The Crown We Never Take Off is a celebration of Black achievement and a strikingly brilliant exploration of hair customs and rituals so deeply entrenched that neither time nor distance have erased them. This exhibition applauds the overlooked efforts of Black entrepreneurs and creatives with a gifted group of visionaries who, like the Richards family, push boundaries and excel despite the odds.Â
Connecting traditions to the continent while remaining innovative, these artists weave their own rich histories with the realities of the world to create an affirmative place where Blackness thrives, while synonymously documenting the culture in extraordinary ways. Their work makes a bold statement about the power of African identities, and repositions Eurocentric art history and definitions of beauty.
Prime Video’s RICHES is an alluring, engaging, and artful drama that centers around the Richards family–a Black dynasty in turmoil–as five siblings vie for control of their family’s beauty brand. RICHES allows audiences to see an authentic expression of blackness in traditionally white-owned spaces. The intention of our space is to recreate the feeling of watching Riches for the first time — celebrating the freedom of Black expression and identity. When Black people are the authors of their own identity, we get stories like RICHES; new artforms, new thoughtforms and eventually new trends that permeate through to popular culture.
@carlosidun
Carlos Idun-Tawiah is a Ghanaian photographer and filmmaker based in Accra, Ghana who centers African resurgence and preservation of the dynamic lives of Black people in his work. Inspired by Ghana’s rich history of archival and fashion photography, Carlos brings his life-long investment in art into documenting the ever-changing landscapes of Black life across the African continent and the Diaspora.
@josefadamu
Adamu pushes the conventions of photography within his work by experimenting heavily with color, landscapes, and texture. He is the Founder, Creative Director and Producer of ‘Sunday School’, a photographic agency that enables clients to express their projects through photography and moving image.
@lonijae305
Loni Johnson is a multi-disciplinary visual artist and arts educator from Miami, FL. Through movement and ritual, Johnson creates healing spaces for Black women and explores how ancestral and historical memory informs how, when and where we enter and claim spaces.  She leads an arts education + social justice program at the Perez Art Museum (PAMM).
@marryammomaart
A master commander of the craft blade, Tanzanian-Nigerian collage artist Marryam Moma chose to escape the rigidity of a formal architecture background in favor of building a creative practice that highlights the experiences of people like her. Marryam blends repurposed archival paper, mixed media, and rich paints to create multidimensional imagery.Â
@moreldoucet
Morel Doucet is a Miami-based multidisciplinary artist and arts educator that hails from Haiti. His work utilizes illustrations, ceramics, and prints to discuss the impact of climate-gentrification, migration, and displacement affecting Black diasporic communities. Through a contemporary reconfiguration of the Black experience, his work catalogs a powerful record of environmental decay at the intersection of economic inequity, the commodification of industry, personal labor, and race.
@ciaraellebryant
Ciara Elle Bryant is a multidisciplinary creative working and residing in Dallas, TX. Bryant uses photography, video and mixed media installations to discuss identity and culture and how it exists in the new millennium. Bryant also facilitates multiple artist workshops during the year for children and practicing artists.
@tierra_armstrong
Miami-based painter and muralist. Her paintings depict figures in sacred moments that transcend space and time. She uses religious iconography - colors as symbolism and light emanations - to articulate the divinity of Black bodies. Her work often explores the balanced duality of feminine and masculine energies irrespective of gender.Â
@kcletusart
Cletus Ngum is from Buea in the Southwest Region of Cameroon. His current Small Mami + Black Therapy series, he depicts confident, proud, hopeful, and triumphant young girls and women around him who have been treated unfairly, exploited, and systematically abused during the Anglophone Crisis, in hopes that it will create an atmosphere of love, hope, and dreams that inspire them and keep their spirits alive in the small world they finds themselves.
@crysart1983
Crystal Marshall is a contemporary fine artist painter who lives and works in Atlanta, Georgia. Originally from Kingston, Jamaica, her paintings pay homage to her life's experiences rooted in cultural disparities in the modern-day African diaspora. Her distinctive personal style emanates isolation, self reflection and expresses the spirit and atmosphere of the black consciousness in efforts to reconcile its relationship with true identity and image.
@lewinale
Lewinale Havette deals primarily with aspects of identity, including gender and power dynamics, race, religion, and sexuality, in her work. As a West African woman, she finds it crucial to reposition Black female bodies away from the lens of patriarchal capitalism and as human beings capable of tenderness, power, and strength in contrast to fear, powerlessness, and exploitation.
@ssac_art
Shanneil Clarke is a self-taught artist originally from Montego Bay, Jamaica. His practice is based in his introspection and application of mixed media techniques, incorporating natural motifs including floral and kente patterned fabric. Clarke’s bold brush strokes and vivid use of color reflect the character and strength of his subjects. Since moving to Atlanta in 2018, Shanniel has shown with various galleries including Mint Gallery, Hidden Gallery, and Future Dead Artist Gallery.
@kniaspora
Khadija Nia Adell is a multimedia artist, arts administrator, and independent curator born and raised in Miami, FL, based in Baltimore, MD. Adell graduated magna cum laude from Maryland Institute College of Art (15’) with a BFA in Interdisciplinary Sculpture and Art History. Adell creates work that investigates her connection as a queer black body to the African diaspora through a multifaceted practice--engaging collage, digital manipulation, fiber, printmaking, performance, sculpture, photography, and writing.
@daron_bandeira
Daron Bandeira is a Berlin based editorial, fashion & commercial photographer, working mainly in Europe and the Middle East. Born in Accra, Ghana, the duality of his West African identity informs his style, perspective and approach to narratives, mirrored in the way he captures his images. As a result, he uses images to challenge mainstream ideation of normality and culture, with an eye for finding beauty in people. In 2013, Daron founded Africa's premium creative lifestyle portal Afrobougee.
@BlackBeautyArchives
Camille Lawrence's work as an archivist focuses on the art history, innovations, and diversity of artistic expression across the African Diaspora. She is most interested in exploring and archiving identity formation throughout the African diaspora and culture through three foundational principles: Oral, Physical, and Ritual. Lawrence's background as an art historian, artist, and beauty practitioner informs her approach to archival work. Her projects include Black Beauty Archives and contributions to Urban Bush Women, BAM DanceAfrica and The Hemispheric Institute at NYU.
With the sudden death of Stephen Richards, his family is left in disarray at the return of his estranged daughter and son Nina and Simon. Much to the shock of Stephen’s second wife Claudia and their children, an unexpected turn of events places Nina as new head of the family empire, Flair & Glory. The scene is set for a messy showdown with both factions of the family vying for control.
