Art of Black Miami

The City of Miami Black Police Precinct and Courthouse Museum preserves an important part of Miami’s Black history. Located in the Historic Overtown community, the museum tells the story of the city’s first Black police officers and the courthouse that served Miami’s Black community during a time of segregation. Terrance Cribbs-Lórrant, known artistically as VesSouL, serves as the museum’s Executive Director and is also a Cultural Curator, helping to bring these stories to life through its collections, exhibits, and educational programming.

For more than two decades, Cribbs-Lórrant has worked to preserve and promote Black history and culture throughout Miami and other historic Florida communities, including Overtown, Liberty City, Lemon City, Little Haiti, and Coconut Grove. “As a cultural curator, I am committed to facilitating the facts about culture and representing an art form to its fullest capacity,” Cribbs-Lórrant says.

Through his leadership, the City of Miami Black Police Precinct and Courthouse Museum continues to serve as an important place for learning, reflection, and preservation—connecting Miami’s past with the communities and generations that continue to shape its future.

Links:

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Black Police Precinct Courthouse & Museum

Shayla Marshall is a contemporary artist who uses world-building techniques to craft dynamic mixed media works. Her practice draws from multiple moments in time to reimagine histories and futures, creating spaces that challenge dominant narratives and reflect the resilience of Black communities.

Shayla uses storytelling as a major part of the framework to begin every piece, inviting viewers to experience the rich flamboyance of these diverse stories. Marshall’s work has been exhibited at the Saatchi Gallery, Tate Modern, The African Heritage Cultural Arts Center and Barry University. She’s held residences at the Bakehouse Art Complex and Oolite Arts. She has participated in fellowships with RCA BLK and DVCAI as a Catalyst Fellow in Suriname.

Shayla holds a MA in Contemporary Art Practice from the Royal College of Art in London, and a BFA in Dance Theatre from the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in Los Angeles.

Host: Rosie Gordon-Wallace
Recording Location: Barry University Department of Communication, Miami Shores, Florida
Editor: Raymel Casamayor

Links:

@shaylamonii

Sheherazade Thénard is an award winning and driven artist, curator and educator based in Miami. Their work reclaims the layered histories of their family's assimilation from Martinique to the U.S., blending Afro-Caribbean symbolism, Black feminist media, and my experience as a Black queer artist in the South. Through vibrant yet dark palettes, Sheherazade transforms autobiographical memories into reimagined geographies, creating textured, luminous spaces that evoke belonging, protection, and ancestral connection. As an educator and curator, they are deeply committed to the history of arts and how shared narratives shape community understanding and connection.

Annunciation (Angel Trumpet) by Sheherazade Thénard

Thénard holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Central Florida (2022), along with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Bachelor of Arts in Visual Arts and Emerging Media Management. Their growing exhibition record includes Rootwork, a two-person exhibition presented with Chili Arts Project in London in 2023, and Easy Like a Sunday Morning, a traveling group exhibition curated by Mashonda Tifrere that was showcased in Los Angeles and New York.

Blue Bottle Tree - The Fool and the Chariot by Sheherazade Thénard

Sheherazade has expanded on their artistic journey through several art residencies such as the Forest Project in London (2024), and The Atlantic Center for the Arts #190th session with mentor Larry Osai-Mensa and has been selected for AIRIE’s 2026 residency in the Everglades. They are currently a Studio Artist in Residence at Oolite Art, on Miami Beach, for the 2025-2026 years. Their practice has been published as an artist to watch from Artsy (2024) and has appeared on the front cover of All She Makes second edition magazine. 

The Bluest Note by Sheherazade Thénard

Currently, they are developing a grant awarded project in collaboration with two other artists for an online and physical show titled “Little Islands” to celebrate the Island Diaspora.

Host: Rosie Gordon-Wallace
Recording Location: Barry University Department of Communication, Miami Shores, Florida
Editor: Raymel Casamayor

Links:
SheherazadeArt.com
@Sheherazade.Thenard

King Henry and Haiti’s Royal Court, Engraving on Plexiglass, Polyptych 8 40x40” panels, 2019 by Edouard Duval Carrié

 

Edouard Duval Carrié is a contemporary artist and curator based in Miami’s Little Haiti. Born and raised in Haiti, Duval Carrié fled the regime of “Papa Doc” Duvalier as a teenager and subsequently resided in locales as diverse as Puerto Rico, New York, Montreal, Paris and Miami. At heart, Duval Carrié is an educator: he challenges the viewer to make meaning of dense iconography derived from Caribbean history, politics, and religion. His mixed media works and installations present migrations and transformations, often human and spiritual. 

Duval-Carrié studied at the Université de Montréal and McGill University in Canada before graduating with a Bachelor of Arts from Loyola College, Montréal in 1978 and studying at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France, from 1988 to 1989.

Host: Rosie Gordon-Wallace
Recording Location: Barry University Department of Communication, Miami Shores, Florida
Editor: Raymel Casamayor

Links:
Edouard Duval Carrié 
@EdouardDuvalCarrie

Arsimmer McCoy, photographed by Terence Price II.

Arsimmer McCoy, photo shot by Passion Ward, courtesy of Maven Leadership Collective

Arsimmer McCoy is a poet, performance artist, and interdisciplinary artist from South Florida, celebrated for her award-winning storytelling and dynamic public programming that weaves poetic narrative with civic memory. Her practice centers on cultural preservation, environmental stewardship, and intergenerational care as acts of community justice.

She has been an artist-in-residence at ACA, Locust Projects, Oolite Arts, AIRIE, and Pioneer Winter Collective. In 2024, she performed at the Venice Biennale for the European Cultural Center’s Personal Structures exhibition, and in 2025, she curated a collaborative work at Locust Projects.

Her writing appears in Artsy, Rootwork Journal, The Lighthouse Review, and Burnaway Magazine. Institutions, including Pérez Art Museum Miami and Bakehouse Art Complex, have commissioned McCoy’s voice and creative programming due to her beautiful approach to collaborative performance. Her latest project, A Spell to Grow a Garden, a zine collaboration with EXILE Books and MAVEN Leadership Collective, features her poetry and new works in photography.

She is a Marjory Stoneman Douglas Poetry Award winner and a recipient of the 2025 Miami-Dade Arts & Environment Award. Arsimmer McCoy is also the Community Program Manager for the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami.

Host: Rosie Gordon-Wallace
Recording Location: Barry University Department of Communication, Miami Shores, Florida
Editor: Raymel Casamayor

Links:
Arsimmer McCoy 
@ArsimmerMcCoy

Listen to Arsimmer McCoy's poem: A Spell to Grow a Garden

Photography by Lauryn Lawrence

 

Lauryn M. Lawrence, Jamaican and Dominican-American, is an artist and curator whose work examines her experiences as an Afro-Latina intersectional feminist. Lawrence was born in South Florida, where she currently resides. Her multimedia works are both analytical and introspective. Lawrence emphasizes capturing representations of intersectional communities in society and paying attention to the relationship between people and their spaces. Her recent 2022 photographic series, Womxnhood, sheds light on the very differences that build the foundation for the agency and subjectivity of the artists portrayed. As part of this series, Lawrence explores intersectionality, identity, sacred spaces, and vulnerability.

Photo credits L-R: The Women I Know Series: The Fabien Family, 2020
Womxnhood Series: Countess, 2022; Caro, 2022

Host: Rosie Gordon-Wallace
Recording Location: Barry University Department of Communication, Miami Shores, Florida
Editor: Raymel Casamayor

Links:
www.laurynlawrence.com 
@laurynn_l

More Artwork by Lauryn M. Lawrence

 

An independent filmmaker and visual artist, Dudley Alexis is both a cultural anthropologist and historian who sees his world through unique multicultural eyes. His mission is to uncover hidden meaning in overlooked lives, finding true treasure in their stories.

Born in Haiti, Alexis immigrated to the United States in his teens, attending high school and college in Miami where he began studying fine art. His body of work includes a vast number of short documentaries including stories about the First Nation Micousukee Tribe of Florida, made while employed by Micousukee Magazine. He went on to write, film, direct and edit his first full length documentary, ‘Liberty in a Soup’ completed in 2016. His work on the Arthur McDuffie story began almost immediately after, but not at the exclusion of creating and exhibiting his fine art and was most recently selected and featured in the exhibition ‘Kingdom of This World, Reimagined’, curated by noted artist Edouard Duval Carrié, during Miami’s 2019 Art Week as part of the prestigious Art Basel festivities.

Alexis continues to master multiple mediums, using his curiosity and insight to raise awareness and inspire societal change on global issues.

Host: Rosie Gordon-Wallace
Recording Location: Barry University Department of Communication, Miami Shores, Florida
Editor: Raymel Casamayor

Links:
www.dudleyalexis.com

 

Dr. Willie F. Logan is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Ten North Group, formerly Opa-locka Community Development Corporation (OLCDC). Under his leadership, the organization remains committed to its mission of transforming lives by creating housing and wealth-building opportunities for historically under-resourced communities. A key pillar in fulfilling this mission is the integration of the arts as a catalyst for social and economic impact.

Ten North Arts, a program of Ten North Group, celebrates the artistic contributions of African and African Diaspora communities through curated exhibitions and engaging arts programming. Its signature event, Art of Transformation, brings communities together, using art to bridge cultures and inspire change. Ten North Group is also an invited satellite location of the international art fair, Art Basel, and a featured event in Art of Black Miami. Through Dr. Logan’s visionary leadership, Ten North Group continues to foster understanding, appreciation, and empowerment—enriching the cultural landscape of Opa-locka and beyond through the transformative power of art.

Host: Rosie Gordon-Wallace
Recording Location: Barry University Department of Communication, Miami Shores, Florida
Editor: Raymel Casamayor

Links:
www.tennorthgroup.com 
@tennorthgroup

More Artwork by Dr. Willie F. Logan

 

Ema Ri is a Miami-based, queer-identified, Cuban-American artist. They earned their BFA from New World School of the Arts in 2017 and have since exhibited extensively across South Florida.

Their solo exhibitions at Spinello Projects—Undercurrent (2021) and In So Deep (2023)—highlight their evolving practice. Their work has appeared in group shows at CIFO Gallery, Locust Projects, Oolite Arts, MOCA Miami, and more. They’ve been featured in major events such as UNTITLED Art Fair and El Espacio23’s You Know Who You Are. Ema Ri has completed residencies at Oolite Arts, Kinosaito Arts, Atlantic Center for the Arts, and NWSA. Their work has been recognized with numerous awards, including a CINTAS Fellowship finalist spot (2017), Wavemaker Grants (2021–22), an Ellies Creators Award (2022), and the South Florida Cultural Consortium prize for Miami-Dade.

Host: Rosie Gordon-Wallace
Recording Location: Barry University Department of Communication, Miami Shores, Florida
Editor: Raymel Casamayor

Photo credit: Facilitated by Frederick Snitzer Gallery
Life Revered 2025 by Ema Ri

 

More artwork by Ema Ri

"Welcome Home by Ema Ri, Facilitated by Frederick Snitzer Gallery"