This summer, during This Summer Too: Conversations with Makers Exploring Memory, Materials, and Meaning, Diaspora Vibe Cultural Arts Incubator curators Rosie Gordon-Wallace and Lauryn Lawrence turn our attention to artists who bridge the artificial boundaries between art, craft, design, and artisanship. These are makers—creators who work from a place of ancestral knowledge, driven by the need to fill an inner void and propelled by the desire for self-expression. During regular library hours, visit the exhibition to view works by artists Lauren Austin, Barbara Garvine, Alida Martinez, Yossi Peled, Evelyn Politzer, and Miki Speijers, and Barry University MFA Candidates, Robertha Blatt and Joy Johnson. These artists’ practices are often sparked by specific provocations, with memory as a recurring catalyst. This Summer Too invites students visiting DVCAI at Barry to participate in these conversations—designed to tickle the imagination and ignite curiosity. We hope these encounters spark new ways of seeing and prompt students to think differently about art, materials, and objects in their own homes. May this conversation about makers open doors to broader dialogues about what art is, who gets to make it, and where it lives. Through powerful stitches, blanketing layers, archival photographs, and ancestral threads, This Summer Too: Conversations With Makers group exhibition weaves together a group of artists whose works guide us down our memories and connectivity to imagery, textiles, and fabric. Each body of work within this exhibition contains pathways between imagery, textiles, and symbols that bridge the artificial boundaries between art, craft, design, and artisanship, from works that address one’s relationship to their country to works that speak to the labor endured with the material and works that collectively are in conversations concerning our collective memory with photographs and fiber. This Summer Too: Conversations With Makers reimagines the joy the summer season envelops. Each artist within this exhibition reflects on the complexities of joy and craftsmanship. We invite viewers to join in the multiplicities of conversations and indulge in the unique way each artist has nurtured their work and engaged with healing and memory work methods. We ask that viewers consider the questions of what we take for granted and how we define art. We hope the answer percolates and comes to the surface through the navigation of the This Summer Too: Conversations With Makers group exhibition. - Lauryn Lawrence