Book Launch, Conversation, and Presentation: the odyssey of Byron Booth as told to william cordova: with Aldeide Delgado, Terri Francis and william cordova
Book launch and Conversation: March 15, 2025, 5–7pm
Presentation on view through: April 5, 2025
Free and open to the public.
Join us Saturday March 15, 2025 for the launch of the odyssey of Byron Booth as told to william cordova. Accompanying the release, cordova will be in conversation with independent Latinx art historian and curator, Aldeide Delgado and UM Associate Professor of Cinematic Art, Dr. Terri Francis. The conversation will begin at 6pm. Pre-order a copy of the book here.
Coinciding with the launch, a presentation of historical ephemera and the research included in the book will be on view at [NAME] through April 5, 2025. More than 15 years’ of materials archived by cordova will be presented, including vintage photos, LPs, documents, books, posters, and underground newspapers.
the odyssey of Byron Booth traces the events and conflicts of Booth’s life—reuniting with exiled author and Black Panther Party leader Eldridge Cleaver in Havana, joining in the revolutionary fervor of post-independence Algiers and the early moments of what would become the International Section of the Panther Party, touring Communist countries, meeting with Yasser Arafat of the Palestine Liberation Organization, befriending the King of Afrobeat Fela Kuti while also serving as a federal police officer in Nigeria—through Booth’s own words alongside transcripts of recently discovered audio diaries he made in Cuba and Algeria during his time as a Panther, rare archival materials, and historical context.
—Parking available in rear lot or along the front of the building—
william cordova was born in Lima, Peru and lives and works in Miami, FL and New York, NY. cordova received a MFA from Yale University and a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. cordova’s practice has been motivated by a creative engagement in architecture, geometry and history. These are essential components in cordova’s life and have shaped his world view. He is an interdisciplinary cultural practitioner interested in the roots of abstraction, history of textile encoding and non-linear narratives. cordova illuminates the synthesis of memory, ritual and mythology to further disrupt, challenge and reassess definitions of our collective landscape. His site-specific installation work is both expansive and intimate. Intersecting the economy of materials with ephemeral and spatial rhythms. Juxtaposing social political theories with Third Cinema strategies that frame the unframed thus manifesting subversive visual aesthetics. cordova’s fellowships and residencies include; Studio Museum in Harlem, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Headlands, Skowhegan, Project Row Houses, The American Academy in Berlin, Germany among others.
Aldeide Delgado is a Cuban-born, Miami-based art historian and curator, founder and director of Women Photographers International Archive (WOPHA). She is a recipient of the Ellies Creator Award (2023), Knight Arts Challenge award (2019), the School of Art Criticism Fellowship by SAPS La Tallera (2018), and the Research and Production of Critic Essay Fellowship by TEOR/éTica (2017). She is the author of Becoming Sisters: Women Photography Collectives & Organizations (2021). Prior to founding WOPHA, Delgado created the online feminist archive Catalog of Cuban Women Photographers. She is an active member of institutional advisory boards and committees at Pérez Art Museum Miami, the Lucie Foundation, the Feminist Art Coalition and Fast Forward: Women in Photography.
Terri Francis is associate professor in the School of Communication at the University of Miami and the author of Josephine Baker’s
the odyssey of Byron Booth was made possible with the support of an Ellies Creator Award. Programs at [NAME] are made possible with the support of Teiger Foundation and The Jorge M. Pérez Family Foundation at The Miami Foundation.
