6:00 PM – “The Vasari Project and the Artist as Archive”
Presenters: Barbara N. Young, art librarian, curator, and consultant & Stephanie Marie Garcia, Head of Special Collections & Archives, Miami-Dade Public Library System.
This presentation focuses on the Vasari Project, a living archive housed at the Main Library of the Miami-Dade Public Library System, which documents the lives and practices of South Florida arts from 1945 to the present. In the context of our current exhibition, A Matter of Time; Examining Forty Years of AIDS While Living Through a Pandemic, the speakers will explore Miami artists and their intersection with the critical years of AIDS alongside the challenges of preserving history, acknowledging absent moments, and the vital need to remember the past.
Barbara N. Young has a BA in art history from Florida State University and an MLS from Drexel University. She is an art librarian and curator. She initiated Artmobile service for the Miami-Dade Public Library System and co-founded the library’s Vasari Project with Helen L. Kohen. As the library’s Art Services Supervisor and now an independent curator, she has worked with artists and collections throughout Florida and other places. An exhibition that she is very proud of is Touched by Aids curated with Margarita Cano and Helen L. Kohen in 1998.
Stephanie Marie Garcia is the Head of Special Collections & Archives for the Miami-Dade Public Library System, including the Helen Muir Florida Collection, 16mm Film Collection, and the Vasari Project. How archives and libraries can help produce better connections among underrepresented communities of all ages is valuable in her work practice. In 2016, she was awarded the American Research Library’s Career Enhancement Fellowship program and completed her fellowship with the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University. Her present focus aims to refine and evolve the MDPLS Special Collections & Archives division in collections management, cultural material preservation, and archives assessment.
