at the Centre Pompidou, curated its central exhibition, "Viva Arte Viva", as a series of interconnected pavilions designed to reflect art's capacity for expanding humanism. The curator also organized a project, "Unpacking My Library", based on a Walter Benjamin essay, to list artists' favorite books. Macel was the first French director since 1995 and the fourth woman to direct the Biennale. A trend of presenting overlooked, rediscovered, or "emerging dead artists" was a theme of the 57th Biennale.
OkayAfrica is a digital media platform dedicated to African culture, music and politics. Founded in 2011 by Vanessa Wruble and Ginny Suss as a sister site to The Roots frontman Questlove's Okayplayer, the site has become a popular destination for Africans on the continent and in the diaspora. Today, OkayAfrica is the largest US-based website focusing on new and progressive music, art, politics, and culture from the African continent.
Cheryl Finley is an art historian, author, curator and critic. She is a professor at Cornell University and Director of the AUC Art History + Curatorial Studies Collective. She won Bard Graduate Center's Horowitz Book Prize for her book, Committed to Memory: the Art of the Slave Ship Icon in 2019.
"Spirit" is a song by American singer Beyoncé for the soundtrack of the photorealistic remake of The Lion King and the companion album The Lion King: The Gift. Released on July 10, 2019, it was written and produced by Ilya Salmanzadeh, Labrinth and Beyoncé. Lyrically, the song discusses Simba's, the film's main protagonist's return home and is played during that particular scene in the film. "Spirit" is a gospel ballad that opens with lyrics chanted in Swahili by male choristers.
The Lion King: The Gift is a soundtrack album created by American singer-songwriter Beyoncé from Disney's 2019 photorealistic computer-generated imagery remake of The Lion King and for Black Is King (2020). It was released on July 19, 2019, by Parkwood Entertainment and Columbia Records. The album was also produced by Beyoncé and features artists such as Wizkid, Burna Boy, Mr Eazi, Tiwa Savage, Tekno, Yemi Alade, Busiswa, Moonchild Sanelly, and Salatiel, as well as appearances from Jay-Z, Blue Ivy Carter, Childish Gambino, Pharrell Williams, Kendrick Lamar, Tierra Whack, 070 Shake, and Jessie Reyez, among others.
"Brown Skin Girl" is a song by American singers Beyoncé and Blue Ivy Carter, Guyanese-American rapper Saint Jhn, and Nigerian singer Wizkid. Produced by P2J and Beyoncé, it is taken from the 2019 soundtrack album The Lion King: The Gift. The song was sent to Top 40/Rhythmic radio on July 23, 2019, as the second single from the album.
Black Is King is a 2020 American musical film co-written, executive produced, and directed by Beyoncé. It is a visual companion to the 2019 album The Lion King: The Gift, curated by Beyoncé for the film The Lion King (2019).
Julie Crooks is a Canadian curator, researcher and instructor. She has been the head of the department of Arts of Global Africa and the Diaspora at the Art Gallery of Ontario since its founding in 2020.
Dawn DeDeaux is an American visual artist based in New Orleans, Louisiana whose practice has included installation art, sculpture, photography, technology and multimedia works. Since the 1970s, her work has examined social, political and environmental issues encountered at both the global and local level of her native Louisiana. In 2014, American Theatre wrote that she created "immersive, future-tense" work at the intersection of visual arts, electronically driven theatre and site-specific installation, with sculpture, drawings and digital technology "inspired by ancient myths, mathematical forecasts, symbols, visions of apocalyptic landscapes and utopian longings."
