In 2018 the University of Florida created its moonshot initiatives to address society’s “most urgent problems while redefining the role of a land-grant university for the 21st century.” UF identified and included migration as one of the great challenges and opportunities.
The world is shifting quickly and, specifically in Florida, the population is growing rapidly and becoming more culturally diverse. A growing entrepreneurial immigrant population is sharing their music, dance, art, food, clothing, style, languages and folk traditions in ways that are changing and influencing culture more broadly. The College of the Arts responded to the challenge and societal shifts by creating a new center and a new model for cultural production, artistic practice, research and scholarship: the Center for Arts, Migration and Entrepreneurship (CAME).
CAME operates at the intersection of the creative economy, migrant identity and entrepreneurial leadership. To that end, CAME specifically intends to connect and nourish local, national, and international arts and cultural networks to boost the speed, durability, and effectiveness of cultural innovation and cultivate the relationship between artistic production and economic sustainability. CAME starts from a place that recognizes migration and its attendant cultural diasporas as locations of necessary innovation, resilience, and ingenuity by people in new contexts. These cultural forms that persist, remix, or emerge have historically been, are, and will continue to be sites of productive creativity and content that generate abundant tangible and intangible value. CAME will gather collaborators to facilitate the engines of creative and cultural economics at the heart of migration: artists, thinkers, scholars, makers, creators, entrepreneurs, leaders, investors, policy makers, and funders.”
CAME’s UF Partners include: Center for African Studies; Center for Gender, Sexualities, and Women’s Studies Research; Center for the Humanities in the Public Sphere; Center for Latin American Studies; Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering; College of Agricultural and Life Sciences and IFAS Extension; Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center of the Warrington College of Business ; and UF INNOVATE.
Under the guidance of inaugural center director Osubi Craig, this year CAME opened its vibrant suite in Yon Hall, laid the groundwork for local, regional and international networks, and initiated its first programs with Nigerian choreographer, performer and curator Qudus Onikeku as the center’s maker-in-residence. Last month in Lagos, Nigeria, Onikeku’s QDance Center and CAME produced a virtual danceGathering that has drawn overwhelming critical and popular response from the international dance community.
On April 24 over 70 faculty across UF participated in CAME’s informational session to learn more about the center, its programs and opportunities for networking and project funding. CAME now seeks scholars with related research, teaching, or service interests to become affiliate faculty and advance CAME’s objectives through scholarly projects. CAME invites UF faculty to apply for funding for individual ($1500) and group ($3500) projects or for cross-disciplinary working groups ($2500) that match CAME focus areas. The deadline for FY21 funding applications is May 15. The deadline for affiliate faculty applications is June 1.
For more information about applying for project funding or affiliate faculty status, please contact Osubi Craig at CAME@arts.ufl.edu.