CHARLOTTE, N.C. — AT&T's Dream in Black program is putting a Charlotte artist on the main stage.
Through the program, Charlotte native, Georgie Nakima received an opportunity to highlight pieces from her career-spanning collection of original artwork for AT&T's Black Future Makers.
Nakima said the gravity of collaborating with AT&T as a Black Future Maker has been deeply humbling and empowering.
"As an artist, I've committed my career to championing and uplifting voices of the diaspora with colorful and restorative imagery," she said. "I'm incredibly grateful to AT&T for using its platform to continue bringing this work to light. It is an honor and dream to host this retrospective exhibit of my life’s work while celebrating the beauty and growth of our community and generation."
Nakima's work for the program can be seen live at AT&T Discovery District in Dallas, Texas. She said her project aims to honor 30 of AT&T's Black Future Makers.
"Right now I am working on over 30 portraits and these are people that AT&T are honoring as black future makers," Nakima explained.
As a Charlotte native, Nakima said she's proud to see how the city's arts community has grown over the years.
"I just feel super honored to be just kind of representing a city like this," she said. "I've just seen how the creative community has evolved over the decades, and it's just super awesome to be a part of it."
Nakima also expressed the necessity of preserving and advocating for Black art and culture in the mainstream.
"I think that there's a huge calling to have more diversity, share more diverse voices, specifically share Black voices," Nakima said. "I think it's powerful because so often our story is told in almost in martyrdom, and we're not actually being the ones to tell our narratives."
Nakima said, overall, she's proud her work has been recognized in such a major way.
"I've been very loud about my work being rooted in Afrofuturism until then, a story of triumph to the diaspora," she said. "I love that's been acknowledged in this way and I just want to continue to navigate and amplify who we are as a culture who are the people in just beyond skin and beyond language, who we are as people and what it means to take up space."
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