In 2013, Solange Knowles launched Saint Heron, a digital platform highlighting the best in Black music, film and art. This year, the brand is being reintroduced and has a number of culturally impactful projects coming.
Though its work as a multidisciplinary platform, studio and creative agency, Saint Heron will focus on sharing the stories of our communities’ key voices. It will also make space for groundbreaking conversations, while serving as a home for conceptual art, architecture, design, fashion and literature.
“Saint Heron’s vision to build and structure new worlds that connect and strengthen our identities through expression, is the foundation of its work,” Knowles said exclusively to ESSENCE. “We are intentional about how we empower authenticity, and that begins from our center. I am so honored to have this incredible team of women by my side, and in leadership through their dedication to creating this legacy that will persist through time.”
The executive leadership team for the revitalized venture includes: Solange Knowles (Founder, Creative Director, Art Director, Designer) Carolyn “CC” Concepcion (Executive Management), Motisola Zulu (Attorney), Sablā Stays (Art Director and Graphic Designer) and Shantel Pass (Editorial Manager).
Additionally, Saint Heron is looking forward to debuting a literary and visual dossier on family and artists’ lineages. The first is a breakdown of the story of Saint Heron from Knowles herself. “We look forward to furthering the pursuit of preserving and uplifting our community’s stories, collections, archives, and works through new expressions of creation,” she added. “In my mission to create vessels to leave behind for future generations, all projects are bricks Saint Heron adds to history’s foundation for tomorrow’s imagined heights.”
The dossier mentioned earlier will intermittently be updated to included literary exhibitions that speak to the power of heritage, homecomings, reclamation of self and journeying. Upcoming explorations will feature the award-winning poet Barbara Chase-Riboud in conversation with Ilyasah Shabazz, a talk between Shala Monroque and artist Cassi Namoda and more.
Saint Heron is dedicated to the preservation of lineage through archives, so the dossier will be the first of many projects to do so. Galleries, an artist-in-residency programme, a non-profit library granting access to Saint Heron‘s previous works, unique brand collaborations, art film releases, music projects, home and fashionable collectibles are just a sample of what the expansive creative nucleus has in store.
Visit Saint Heron‘s site to see Knowles’ first entry in the dossier.