Miami, FL – May 10, 2018 – RAW is a multi-sensory pop up of art, music and technology, redefining how art is experienced from May 11-13th at The Moore Building in partnership with the Miami Design District. Forget everything you’ve ever learned about art. Art is not meant to just be seen. Cultivating a symbiotic relationship with the Moore Building, RAW features site specific installations that highlight the human senses. Artworks at RAW activate our vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell, pressure, itch temperature, pain, thirst, hunger, direction, time, muscle tension, proprioception, equilibrioception, and the sixth sense (extrasensory perception). RAW will welcome 50+ local and international artists such as Yucef Merhi, Alba Triana, Eva Davidova, Anna Frants, and musicians Lipstick Gypsy, Salomón Beda, City of the Sun, and more. RAW aims to challenge, engage and awaken. Read our latest Q&A below about the team who makes RAW’s vision come to life at its newest pop up in Miami.

WRE: What is RAW’s essential purpose?

RAW: RAW is a multi-sensory pop up of art, music, and technology, redefining how art is experienced. RAW challenges you to become an active participant in creating culture. We disrupt existing visual boundaries found in the traditional art context and encourage you to dive into new and ephemeral experiences where you can allow yourself to taste, touch, feel, listen, and actively experience and influence art. RAW is brought to life by creators who transcend their boundaries. Every RAW pop up is in a new and exciting location. Each pop up cultivates a symbiotic relationship with the chosen space, featuring site specific installations that highlight the human senses as mediums that are inextricably interconnected. We welcome 50+ participating artists and 5,000+ attendees to each pop up. RAW creates an opportunity for dialogue amongst the city’s creatives and the community.

WRE: How long has RAW been around?

RAW: RAW Pop Up, formally known as Young Artist Initiative, was established in 2015 by our founder, George Dufournier. After the success of our first pop up during Art Basel 2017, we transformed into RAW. During Art Basel, we took over the 1914 Historic Post Office Building, as a disruptive local presence empowering artists during the most important week for the arts in Miami. This was the first and only art show to take place at the building.

WRE: Who is the RAW team? How did you meet and decide to work together?

RAW: RAW unfolds when – George Dufournier (Founder), Tam Gryn (Head Curator), Sharit B. Kassab (Head Architect), Yasmina L. Nasib (PR Director), Valentina Hernandez (Art Director), Mau Espinosa Tcherassi (Music Director), Anthony Hall (Music Supervisor), Julian Peñalver (Marketing Supervisor), Valentina Quijada (Media Director), and Nina Bergeret (Architect), Juan V. Marco (Super Intern) come together with one goal: to redefine how art is experienced. We are a very diverse team, hailing from different cultures, nationalities and backgrounds. We are a family held together by a city we call home and a mission to contribute to Miami’s cultural footprint. Our drive to pioneer a new experience in the arts and do good is what brings us together. We are constantly innovating to present art in a new and groundbreaking form to benefit a collective of global creators. We encourage interdisciplinary exploration and collaborations between artists, curators, architects and designers.

WRE: How is RAW redefining art?

RAW: We are creating a new movement in the 5th dimension, which is behavior – how the audience is allowed to interact and influence the art piece. Usually up to now, art work has been in 1 dimension, 2 dimensions, which is plane, 3rd dimension which is a sculpture, 4th dimension which is video, timebased. We are exploring the 5th dimension which is, interactivity and behavior…the audience’s input into culture. Tam, RAW’s Curator, feels that, “this makes it a more cohesive type of art project because everybody comes together as one, as a collective.” Sharit explains that, “art is seen as an individual thing. We try to integrate every art piece into one experience, tying it together through spatial design.” Since everything is site specific all the work that we do can inhabit every part of the space. We activate the bathrooms, the stairs and every corner of the building. When you are on the street looking in, you know something is happening and when you enter the space you are entering a guided experience. For this upcoming pop up, Sharit is creating a room on the third floor that contradicts everything that we know about art which is to not touch. The entire room is a white canvas, inviting people to add ink to their fingers and leave their mark.

WRE: How does RAW discover new artists?

RAW: Our research is atypical using both online and offline resources. A combination of studio visits, shows, online research (local publications, social media), and artist submissions. Tam explains that, “in order to be selected to participate, an artist needs to create RAW, honest, relevant work to our time and context in history. We are currently exploring a new frontier in art. A new interactive movement, between the audience and the artworks. The artist needs to let go of the control of their creation and open to the possibilities of audience influence in culture.” Miami possesses a very interdisciplinary pool of emerging talent that is currently molding the city’s development and growth, both culturally and functionally. We want to meet each and every one of them (you)! In addition, we invite guest artists – about 20% of our RAW participants who are from all over the world. Most of them have never even been here before. They discover Miami-based creators and interact with each other, creating a fruitful dialogue.

WRE: What does RAW consider when featuring an artist at an event?

RAW: RAW provides a place for everyone, from artists, designers, DJ’s, architects, dancers, musicians, scientists and more. As opposed to having artists compete for recognition, RAW encourages artists to cooperate as a collective. We seek to constantly push our curatorial standards to further challenge and empower our artists. Participants are required to submit a proposal for their projected activation or performance. The selected artists are the ones that create artwork about what keeps them up at night. We want honest, RAW artwork. We look for interdisciplinary artists that are the voices our generation and that are ahead of the curve conceptually and artistically. They need to be amazing at teamwork and willing to get their hands dirty.

WRE: After the Moore Building, what’s next for Raw? What is the vision for RAW in 10 years?

RAW: We are looking for the next architectural landmark to activate during Art Basel. We are the local disruptive presence changing the course of international art history. The vision for the next 10 years is a philosophy, a movement and a new way of experiencing art. Our vision is to work with an interdisciplinary pool of creatives from various backgrounds, all over the world to ignite the creator in all of us.

Our vision is to work with an interdisciplinary pool of creatives from various backgrounds, all over the world to ignite the creator in all of us.

The RAW Team