Art Festival Returns for Black History Month

Musician and visual artist Don Christian Jones will be one of the performers at Black Artstory Month. (Photo courtesy Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership.)

Celebrate Black History Month and enjoy some local art with Black Artstory on Myrtle Avenue this February.

Last year, the Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership hosted the first Black Artstory Month to showcase the art community in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill. Held in honor of Black History Month, Black Artstory featured free exhibitions of community artists, performances and film-screenings in businesses and galleries along Myrtle Avenue. The festival was so popular with locals that it’s back again for 2014, and it’s even bigger. The 2014 installment, titled “Native Sons and Daughters: Locals, Im(migrants), Expats and Prodigals,” is expanding to include more performance art, spoken word and storytelling events.

Reflecting Fort Greene’s long history in the arts, Native Sons and Daughters takes its name from Richard Wright’s classic novel, “Native Son,” much of which he wrote in Fort Greene Park during the summer of 1938.

This year, the festival will focus on stories of migration and the search for identity. Daonne Huff, who is curating the Black Artstory again this year, said that while the emphasis will be on the African American experience and history of migration, she also made a particular effort to reach out to artists from a variety of backgrounds.

“We all have migration stories, and how that’s shaped who we become,” Huff said. “There’s a universality to it.”

Starting Feb. 1 with a free evening reception at The Emerson, Black Artstory will feature exhibitions from 20 visual artists in ten businesses on Myrtle Avenue all month long. Be sure to check out these other free events, locals!

For a full list of events and performances, visit the Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership website.