Islandia Air is an annual artist-in-residence program designed to provide resources, materials, and connections to museums and galleries to early-career Miami-based artists whose work deals with Miami's connection to the Caribbean.
The first ever Islandia Air is Fola Akinde.
Fola Akinde is a Miami-based interdisciplinary artist focused on Black hauntology as it relates to memory, history, and conceptions of liberation. Their Nigerian cultural background has inspired an interest in archives and research related to the Black diaspora, including history and folklore related to Nigeria, the US, and Latin America.
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Fola’s work was featured in the Spring Undergraduate Exhibition at SAIC Galleries and was awarded an Ellie from Oolite Arts in 2022. Much of their work is focused on the importance of expanding the idea of what an archive is — its accessibility, and how that documentation can play a role in (re)assemblage of imagery and memory.
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Incorporating archival items like found imagery, objects, writings, and ephemera, Fola has reconfigured their own conceptions of narratives, mythology, and illuminate connections to sites and spiritual practices.
Fola's first creation for the Islandia Air is called Xaragua