Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego

Executive Producer: Willa M.; Producer: Imani Camara, Lena Shareef; Writer: Willa M.; Photographer: TIKA; Graphic Design: Hailey Honegger; Editor: Lena Shareef; PA: Melissa Zuazo

To complement the final month of Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys on view at MCASD, we're launching "Giants of San Diego," an educational and community-oriented digital series that celebrates and highlights the Black and Brown artist community of our region! 

We kick off this series by first speaking with Gaidi Finnie & Carolyn Smith of the San Diego African American Museum of Fine Art about the evolution of San Diego's Black creative community. Next, we zoom into La Jolla’s roots as a POC community through Hometown Heroes artist Chata’s family history. 

With that context, we then went into the community and met with five SD "giants"—Manuelita Brown, Maxx Moses, Chris Tucker, Misty Hawkins, and Stephen Williams—to hear firsthand about their work and how their creative practice has thrived in a city like San Diego.  

Follow along the series here, as well as on our social media accounts!

PART 1: What brought us here

PART 2: To be a giant

PART 3: The sky is not the limit

Gaidi Finnie & Carolyn Smith of the San Diego African American Museum of Fine Art (SDAAMFA)

Our conversation with Gaidi Finnie and Carolyn Smith touches upon how SDAAMFA operates as a museum without walls and their efforts as the managing entity of The Black Arts and Culture District in Encanto, San Diego. They also share with us their thoughts on why collecting works by Black and Brown artists is so valuable. 

Chata

Chata, an artist featured in Hometown Heroes, tells us about her family’s roots in La Jolla, uncovering a broader history of La Jolla’s rich (but mostly unknown) history as a POC neighborhood.