Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture

This event is designed to bring people together over good wine and good conversations. Your ticket includes a specially curated wine tasting flight and light bites provided by La Charcuteria. Come to the Gantt ready to sip, ask questions, and yap. Wine is simple. Enjoy it that way. About Adarious Payton & Just Grapes Wine Club: Adarious Payton grew up in Oakland, CA, spent over a decade in Chicago, and now calls the Queen City home. His friends will tell you he has a knack for taking complicated things and making them simple, and wine is no exception. His career started in the adult beverage business at Molson Coors, and while beer paid the bills, wine stole his heart. He never looked back. Since then, he's trained with the Wine & Spirits Education Trust (WSET) through the Atlanta School of Wine and is still going. His wine knowledge comes from three places: the classroom, curiosity, and drinking a lot of wine. Somewhere along the way, he realized wine had way too many rules and far too many gatekeepers. So in 2024, he started Just Grapes Wine Club to change that. Wine & Yap is his baby: part wine lesson, part hangout, and all about building community.

THE CREATIVE ROOM VOL. II — THE ART OF CONNECTION You’re invited to an immersive evening where fashion, art, music, and creative minds come together. For Volume II, we’re transforming MODA into The Living Gallery — a space for fashion presentations, live performances, creative conversations, and meaningful connections. This volume features Palm Nocturne, bringing Archives in Motion, a curated fashion presentation exploring design, expression, and storytelling through archival pieces. Presented by AJOKÈ ADE CO, in collaboration with ANA MODELS, and hosted at MODA at the Harvey B. Gantt Center. Wednesday, November 4th | 6:00–8:30 PM Come experience the art. Meet the creatives. Be part of the connection.

Discover the artistic expression and cultural significance of textiles in Sown Together: New Voices in Contemporary Art. This 30-minute docent-led tour explores how artists use fabric, fiber, stitching, and weaving to tell stories, preserve Indigenous cultural traditions, and express identity and heritage. Through the exhibition, visitors will consider how textile-making practices connect generations, reflect the histories of families and communities, and transform everyday materials into meaningful works of art. In the spirit of gratitude, the tour invites reflection on the cultural traditions and creative legacies that continue to be shared across generations. This exhibition is presented in collaboration with McColl Center.

It's always a great time for Yoga on the Rooftop. Join us Sundays at 12:30 pm for Yoga with SJ. Sajeedah Jones will lead you through a creative vinyasa flow – a sequence of poses linked to your breath – featuring hands-on assists and upbeat music. Bring a mat or beach towel. The class is designed for students of all levels, all shapes, all sizes, and all ages and will leave you energized, inspired, and ready to take on your week. Enjoy the one-hour workout and mindfulness practice and then treat yourself to a self-guided tour of our galleries. Never tried yoga before? Check out the Ashtanga Fundamentals below! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehNvZ1tKRI0 Due to the popularity of this event, your spot may be released if you are more than 15 minutes late to the start of the session at 12:30PM. PARKING The Levine Center for the Arts Parking Garage - Parking for Levine Center for the Arts is located across the street from the Gantt. The entrance to the garage is at 101 W. Stonewall Street. Visitor parking is offered on levels P1 and P2. Click or tap here for more details on parking and directions. ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR Sajeedah Jones believes that yoga helps everyone live their best lives because it teaches students to focus on the task at hand. Jones is a practicing yogi for over 20 years and has taught yoga for eight of those years. She is the owner of Sajeedah Jones Yoga For Athletes and as a private instructor working with professional athletes for 14 years, she’s taught them how to prolong their careers and prevent injury through yoga. Her first book, Two Breaths: A Yoga for Athletes Guide for Athletes, Coaches, and Everyone In Between, was released in December 2023. ABOUT YOGA Practiced for more than 5000 years, yoga is a popular way to increase flexibility, gain strength, and reduce stress through a system of mental and physical practices which can include meditation, breathwork, lifestyle and behavior principles, and physical exercise. The physical practice of yoga is the most common form in the West today. The goal is to balance mind, body, and spirit through physical postures and body alignment; proper breathing techniques; and meditation or relaxation.

The provocatively titled Dirty Gertie from Harlem U.S.A. finds actor Spencer Williams indulging his roles as an entertainer and message-maker in this melodrama of “bad girl” Harlem performer Gertie LaRue (Francine Everett). LaRue arrives on the fictional Caribbean island of “Rinidad” to play upon men’s affections. Ultimately, Dirty Gertie’s manipulative ways catch up with her! She becomes the target of two crusading “Back to Africa” missionaries and, eventually, herself the target of a discarded former lover hellbent on violent revenge. 🚘 Tap/click here for directions and parking About The Classic Black Cinema Series Specifically designed as a vehicle to expose the community to the vast artistic value black film has had throughout the years, the goal of the film series is to appeal to as diverse a population as possible and further the appreciation of Black cinema. Curator and host, Felix Curtis, came to Charlotte from the Oakland/San Francisco Bay area where he curated The San Francisco Black Film Festival and Black Filmworks, the annual film festival component of the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, where he later served as Executive Director.

No early Friendsgiving plans? We got you! Join How Sanguine at the Gantt on November 11th, from 6–9 p.m., for an interactive rooftop evening where fashion, food, and live entertainment come together. This dinner party includes six courses of tastes from How Sanguine, each inviting you to savor, connect, and explore the evening through food. With the Charlotte skyline as our backdrop, we’re bringing creativity to the table and personal style into the spotlight. Join us right at 6pm for a spoken word performance by Mia Love Live, featuring Curt Keyz on piano. The suggested attire includes an elevated, earthy palette of forest green, olive, chocolate brown, camel, muted terracotta, and warm neutrals for a subtle fall-inspired theme. We encourage guests to interpret this creatively, allowing the evening to feel intentional, welcoming, and expressive with a cohesive earthtone theme. Come dressed to express yourself. You’re part of the experience. About How Sanguine: How Sanguine is an experiential marketing and food-first event production company. We specialize in creative immersive, monthly-changing food and wine experiences that celebrate life’s major milestones—from weddings and birthdays to bespoke brand launches. Operating out of our licensed facility at The City Kitch, we offer full-service catering and event production. Leveraging our founders’ backgrounds as digital influencers, we uniquely bridge the gap between culinary artistry and brand storytelling, creating highly shareable, real-world experiences that connect brands with their audiences. About Mia Love Live: Mia Love Live is a Charlotte native poet, writer, producer and performer whose work blends storytelling, music, and faith. Beginning as a poet, her voice has grown into powerful one-woman theatrical experiences that transform personal truth into shared moments of reflection and healing. She is the creator of "This Is My Brain on Anxiety: The Detailed Experience of an Anxious, Black Woman", "Sincerely Charlotte: A Love Letter to Old Charlotte", and "Good News: A Redemptive Work". Through Mia Love Live Productions, she brings stories to life with vulnerability, purpose, and spiritual depth. Mia is honored to share her poetic work at the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture, using storytelling as a tool for connection—creating space for people to come together, feel seen, and experience healing.

About the Program: Hosted as the third iteration of the Marley P. Carroll Symposium Series, Algorithmic Sovereignty: Jazz as Source Code operates as a critical bridge between the UNC Charlotte School of Architecture and the Harvey B. Gantt Center. This two-day interdisciplinary symposium convenes computational designers, spatial theorists, and musical avant-gardists to explore the relationship between cultural memory, artificial intelligence, and the power of communities to shape the technologies and environments that influence their lives. Building on Ruha Benjamin’s powerful insights into systemic bias, the symposium posits a radical reframing of Artificial Intelligence: moving away from the perception of AI as cold, extractive machinery, and instead treating it as an "ancestral repository" of human genius and cultural memory. By translating the complex polyrhythms and structural improvisation of jazz into a rigorous design lexicon, the event empowers designers and communities to transition from passive consumers of digital tools to active architects of their civic data and spatial futures. Day 1 (Cultural Innovation Summit) – The Harvey B. Gantt Center The summit centers the human experiences, cultural knowledge, and lived histories behind technological innovation. Programming features technical and musical workshops, followed by keynote presentations from David Brown (Professor, UIC; theorist on the "Available City") and Olalekan Jeyifous (Black Reconstruction Collective artist and speculative architect). A special keynote video presentation by 7-time Grammy-nominated jazz vocalist Nnenna Freelon grounds the evening in the architecture of survival and cultural memory, followed by a civic design panel featuring transformative architects Cathy Morrison, FAIA, and Malcolm Davis, AIA, and technologist Iyare Oronsaye. Day 2 (Academic Computation & Application) – UNC Charlotte, Storrs Salon Day 2 bridges cultural theory with rigorous academic computation. The day features deep-dive keynotes by transdisciplinary AI and spatial scholars Vernelle A. A. Noel (Carnegie Mellon University) and Ifeoma Ebo (Creative Urban Alchemy / City College of New York). The academic programming is enriched by an exhibition of sophomore architectural work from the Harmonic Rhythms studio, a live student vernacular jazz dance performance, and culminates in a closing interdisciplinary panel exploring the synthesis of physical movement, social entrepreneurship, and generative design. More details can be found here: https://campusevents.charlotte.edu/event/symposium-algorithmic-sovereignty-7638 About the Participants: David Brown, a Professor of Architecture in the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago, works on The Available City, the potential of Chicago’s 10,000+ city-owned vacant lots as a collective space system, an urban design, and a future we can have today. Iterations of the speculative design have been exhibited in the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale and the 2015 Chicago Architecture Biennial. Brown was the Artistic Director of the 2021 Chicago Architecture Biennial, which had The Available City as its focus and theme. His essays and drawings presenting the transformative impact The Available City can have on Chicago’s South and West Sides are found in CENTER 18: Music in Architecture—Architecture in Music, the Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies, volume 2, and Flat Out 4. Those essays continue his study of architecture and design in relation to structures in jazz that facilitate improvisation, which he initiated in the book Noise Orders (University of Minnesota Press, 2006). Ifeoma Ebo is a Brooklyn-based designer, urbanist, educator, and Principal of Creative Urban Alchemy, an award-winning design studio working at the intersection of art, architecture, urban design, and planning. Her practice centers spatial equity, cultural heritage, and community knowledge as essential forms of design intelligence. As Distinguished Lecturer for Design & Sustainability at the Spitzer School of Architecture at City College of New York and formerly holding Senior positions in New York City government, Ebo has led interdisciplinary projects that transform public spaces, housing environments, and civic infrastructure through community-centered design. Her work asks how cultural memory and lived experience can be translated into the physical and digital systems that shape our cities. Her practice and research explore placekeeping, Afrocentric design methodologies, climate and environmental justice, and the ways communities can become co-authors of the spaces and infrastructures they inhabit. Ebo is a United States Artists Fellow in Architecture & Design and has received recognition from the Architectural League, AIA, the Black Artists + Designers Guild, and the New York State Council on the Arts. Nnenna Freelon is a woman who intimately understands the intersection of architecture, memor

An invitation to print. TABLE OF CONTENTS is a five-session studio led by designer Ciara Bird El, exploring editorial layout and independent publishing through Adobe InDesign. Amid the flow of digital content, this studio returns to the printed page—giving physical form to images, words, and concepts so they may pass from hand to hand, carrying a record of a moment in time. Photography, collage, stories, essays, recorded conversations, video, and the spoken word can all become starting points. Through demonstrations, guided studio time, group discussion, and individual feedback, you’ll take your creative material from idea to layout and into print. SCHEDULE Wednesday, November 18, 2026: Concept & Content Wednesday, December 2, 2026: InDesign Foundations Wednesday, December 9, 2026: Editorial Design Wednesday, December 16, 2026: Critique & Revisions Wednesday, January 6, 2027: Prepress & Production WHAT YOU’LL CREATE An 8- or 16-page publication of your own, produced as an edition of 50 copies, along with a print-ready PDF. The Gantt will retain a selection of copies for the course showcase; the rest are yours to keep and share. WHAT YOU’LL EXPLORE • Developing a concept and organizing your creative material • Setting up a document in Adobe InDesign • Exploring sequence, rhythm, and nonlinear storytelling • Working with typography, images, and page layouts • Designing a cover and building visual consistency • Proofreading, prepress checks, and preparing files for print WHO IT’S FOR Artists, writers, poets, photographers, designers and makers interested in bringing their work onto the page. Basic familiarity with Adobe Creative Suite is recommended. Instruction will focus on Adobe InDesign. WHAT TO BRING/CURATE A selection of your existing creative material, preferably in digital form: artwork, photographs, illustrations, lyrics, poetry, prose, or transcripts. You’ll continue developing your publication between sessions. REGISTRATION $150 covers the complete five-session series and basic production fees. Optional production upgrades are available at an additional cost. Enrollment is limited. Please plan to attend all five sessions.

We will be hosting an in-gallery journaling experience inspired by one of our newest exhibitions, Cornerstones. Guests can enjoy a guided tour of the exhibitions followed by a journaling workshop led by Ashley Wright, founder of Strokes of Freedom. The workshop, titled “Built From the Ground Up: A Cornerstone Journal”, will prompt guests to choose a piece from the exhibition that resonates with them and then engage in discussion around what it means to be a cornerstone in their own community. Join us for an evening of art, mindfulness, & connection, surrounded by the work of Yoshua Klos. Journals & supplies will be provided. About Ashley Wright: Creator of Strokes of Freedom & The Journaling Circle, communities dedicated to helping individuals find clarity and healing through journaling and connection. With over 20 years of experience, Ashley’s workshops are crafted to encourage deep self-reflection and foster growth in a supportive and open environment. She uses her social work, life coach background, and vivacious personality to guide people to a victorious thought life by helping them quiet the noise from the outside. Ashley’s focus is on letting humans have their human experience while also challenging them to rewrite their story. She’s a possibility advocate - helping others decide and take action towards what else could be possible for their lives. She’s a lover of pizza (with pineapples), Tik Tok story times, people, suspense movies and community.

Sewn Stories: A Textile Memory Garden invites participants to explore memory, identity, ancestry, nature, and belonging through mixed-media textile art. Inspired by Sown Together: New Voices in Contemporary Textile Art, participants will transform reclaimed fabrics, fibers, and found objects into small three-dimensional gardens. Flowers, roots, leaves, and seeds become symbols for the people, places, experiences, and traditions that have helped shape us. No sewing experience is required—participants are encouraged to stitch, tie, wrap, layer, paint, or collage their stories into art. For directions and parking, click here.

Kick off the holiday season with an elevated evening of creativity, connection, and community as we design custom Ugly Christmas Sweaters, sip festive drinks, shop local vendors, and enjoy an unforgettable atmosphere. Whether you’re a beginner, intermediate, or advanced creator, this experience is open to both women and men. Bring your friends, meet new people, and enjoy a welcoming space where creativity and good vibes come together. Your $30 ticket includes: All basic sweater-making materials A guided creative experience Access to shop local vendors A festive, elevated holiday atmosphere First 20 guests will receive complimentary Sweater You’re also welcome to bring your own materials or clothing items that you’d like to upcycle or personalize during the event. A cash bar will be available, with drinks available for purchase starting at approximately $10. Dress Code: Shades of Red or Burgundy This event serves as our annual fundraiser for The JÜ-EL Effect, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing fashion, business, and creative resources to underserved communities. We are home of the Kids Fashion Camp Every ticket purchased , a portion supports programs that empower aspiring creatives and entrepreneurs. Stay connected with us by joining our email list to receive latest updates on our event : website www.thejueleffect.org Social media thejuel.effect Come create, connect, sip, shop, and celebrate with us as we kick off the holiday season in style. We can’t wait to see you there! Please note, this event is 18+. Doors open at 5:30pm. Discounted parking for visitors to the Gantt: The Levine Center for the Arts Parking Garage - Parking for Levine Center for the Arts is located across Tryon Street from the Gantt. The entrance to the garage is at 101 W. Brooklyn Village Avenue. When you arrive at the Gantt, please ask our Visitor Experience team for a discounted parking pass. When exiting the parking garage, use the pass to pay the discounted parking fee. There are also other parking garages and surface lots within short walking distances of The Gantt. Please adhere to their prices, terms and conditions.

Stitched Together: A Family Story Quilt Experience is a hands-on, intergenerational art workshop that invites families to explore storytelling through fabric, color, pattern, and symbolism. Inspired by the tradition of African American quilting, participants will learn how quilts can preserve memories, celebrate culture, and connect generations. Each family member will create a small fabric quilt square that represents a meaningful family memory, tradition, value, place, or symbol. Participants will explore elements of art such as color, shape, texture, pattern, and repetition as they design their individual pieces. At the end of the workshop, families will have the opportunity to place their quilt squares together to create a visual representation of their shared stories. The experience encourages creativity, family conversation, cultural appreciation, and connection through art. For directions and parking, click here.