PUMA.Creative Partners with 2010 Global Caribbean Symposium

Miami, U.S.A., March 2010 – The Sportlifestyle company PUMA, through it’s puma.creative program and it’s Creative Caribbean Network (CCN) initiative, is pleased to announce a partnership with the University of Miami’s Caribbean Literary and Cultural Studies Program and the Little Haiti Cutural Center supporting the 2010 Symposium entitled “Global Caribbean: Interrogating the Politics of Location in Literature and Culture” to be held in Miami, U.S.A. from March 4-6, 2010. The Symposium brings together artists, writers, curators and academics to participate in a three-day dialogue discussing issues surrounding political, social and cultural locations in the Caribbean and diaspora.

As a major sponsor, puma.creative and the Creative Caribbean Network (www.CreativeCaribbeanNetwork.com), understands the importance of supporting a collective Caribbean dialogue. puma.creative has offered financial and logistical support, PR and marketing expertise and also created and donated Global Caribbean-branded merchanize for all guests attending the symposium. In addition puma.creative Mobility Awards were given to three art professionals who are featured as keynote speakers during the program:

Nicole Awai; Multimedia; (born Trinidad) lives New York, U.S.A.
Joscelyn Gardner; Installation and Printmaking; (born Barbados) lives Ontario, Canada
Roshini Kempadoo; New Media and Photography, Critic and Lecturer; (born U.K.) lives London, U.K.

Mark Coetzee, PUMAVision Program Director and puma.creative Chief Curator explains “puma.creative aims to bring together individual artists and organizations, and provide them with a platform for creative exchange and international exposure. We are honored to partner with the the University of Miami’s Caribbean Literary and Cultural Studies Program and the Little Haiti Cutural Center to demonstrate our long term commitment to the development of sports and art from the Caribbean.”

As a puma.creative initiative, the Creative Caribbean Network is a social networking site providing artists, curators and art professionals in the region and the diaspora a platform to create profiles to show their work, cross communication boundaries and share ideas with other professionals within, and interested in, the Caribbean. As part of this initiative puma.creative launched a Mobility Award program providing it’s members the opportunity to travel to, and participate in, important cultural events across the globe. This site is the second social networking site following the major success of www.CreativeAfricaNetwork.com launched by puma.creative in April 2009. In the last 2 years puma.creative has allocated over 230 puma.creative Mobility Awards.

The first puma.creative project was the support of the 30 Americans exhibition at the Rubell Family Collection in Miami, Florida, during Art Basel Miami Beach 2008—a groundbreaking exhibition featuring a cohesive collection of 31 contemporary African American artist’s work. This was followed by the sponsorship of Hussein Chalayan’s retrospective at the Design Museum in London, the Central Saint Martins graduate fashion shows and subsequent auction benefiting the PUMA Central Saint Martins Bursary Award, as well as partnerships with the 8th Bamako Encounters Biennale awarding 30 puma.creative Mobility Awards to participating artists’, and the 3rd Arts In Marrakech International Biennale, including sponsorship of the Isaac Julien exhibition WESTERN UNION:small boats at the Opera house in Marrakech, Morocco. As part of our commitment to a more creative world, PUMA will continue to support artists, art projects, and exhibitions globally through puma.creative.

PUMAVision looks ahead to a world that is safer, more peaceful and more creative for the generations to come. Through the programs of puma.safe (focusing on environmental and social issues), puma.peace (supporting global peace), and puma.creative (supporting artists and creative organizations), we are providing real and practical expressions of this vision.

Media Contact: Claire Breukel, PUMAVision Coordinator and puma.creative Curator, +44 784 145 2285, claire.breukel@puma.com