M. Florine Démosthène (b. in New York; lives and works between Tulsa, OK, and New York) considers the Black female body to be a vessel of collective experience. Multimedia collages of marbled mylar on paper with suspended figures in blank space encourages viewers to engage with the figures’ experience of bodily transformation and regeneration.The figures, composed of glittering marble-like skin, are frozen in the midst of a metamorphosis. Ideas of a beginning or end lose meaning in Démosthène’s work as the mechanisms and processes of change are continuous. The artist lures viewers into a phantasmagoric sphere, plunging into her intertwined almost science-fiction dimension where Black female heroines are paramount.  Démosthène is the recipient of a Tulsa Artist Fellowship, Arts Moves Africa Grant and a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant. Her work can be seen at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art (Washington D.C.), University of South Africa (UNISA) (Pretoria, South Africa), Lowe Museum of Art (Miami, Florida), the CCS Bard College Hessel Museum of Art (Annandale-On-Hudson, New York), and in various private collections worldwide.               

Malene Djenaba Barnett is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist, textile surface designer, and community builder. She earned her MFA in ceramics from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture and undergraduate degrees in fashion illustration and textile surface design from the Fashion Institute of Technology. Malene received a Fulbright Award to travel to Jamaica in 2022–23 as the visiting artist at Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts in Kingston. Malene is also the founder of the  Black Artists + Designers Guild, which supports independent Black makers globally. “For me, crafting kinship is about connecting with my roots and honoring the rich stories of our ancestors. In Crafted Kinship, I’ve gathered the voices of over 60 Black Caribbean makers who do just that—bringing tradition to life through their hands and hearts.”